In England, local authorities are responsible for councillor standards and conduct. They must maintain a code of conduct and a register of disclosable pecuniary interests, and deal with allegations of breaches in the code and failure to register pecuniary interests. This system was introduced by the Localism Act 2011. Between 2000 and 2012, an England-wide code of conduct was maintained, and breaches investigated, by Standards for England (formerly the Standards Board).
Local government standards are devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, each of which have a single standards regime managed by an organisation at the devolved level. The bulk of this note addresses the regime in England, with some further links to information regarding the devolved territories.