Integri provides governance infrastructure designed to support Monitoring Officers, Democratic Services teams, Standards Committees, and elected members through structured onboarding, governance awareness, auditability, and compliance support.
The governance obligations placed on Monitoring Officers have grown considerably in recent years. Social media has expanded the publicly accessible conduct record of every candidate and elected official. The volume and complexity of standards complaints has increased. Newly elected cohorts arrive with limited governance awareness at precisely the moment when their conduct risk is highest. And the mandatory standards reform confirmed in November 2025 — a national code of conduct, mandatory standards committees at all principal authorities, and new suspension powers — increases the institutional consequence of governance failures across every tier of local government.
Monitoring Officers cannot do everything. The question is where structured, documented external support makes the most difference.
Standards complaints have increased in volume and complexity across England. One authority alone recorded 257 complaints in 14 months. Monitoring Officers are absorbing this workload against a backdrop of stretched council resources.
A candidate's publicly accessible digital footprint now stretches back fifteen years and is permanently indexed. Content published years before election becomes the subject of standards complaints the day after polling. Pre-selection review at the required depth is beyond the practical reach of most internal governance functions.
The period immediately following an election is the highest-risk governance moment for newly elected officials. New councillors face immediate standards obligations without necessarily having received structured guidance on what those obligations require in practice.
The UK Government's confirmed standards reform programme introduces a mandatory national code of conduct for all approximately 120,000 councillors in England, mandatory standards committees, and new suspension powers — increasing the governance-risk consequence of inadequate pre-selection due diligence.
Major parties deploying hundreds or thousands of candidates at a single election cycle cannot manually review each candidate's publicly accessible digital footprint at the depth required. The governance gap between what is available and what is actually reviewed is widening.
Monitoring Officers and Standards Committees are increasingly assessed on the quality of their authority's governance regime. A documented, auditable pre-selection due diligence process is a concrete demonstration of proactive governance — and evidence that the infrastructure existed and was used.
Integri does not replace Monitoring Officers, Democratic Services teams, or Standards Committees. It provides the operational layer those functions currently lack — structured, documented, auditable, and consistent across candidate cohorts and elected member groups.
Integri Induct provides newly elected councillors and MPs with structured governance onboarding covering the LGA Model Code, declaration obligations, social media risk, committee conflict management, and Sustain configuration — delivered through an eight-section programme. Every councillor completing Induct arrives with a documented orientation record, reducing the Monitoring Officer's individual onboarding burden.
Integri Verify is an in-depth social media and online risk assessment conducted as part of structured governance and compliance due diligence prior to selection or appointment. Every assessment is reviewed against the Nolan Principles, the LGA Model Code of Conduct, and the Equality Act 2010. Structured pre-selection review reduces the number of avoidable standards complaints that reach the Monitoring Officer's desk — the highest-impact single intervention available before polling day.
Every Verify report is anchored to a specific framework reference, reviewed against a ten-point quality assurance checklist, and authorised by a human assessor before issue. Where a candidate has been assessed, the commissioning party has a documented record of due diligence. Where a CONCERN finding was identified and the party proceeded, the audit trail demonstrates that the governance infrastructure existed and was used — protecting the authority's governance record.
Integri Sustain provides AI-assisted pre-publication social media screening, pseudonymised audit trails, and sensitivity tiers for elected officials on a subscription basis. It gives newly elected councillors a structured compliance framework from day one — reducing conduct risk in the highest-risk post-election period and supporting the Monitoring Officer's ongoing governance oversight role.
Integri reduces the number of avoidable standards complaints that reach the Monitoring Officer's desk, provides a documented audit trail that protects the authority's governance record, and delivers structured onboarding support that reduces the Monitoring Officer's post-election workload — at no cost to the authority.
The most important thing for Monitoring Officers to understand is what Integri does not do. These distinctions matter.
The May 2026 local elections produced a significant wave of newly elected councillors whose publicly accessible digital records had not been subject to structured pre-selection review. Since one major party began winning council seats at scale, a comprehensive independent tracker has recorded nearly 100 councillors kicked out, suspended, resigned, or defected — including more than twenty in the two weeks immediately following the May 2026 elections alone.
The documented cases include: candidates with criminal convictions on public record; candidates who had published content denying or minimising the Holocaust on social media; candidates who had shared extremist imagery; candidates whose online forum posts contained misogynistic, discriminatory, or otherwise offensive content; and candidates whose social media accounts were deleted between selection and election.
In each case, the information was publicly accessible before polling day. In each case, no structured pre-selection assessment had identified it. The mandatory standards reform now in progress will increase the governance-risk consequence of each such failure at every authority where these individuals are elected.
The governance case for structured pre-selection due diligence is not theoretical. It is documented, recurring, and accelerating.
Individual Verify commissions and Induct programmes will often fall within standard discretionary spending authority, subject to local procurement requirements. The following use cases illustrate how the service supports Monitoring Officers and Democratic Services teams in practice.
A Monitoring Officer commissions Integri Induct for all newly elected councillors following a local election. Each councillor receives structured governance onboarding, and the Monitoring Officer receives confirmation of completion — providing a documented record of governance orientation at the start of the new term.
A Standards Committee Chair commissions a Verify assessment of incoming candidates at the request of the authority. Pre-selection review reduces the likelihood of conduct failures in the new cohort and provides the authority with an auditable record of proactive governance management.
A Democratic Services team uses Induct and Sustain to establish a consistent governance baseline across all councillors — regardless of party — in the months following a significant election. The aggregated metadata available through Sustain gives the Standards Committee visibility of governance engagement without accessing individual content.
A Democratic Services Officer uses Induct as a structured supplement to the authority's existing member development programme — providing documented governance orientation for newly elected members and an ongoing compliance platform through Sustain for the duration of their term.
Every Integri assessment is anchored to the governance frameworks that define Monitoring Officers' professional responsibilities.
Selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership — the seven principles that underpin all Integri risk classifications.
Every Verify finding is anchored to a specific provision of the LGA Model Code. Findings without a framework reference are not included in the report.
Protected characteristics — including race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and disability — are explicitly addressed in the Integri risk pattern library.
Every report is produced to a documented methodology, reviewed against a ten-point QA checklist, and authorised by a human assessor. The process is auditable end to end.
Findings are classified by severity — HIGH, MEDIUM, or LOW — with recency weighting applied. Historical content is assessed proportionately against its relevance to current governance obligations.
All Integri outputs are advisory risk assessments only. No output constitutes a finding of misconduct, a legal determination, or a recommendation for or against any selection or disciplinary decision.
Integri understands the professional landscape within which Monitoring Officers, Democratic Services Officers, and Standards Committee members operate. The relevant professional bodies — the Lawyers in Local Government (LLG), the Association of Democratic Services Officers (ADSO), and the Local Government Association (LGA) — define the standards, the training, and the professional development framework that governs local government governance practice.
Integri is designed to work within that framework, not outside it. The methodology references the LGA Model Code directly. The advisory limitation is explicit and consistent. The party-neutral positioning ensures that Integri's involvement in any authority's governance regime does not create political complications for the Monitoring Officer or Democratic Services function.
Monitoring Officers cannot be seen to favour any political party. Integri's party-neutral architecture — the same methodology, the same pricing, the same legal framework, applied consistently regardless of the commissioning party's political position — means that Monitoring Officers can recommend or facilitate the use of Integri's services across all party groups on their authority without any appearance of political preference.
If you would like to discuss how Integri may support governance infrastructure within your authority, we would welcome a conversation. There is no sales process — simply a discussion about the governance challenges you are facing and whether Integri's services are relevant to your situation.
Get in touchAll Integri outputs are advisory risk assessments only. No Integri report, screening result, or platform output constitutes legal advice, a finding of fact, a compliance certification, a finding of misconduct, or a recommendation for or against any selection, appointment, or disciplinary decision. Integri does not replace the Monitoring Officer or any other governance function within a local authority. Clients retain sole responsibility for all governance, publication, and conduct decisions.