A BOURNEMOUTH councillor has come under fire for allegedly bullying staff.

Three complaints have been made against Cllr Nick Rose by members of the borough’s communications team, claiming he breached the Code of Conduct when he responded to a circular by calling their work “trivial”.

However Cllr Rose has said he was “within my rights” to share his opinion and to “scrutinise the actions of the officers and the executive”.

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He told the Echo: “From my experience and that of other councillors I have spoken to there is a culture of bullying and intimidation from officers against councillors just trying to do their job of ensuring the public gets value for money for the services they want.

“It is laughable that these formal complaints have been thrown at me to try to shut me up, yet when I defend myself it all goes quiet and they don’t want to engage.

"There is an outstanding complaint against me from 18 months ago because as soon as I got a barrister they withdrew, more evidence this is just an attempt to intimidate me.”

Cllr Rose was responding to an email to councillors and press officers in February this year by managing director Jane Portman, which praised the media team’s response that month to accusations that the borough was persecuting homeless people.

The council came under heavy criticism on social media, particularly for the installation of bars on benches which prevented rough sleepers lying on them.

Ms Portman said: “Whilst we have pushed back in social media all week, we have not been able to stem the overwhelming tide of negative publicity.

“I am sure you will join me in thanking our communications team very much for their work and all efforts to manage this intense media interest.”

But in a reply-all message, Cllr Rose said that by countering social media critics the borough was "providing them with more oxygen for their cause and more ammunition".

"To be frank, in my informed opinion, the corporate communications team will have made matters worse," he said.

Cllr Rose said the borough should have issued a single press release in response to the accusations, and he "questioned the effectiveness" of "our eye-wateringly expensive" communications team.

"Such responses wouldn't have happened if we had a single 'press and publicity' manager with an assistant, as they wouldn't have time to waste on such trivial responses."

In another widely circulated response, Ms Portman said: "Having worked in local government for over 30 years I can confidently state that I have never before received an email like yours from an elected member of the council for which I work.

"It is very upsetting for officers to receive such direct criticism of their work by an elected member.

"It is humiliating to be directly criticised so publicly."

One of the complaints, seen by the Echo, says: "The issue of homelessness to which [Cllr Rose] refers has been a very challenging matter for communications to counter over the last two to three weeks during which the team, including the two communications team members copied in, have worked tirelessly above and beyond the call of duty to serve the council.

"This has included long days, out of hours working and personal lives and commitments being put on hold all in the name of officers wanting to do all they could to protect the reputation of the council."

It says Cllr Rose's "belittling" comment is "disrespectful, humiliating in front of such a large audience and very upsetting".

Also, it said his suggestion that the team be reduced to two employees was "tantamount to intimidating behaviour".

It is not the first time Cllr Rose has got in trouble for criticising the borough's communications policy.

In April, he was censured by the Tory group for abstaining on the budget vote in protest against spending on internal and press communications, which stood at £365,000 last year.

Then, he said "it makes my blood boil that the council is wasting so much money on self-publicity when we have to provide essential services for our residents".