On Monday, Cr Shields announced he would be leaving council on Thursday to focus on his health. It came just days after council decided to bring in former director Murray Wood to be the interim general manager for 12 months.

But Cr Gumley said the investigation into council would continue as planned.

"Now that Ben has resigned nothing will really change in relation to the independent investigation and the code of conduct investigations," he said.

"Obviously there have been allegations but it's bigger than just one person. There's suggestion that there was some systemic problem within the organisation and that doesn't disappear just because the mayor has now resigned.

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"If there's a suggestion that occurred then it certainly ought to be investigated."

Cr Gumley said it was important for the community to have confidence in the council.

Last month Dubbo councillors unanimously agreed to hire an independent investigator.

The investigator will be appointed by Local Government NSW.

According to the recommendation passed by council, the investigator will audit past code of conduct complaints over the term of council to ascertain that the processes that were adopted complied with the relevant code of conduct processes.

The recommendation also called for the investigator to "interview all councillors, all directors and other staff and community members as they see fit" before reporting back to council in July to determine whether council has been "compliant with its legal and regulatory obligations and to report on any systemic issues arising from the investigations".

Cr Gumley said the results of his investigation would determine if he still stood with Cr Shields.

"I've tried my best to make it clear that my position has always been that I'll wait for an investigation and I'll form an opinion on whether I support the mayor or not based on the outcome of that investigation," he said.

"It wasn't as simple as this undying loyalty to this particular person, it was more having respect for the process and waiting for the outcome before I cast my judgement."

In addition to the independent investigator, council has also referred at least 10 recent code of conduct complaints to O'Connor Marsden and Associates for investigation.

Council is spending about $75,000 to look into the code of conduct complaints. The code of the independent investigator is still being determined.

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