Standards Advisory Committee - Wednesday 3 December 2025, 6:30pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

Standards Advisory Committee
Wednesday, 3rd December 2025 at 6:30pm 

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Forums

Speakers

Votes

 

Welcome to our Webcast Player.

The webcast should start automatically for you. 

Webcast cameras are not operated by camerapersons; they are automated and linked to speaker microphone units. The aim is to provide viewers with a reasonable visual and audio record of proceedings of meetings held in public.

Note: If your webcast link appears not to be working, please return to the Webcast Home Page and try again, or use the help email address to contact us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share this agenda point
  1. Webcast Finished

Thank you for attending.
Yes, thank you.
Three co -opted members, three elected members, some good attendance.
Let's start with apologies for absence.
Chair, apologies of absence were received from Councillor Shubhi Hussain, Elizabeth Marshall and Councillor Abu Talar Chaudhry.
Councillor Sabina Akhtar is substituting for Councillor Chaudhry.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Declarations of interest, anybody?
No declarations of interest.
Minutes of the previous meeting.
We've got two sets here.
Do we agree that there are two incorrect records and I can sign them?
Yes.
Ah, Fiona.
Yes.
In the July minutes it says we approve the July minutes.
So I just in paragraph four thought that date needed to be corrected to the earlier date.
Well spotted.
With that we'll move on to item 3 .1 Register of Interest, Gibson Hospitality.
So apologies from Trish, she's on leave, so you got me, I'm afraid.
So this is the gifts and hospitalities for the quarter.
And she's left me quite an easy one to report, it's a nil return, so we haven't had any declarations
of gifts or hospitality for this quarter, I say quarter, since the last meeting.
And there's a little bit of detail in there about in the summer we were chasing up register of interest declarations
We do that every six months to make sure everyone has kind of updated
and
The report confirms we did get all of those back in the end. I
Think that's probably all I need to say but chair. I'm happy to take any comments
Well, I think that's right that's all we need to say I'm looking around and
Nobody has any comment, so thank you.
And let's move to 3 .2, which I assume is Joel.
Thanks, good evening, Chair.
Yeah, so I'll be giving you a brief verbal update.
Oh, I'm sorry, a brief update,
and there is a report this time
on the Continuously Improvement Plan,
specifically the work to improve our political culture.
When I was here last in September,
I updated you on the workshops, the co -design workshops that we'd held with our members
where we were seeking to design a political behaviour compact and I told you at the time that we had basically
effectively had the raw data for that compact. We'd had the workshops and that we were expecting the full
compact soon. So I'm now pleased to present that which
So it's the member compact.
The members like the term member pledge,
and that's appendix one,
and we welcome the advisory committee's reflections,
comments on that draught pledge,
and hope you agree that it provides positive
and clear commitment to new political values and behaviours.
They're well defined, and hopefully they're meaningful
in the local context, in the context of Tower Hamlets.
Each pledge, so the structure of the pledge
is there's a sort of vision, ambition statement,
and then there are six themes or domains.
And each domain includes itself an ambition statement,
includes a list of behaviours to show how that ambition
will be realised in practise,
the actions required to realise it,
and some bellwether measures.
Those are some sort of early warning signals
when things are going well or not going so well.
I mentioned in September update,
in my September update I mentioned
there was a bit of difficulty finalising
one of those domains, the last one,
which is the civility and public debate.
And as is explained in the report,
there's a proposal to replace that theme,
that domain, with some additional material
that the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny have supplied.
It looks really good, I'm hoping that
we can ask members directly if they're content
with that change, but it'd be good if the advisory committee
were able to endorse that proposal.
And then finally, the rest of the report
is just a brief update on a wider emerging project,
basically how the council can better support councillors,
which we're calling the member experience,
and there's four themes to that.
Clear mutual expectations around member roles,
and the report talks about a member protocol
that we're developing to make those expectations clear.
Developing leadership skills under pressure,
that's about the Council induction
and learning and development programme
which you've heard a lot about before.
Supporting officers to work in a political environment,
we'll be looking at some training for officers on that.
And supporting inclusive debate,
which is the thing that includes the pledge
and political culture.
And the next steps, they're set out in the report as well,
three point three and three point four we're basically looking to reconvene a member working group
shortly early in December to
hopefully agree a
Process to accompany the place that will be a process for how potential allegations of breaches are dealt with
So that's that's my update chair
second questions
Before we come to them, can I just ask on page 25, paragraph 3 .9, because I can't see
anything that follows from this, we are reviewing testing possible changes in procedure rules.
Is there a report on that somewhere?
to the council procedure rules to reduce the prevalence of urgent motions on short notice
which were felt to be causing friction and generally contributing to the poorer quality
of debate.
but my understanding of part of some ethics I think it's got more on that by understanding is those were sort of piloted and
considered to be working well and and now either they are working through the system for formal approval or they have been
Thanks Joe yes, so we actually have a
Report to the general purposes committee tomorrow which references this
And yes, so this was part of a package of measures trying to just help everyone navigate full council meetings a little bit better
and it is still in test phase, so we haven't determined yet whether we are going to implement these changes.
But essentially we're bringing forward deadlines for amendments and urgent motions and things like that,
so that essentially the idea is we can publish everything the day before council and everybody knows what there is.
And so there's no, hopefully there's no last minute surprises, which often causes more,
it's the surprise often which causes as much of a problem as the thing.
But we've only had the chance to do two meetings.
Of course, there's not that many full council meetings.
So we're still looking to test it a few more
and get feedback from members.
And we'll tweak and see how we go.
Okay, so not strictly within our remit,
but it was interesting to read.
And so I want to know where we got to.
So if we turn to pages 31 onwards,
And I could comment on the meeting on the 5th of November which I attended where the
pledge was discussed not in absolute detail.
But the two major parties decided they wanted to reflect on what was set out in their groups.
It would be interesting to know from the parties where they've got to before we get to any detailed discussion of these papers.
If somebody wants to lead?
I'm just going to say thank you. You're talking about the sessions that we had, the political sessions that were created for all the political parties.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Yeah, so I can say my kind of point of view.
So I attended, I think all the ones that were set up, I found it a good opportunity where,
you know, we can meet members from all parties where we could have engaged better as well
and kind of reflect on how we can work to kind of improve ourselves as a counsellor,
how to behave, and what could be seen as something that is not acceptable.
And it was kind of interesting that when we did have those workshops,
I thought it was a good session that we all had a lot of similarities as well
what we would expect from different members of the parties
and how we can reflect as well on things that, for example,
we wouldn't expect in a role as a representative.
And it kind of,
I think it kind of lent me,
like I could, it gave me the opportunity to learn.
And obviously, when we're all in that political,
sometimes in the chamber,
it's always like, you know, we have to have a different kind of, not debate, but the whole atmosphere is a lot more different,
where we had it in the seminars, where people were much more calm.
Obviously there's not a camera there, you're not trying to show your best to the audience perhaps, or playing up to some situation.
But in terms of the political behaviour, I know we're going for this journey for the continuous
improvement plan, but I still do think here in Tahehamnuz as councillors, we're far kind of
better than what we see in parliament, the kind of behaviour and the constant attacking one another.
So I think the seminars were really good where we discussed how we shouldn't attack each other
personally, what is expected, how to improve, what you're doing as well as a
counsellor. But in those seminars I did find some of the members did come and
say you know you know it's not gonna work, people are not gonna change. I just
found a bit you know having the attitude if you're gonna come into the seminar
having the attitude like nothing's gonna change here in Tower Hamlets, the political
behaviour isn't gonna change. You're not really helping your all the colleagues
in town hall or yourself.
So I want you to reflect on that.
It was good to see so many members engaging
and have that positive vibe,
but there were some people who came with the attitude,
oh, it's not important having these seminars,
it's not important having these discussions,
there's no point us sitting together
and doing this reflection work
because it's not gonna work.
So I just found that a bit disappointing.
Some of the members did tell that to the organisers.
I just found out if you're going to have the attitude, you're really not going to help yourself or your colleagues.
So I wanted to give that as an inspire.
Cancer Islam, where's the Labour Party got to on its thinking?
No, we're trying to get some feedback back to Jo, I think his deadline is 7th of December.
I've asked our political advisor to do that because not everyone from the group attended those sessions.
But I think Councillor Hackett speaks from experience because she's been on both sides of the Chamber.
So I don't know how she felt when she was on the other side compared to currently.
But I suppose the proof of the pudding is seeing how this pledge actually works.
And perhaps there ought to be some flexibility to change things if we feel that it's not working next year.
So we talked a lot about kind of behaviour
in the council chamber.
I was thinking to myself that often we
have unrespectful behaviour, and the speaker tries to intervene.
And often people don't listen.
Does the speaker have the power to reject someone
on the council chamber?
If repeatedly somebody ignores them
without the need for a vote in the council chamber,
for example, perhaps more stoner way of dealing things
might be more productive.
So yeah, so I suppose in conclusion is kind of we have to wait and see how this all works out
And we're trying to get some feedback
Thank you, I've got a whole series of what some might consider to be picky points about drafting
But I'm not not going to use them at this stage. I'm gonna invite comment from other members
I think it was going to be piloted and people were going to look at this in the meetings
that have happened since the September workshops.
I was interested to hear the feedback as to how it's been going down to date and I hear
that the members are taking that back and looking at the words on the paper, I think,
rather than the actions at the moment.
I'm interested to know whether things have felt better
in the council chamber in particular since the workshops.
So that's a kind of a question I'd be interested
in getting feedback on.
I mean, I had some specific comments
about the additional wording in the stability
and political debate.
And in many ways, it's a matter for members, not for me.
But I did observe that some of the behaviours
aren't behaviours, although I'm conscious of
what Councillor Actar has just said.
It's difficult to sort of,
police is the wrong word, but it's difficult
to kind of impact on, I think, attitudes,
and it's more about how they are shown in practise
in terms of behaviours.
So just as an example of what I mean there,
we accept that we are not always right and can learn from others isn't really a behaviour.
So I might try and switch that a little bit to say something that was,
I engage in active reflection and learning from others, something that's more sort of active,
because behaviours are things that you do, not things you don't do.
The other points I had really were more around sort of implementation,
because I think words like respect mean different things
to different people in a particular space and time,
and that can be difficult to navigate,
because we all, I think I talked a little bit about this
in our September workshop, in your September workshop,
about how messages are kind of formed
and then communicated and then how they land,
depending on a particular person's experiences.
So I suppose I was thinking about principles.
It's a set of principles, it's not a rule book.
And to that end, I think the wording needs to be interpreted
in that way.
And I think things around, if it's about building trust,
it's got to be about building understanding.
So I was thinking around, you know,
what are the active behaviours that can support understanding
of particular actions?
And I was really pleased to hear the points
around the systemic kind of enablers and barriers of this,
because that's what I heard at the workshop as well.
there were some systemic barriers to proper behaviours,
primarily which related to process.
The relationship point and Councillor Act are made,
I think is really, really important as well.
And I heard that in within the workshop
and I was really struck by that.
And then transparency.
So I guess, and this is my last bit and then I'll be quiet.
I was really interested in the government.
The government response to the standards contract
I'm really interested in how they've kind of formed it.
And it sort of says to me and to councils really
that the investment as I think the Centre for Governance
of Discretinies said, that the investment now
in building relationships and mediation
and early resolution is I think gonna become
more and more important as that new regime comes in.
and I think there's an opportunity here to model what that looks like,
so that dialogue is enhanced and improved as a part of introducing this.
Thank you.
And although I would have said it later,
the expectation that a behaviour code will be introduced
gives us an opportunity to be leading in that area.
So it gives you, with our involvement,
Other thoughts?
Sure.
Thank you.
I think the workshop we had was quite good in the sense that members from cross sections
cross party have realised or come to a basic consensus
that the behaviour of members need to be improved
and expectation of members behaviour.
So with that, I think members are starting to improve
in communicating with the cross party members
with more respect and that's the positive things we have from the workshop in September. Thank you.
Some of the points I would make are similar to a particular point Fiona made and I might rather
take you all through it have a session directly with
Matthew because at Joel, I mean I think I'll just give an example
There's a use of a word
Opponents
And yes, it's on page 38 in behaviours we act as opponents not enemies
We we might be better finding a different sort of word for that
And I'm not going to go through it now, but it might be
debaters proposals of ideas because if you look at the dictionary definition of what an opponent we actually
That's not the kind of behaviour. We want of being opponents that sense
Which allows me to say?
The use of plain English is clearly very important.
And we all recall that book, right, written in the 1950s,
was it, about the use of plain English.
And I wonder when it comes to residents ever getting to this
if they do, and hopefully some of them will,
whether we can avoid words like bellwether,
because I'm not sure how many of our residents would know
that bellwether comes from the leading sheep in a flock
with a bell hanging around its neck,
if you look at the origin of the word, the entomology.
Wouldn't we be better using simple words
like indicator measures or trend measures?
And I confess that I found both words
When i cheque the precise meaning of bellwether so that's the kind of thing i'll offer offer
to
joe
I could go on but they're pretty detailed points and it's a bit like asking a committee
To design something that actually you finish up with a camel rather than a horse or whatever that similarly
But are there any other comments at this point
Yes, Mike.
Just a point of clarification.
The actions required at the bottom of each section, I think on page 34, I think the greatest
challenge will be defining what constitutes a fun away day for start for more councillors,
because that's going to be an interesting dynamic.
But those actions that are required, are they set in stone or are they just examples?
of what it could look like given that all councils have a fun away day is is
quite specific in relation to to that particular action are these are these
things that are going to be progressed or they just examples of actions that
are going to be required in the whole process of indicators
I think my response to that is there are requests that have come from councillors collectively
and there will be a process of determining which, if any, if not all, we can do. The
away day is a good example. I think that is something that was referenced a few times,
So it's something that we're starting to take very seriously and we'll be sort of asking
Councillors how they want that to look and how we can make it fun.
But yeah at the moment
the pledge is entirely in the language of the councillors who drafted it, the councillors who you've heard were in those workshops.
And just to pick up John's points, there's a bit of a tension there between
sort of revising that into a plain English and a sort of more universal language.
The risk is that we sort of lose the
the sort of, not the meaning, but the emphasis that the Councillors on that workshop chose,
the words they chose to use. But I think it's a comment we've had from others too, that
some of the language might be a bit impenetrable and we could revise that.
Bellwethers is actually, wasn't used by, didn't come from Councillors, it came from
the Centre for Governance and Screetony and I'm sure we can revise that. I also had to
Google that but yeah hopefully that addresses that. It's called consultancy
speak you have a set of procedures and things you've used elsewhere and it
sounds great having been a management consultant how would I know and in fact
the fun away day was and I was there for that discussion session you were at I
I think what members were aiming at was not as much fun
as an away day where you can get to know each other
in a sort of learning and team building sense,
but one which could be fun rather than antagonistic.
So it was one of those things I got down.
And Mike, you make a good point because in the,
on page 35, early warning signals, there's only one.
and I'm sure there are more which can be developed,
but I go back to what Councillor Islam said,
which is actually it's not so much about the words,
it's about people's desires to make things better.
So we can refine the words.
The parties have got to get to the point
where they can work together.
Any other comments?
Okay, well, in that case, thank you, Joel.
We'll move on to Code of Conduct matters.
Thank you, Chair.
I've got this one.
So this is an update on where we are with the Code of Conduct.
We've had quite a few new ones coming in, which I suppose is not surprising, given that
were coming into an election period.
The theme seems to be a lot of concern
by a number of residents about difficulties
that they have in getting responses from their councillors.
So I hope that we are able to resolve that
and that people, given that their,
Council has given them incredibly busy,
and they're going to be incredibly busy
for the next few months.
I hope that they are going to be able to remain in touch
with their constituents.
Since the report was prepared,
I've been able to resolve one matter,
in fact, two matters,
and I've had meetings with the IP
on I think another four and I'm due to have another meeting with the IP next week.
So I'm hoping that we will have resolved most of these fairly soon.
There is one which I don't think we're going to be able to resolve in the immediate future
and that's the one which relates to the outstanding criminal matter which has now been adjourned
to September next year.
So that one is still pending.
Chair, I'm happy to take any further questions.
Can it be recorded I shook my head in disbelief, almost disbelief.
September next year.
That's actually not bad.
I know, I know, but questions, comments please.
I just wanted to observe that there didn't seem to have been any elected member complaints
since the workshops had been held. That was the first thing I just wanted to observe.
And the second thing that I wanted to observe is it's really helpful to see that the complaints,
the regular dates on each of the complaints and how they've been regularly sort of followed
up and chased. So those are the points I wanted to make. Thank you.
This one 009 alleged complaint use of personal affiliated companies
payments system for public donation by the member. What's the problem with that?
The concern, the allegation was that the money had not been forwarded to the
organisation that it's been raised for.
But the member has confirmed that the money has been passed on.
Any other?
No, well, thank you, Jill.
Moving on.
Amendments to the Code of Conduct.
Mark, welcome.
Thank you.
I'm here for this item.
So we have some amendments proposed to the Code of Conduct.
but the report will go on to the Council
as the Council needs to approve any amendments
to the Code of Conduct
with the arrangements for handling complaints.
The amendments are mainly minor
and simply updating and improving procedures
such as links, which Jill has remarkably sorted out
to the LGA website, but I would like to draw to your attention the major ones, so that
if you have any comments you can make them.
So the first one is that we've included in paragraph 4 of the revised code the independent
chair of the Audit Committee, because the independent chair of the Audit Committee has
recently appointed and they need to be covered and we have which is good news
yes we would this is not in your pack actually because there was a glitch when
the revisions were downloaded so what we would like to do is to add to paragraph
46 which is about well let's just read it you may be provided with resources
and facilities by the local authority to assist you in carrying out your duties
as a member they should be used in accordance with the purpose for which
they have been provided and the local authorities own policies regarding their
use and are not to be used for business or personal gain and they have given
examples office office support stationary equipment and what we want to
add on to the end of those bullet points is intellectual property such as the
council's logo and branding so we think that that just brings brings that within
the general remit the other we've tied up paragraph 63 which is around the
Gifs and hospitality and the hundred pounds limit
sorry the hundred pounds kind of excess limit where you think that's really not a good idea and
then on the
arrangements for dealing with complaints we are
Looking at two significant changes one is
That the Marshall officer will or may refer matters to the standards committee
subcommittee of the standards committee where we're not getting a response essentially and
we need some help and the other one is the overall time limit for investigations increasing from two
to three months because in officers experience it's very difficult to complete everything in
months and three months is more realistic so that's basically a very
quick summary of the changes but if you will have any questions I'm happy to
take them and I'm sure that colleagues will help me out if I get it wrong
thank you mark I'm looking for hang on Matthew's just reminded me there's also
a link which is not in your version we propose a just a minor amendment to go
into the code about the members pledge saying that as part of its continuous
improvement plan the council developed the member pledge member pledge is not
part of the code of conduct but is designed to improve member behaviours and
Relationships, so we just want a cross reference. So it's in there
That's one of my questions
But you you where you referred on page 104 5a to
Monetian officer will may question mark you're going to resolve that I not going to leave it in with a question
Yeah
That will definitely be resolved. I think, I mean, it's really a question for Shukriya to determine whether she wants to make it Will or May.
So that's in her ballpark at the moment, so to speak.
But the other issues, you know, we're looking for comments on really.
Is there anything that members feel could be improved?
Have ideas on?
Donna?
Just with reference to the pledge
and the link to the code,
I just wondered sort of to what end.
When we say it is not part of the code,
and then to what end is it being included?
Is it a reference point that will inform
interpretation of the code, for example?
What is it as opposed to what it isn't?
That was the first point.
And then the second point is about the will may.
If there is a discretion, I think it's always
really helpful to understand the basis
on which that discretion will be used
so that there are clear and consistent criteria.
So on the pledge, I think the pledge is still being developed.
And so we're reluctant at this stage to kind of incorporate it as part of the code
because, you know, part of the national proposals are for some kind of similar thing.
But no one really knows where it's going to go.
So it doesn't seem appropriate to incorporate it in the code.
And also, I think members might be a bit more reluctant to sign up to a pledge
it's suddenly part of a code, whereas they're very clear they have to sign up to the code, it's an LGA model,
and so I think it's just good to reference it in our code so that members, when they're signing up,
are aware that the pledge exists, there'll be new members, you know, come next May.
In terms of the Will May, that's really my preference,
it's something to be discussed with the Management Officer,
but my preference would be may,
because I don't think there'll always be circumstances
where you would have to refer it,
because there may be obvious reasons
why a member can't respond.
For example, they're out of the country, they're unwell,
any kind of reason.
So I think saying you will refer it after 10 days
is too draconian, and I think may,
we can explain may as in may unless there are exceptional circumstances or
reasonable circumstances such as but I haven't had the chance to discuss that
yet within monitoring officer so I don't think it's kind of finalised yet
so just a paragraph 14 where you list four things acting integrity lawfully
treat person fairly, lead by example. I'm thinking whether I should add something
about at all times as councillors we need to act in a way that we do not put
the council in a destribute and this goes back to the discussion we had last
year about when you're a councillor when you're not when you wear your land yet
apparently you're a councillor and you don't wear your land yet then you're not.
Something around at all times being mindful that you're a councillor and you
should act and behave in a way that doesn't put the council
in a negative light.
We're just looking at that, and we think it's covered
by section 40, which is disrepute.
But I get that what you're saying is that you could maybe cross reference that section to section 40 below
So we could make a reference in there
to the
Subsequent section which is about disrepute
Thank you, so I've got a couple of picky points which we can do over the phone but
now is on page 104 in amended 7. There's a reference to the casework advisory
subcommittee of the standards committee. Do we have one in our terms of reference
and if not we're gonna have to insert one.
That was something that was discussed at the pre -meeting of the last standards
and it it's simply a change in name from the I think it was or it is currently
called the disciplinary subcommittee and it was thought that the casework
advisory subcommittee was a more palatable name really I was not awake at
that point we're all happy with that
Well, I'll call you separately rather than take members to a tiny points.
Is there anything else on this item?
Thank you, Mark.
Moving on to member learning and development.
Afti, was that you?
It is indeed, Chair.
Thank you.
So this is our yearly update on member development.
Obviously at the moment the attention a little bit is passing towards the member induction plan for next year,
which we brought to the last committee and will bring to the next one.
But this is more a backwards looking report of what's been going on since we last reported to this committee very nearly a year ago.
And it sets out all the training that's been going on.
And of course we've been expanding out the training offer over the last couple of years.
There's a little bit on individual member training budgets and sort of personal programmes
that people have been doing.
There's also mentoring and then there's the general training courses that we offer as
well.
The, excuse me, the member steering group have been looking at this and they get a bit
more detail on some of the personal training and we're a little bit cautious about providing
full details on that because often sometimes it's on particular weaknesses if you like
that a member might feel they have and they don't want that necessarily advertised.
For example, if it's like an IT thing they don't necessarily want to say to everyone,
hello, I can't do email.
I'm not suggesting that's the case we've had, but it's just an example.
So they get a little bit more detail on that.
But you've got a summary and you've got obviously a bit of detail about the amount of money
we're spending and it's been great that members have increased our budget over the last couple
of years.
That's made a massive difference to what we've been able to offer.
In particular with external trainers, which we just simply couldn't afford previously and and I think it's noticeable
We're getting better feedback through having external trainers and more things which is really good and that's something we're going to focus on
next summer
There's an appendix with the full kind of Excel sheet on who's attended what I think it's worth noting that
We've had more training over this last year than the year before so we've had
28 different topics across 41 different dates.
So sometimes we'll do a topic on more than one date
to encourage attendance.
Last time it was 21 topics over 30 dates.
Now in some ways that might be good,
but on other ways you could look at that
as overloading members.
So I think we do have to be slightly careful
about seeing that more and more is necessarily good.
And I think we've seen that on some of the low attendance
on things that sometimes there's just too much going on
and we can't expect members to do everything.
So I think that is an ongoing balancing act.
I'm not sure we've got it quite right.
We've got in our summary as well,
kudos to a few of our members
who've turned up for lots of sessions,
including Standards Committee's very own
Councillor Iqbal Hussain, who's top of the list,
with 11 in person and eight virtual
attendances over the year, so well done.
And we've got a couple of others mentioned there as well.
But at least one third of Councillors,
So 15 out of the 45 have attended at least six sessions over the year.
So that's one every other month, which I think is pretty good.
And particularly as we're coming to the end of a cycle as well.
So often sort of people feel like they've done their training early on,
they don't need to keep coming back.
But actually I think that shows a decent level of interest.
So I think that's good.
I think that's probably all I've got to say.
I'll have to take comments.
Thank you, Matthew.
Comments, Mike?
Just a matter of interest.
Your external agencies or consultants that come in,
do you find that there's a better take up in terms of,
you know, like value for money you're getting
if you're inviting someone in, spending more money,
do people more likely to attend?
Is the attendance monitored in terms of whether it's
an in -house trainer or someone that does it themselves,
you know, within the council or someone coming outside,
from the outside in to run it?
Is it a better take up?
I think it's a good question. I'm not sure it impacts the initial attendance necessarily.
I mean maybe as well thinking about how we advertise, maybe it's not that obvious in the advert whether it's an external train or not.
What we have noticed though is requests for repeat sessions which we didn't used to get.
So there's a fair number of things we've offered several times now because members come back to us after and go,
well that was really good, can we do one of those again?
So I suppose that's the sort of feedback that we're seeing.
Thank you.
What would be a thorough example of the repeats?
So we've been doing a lot more on sort of how to present
at meetings in different ways.
But yeah, sort of dealing with council chamber
and meetings more generally, sort of how to present yourself
how to tackle the procedures, what it all means, how to do things the right way, the wrong way, that kind of thing.
That's been quite popular.
Comments, questions?
Well, I could comment that I think it's good that you have spent the budget, or looks like you're going to spend the budget,
and I'd written here against Councillor Harsane's name, good to see that you've set an example to others.
I was also going to ask the question not that you should name the names of the five cancers
And I suppose I could work it out if I had a magnifying glass to look at the spreadsheet of attack, but are these
cancers who are very experienced and don't need it or these cancers who are
I'm not asking you to particularise the name. So is there anything you can say about them of general interest?
I'm trying to remember off the top of my head.
Certainly there's a couple, the first couple that occur are very, very experienced and
have been around a long time.
In fact, there's another one who's been around a long time as well.
So I think that probably is at least part of the storey.
It's a similar sort of question potentially to what John's asked, but just in a different
way.
I just wondered if you had a sense of the impact of the training, that was the first
and then the second bit was around is there any correlation between training and complaints
either from members or from patients, constituents?
I think it's quite difficult to draw any direct inference.
If I was trying to be really, really rose tinted glasses, then I'd say we'd be doing a lot more
on how to present at meetings and things and I think probably our last four council meetings
one of the best we've had for a long time but that might be a stretch to say that that
was purely because of that. Yeah I think it's quite difficult to draw a direct inference
I'm afraid.
Well, let me throw in to Fiona a discussion I had with Matthew and Jill about complaints
and the difficulty of members and treatment. And I can't assert it because I'm not an elected
member, but I can speak from my own experience and sometimes inability to manage my email.
and it occurred to me that many busy members
may not be answering email requests from Jill and others
because they simply don't admit themselves,
they're disorganised in the way they're,
you know, I'm an adult, I'm grown up,
I can use email, but actually,
what they probably need as elected members
is some tuition, and this is for the new member induction programme, I'm suggesting, where even
the experienced ones are invited to talk about how they organise their inbox, because why
shouldn't they have a folder for complaints, and other folders to which they can assign
and priorities because then they'll have less excuse
about not answering emails.
And I don't know, but I suspect that may often be the case
because I sometimes forget emails
because I can't manage them in my head
and I don't manage them into folders.
I'm not expecting any confessions from elected members.
Anything else on that?
Let's finish, we're pleased with the way it's been going and hope we'll continue.
And of course we're going to come to it again in a sense when we come to the new member induction programme at the next meeting.
So moving on, government consultation outcome. Is that you, Matthew?
Yeah, that can be. So this is just for information reports as members are aware
the government has been consulting on the Code of Conduct regime for local
authorities and their ideas around I suppose they say it's a strengthening it
giving it more teeth. This report here just simply sets out the their response
to the consultation exercise that they ran so it sets out their thoughts from
and also it gives you the scores on the doors for each of the items that they, the questions that they asked.
So at this stage we're still in a holding pattern, we don't know exactly what's going to happen and or when it might happen.
But we just thought the members should be aware of this and might find it interesting.
Fiona.
I think it was really pleasing to see that some of our responses I feel were represented
in the response from government.
So I thought that was very positive.
I was quite interested in particular stuff around the publication of complaints because
it sort of said in the, you know, obviously we look at complaints very regularly and sort
and we look at them before they're concluded.
And I think what I understood from the consultation response
was that in the new regime, whenever that comes in,
and it's not gonna be immediate
because they'll need to pass legislation and so forth,
that they'll be looking to publish determinations,
either if people have been,
I can't remember what word they use,
but acquitted or sort of if they've been found
to have breached the code,
you'll publish that, but not anything in the middle.
you know, whilst the complaints are ongoing.
And it did lead me to reflect on our own
sort of complaints process and, you know,
what are the outcomes that we have in mind
with regards to the information that we publish
and necessarily the limited information that we publish.
So I raise that as a question, you know, that there is,
moving forward, it would be useful to know
a bit more detail about what's going wrong
so that we can use those insights
to kind of target the training much more detail
and target simple fixes, if you like,
that can avoid concerns.
Because that's really, I think,
where we want to be going sort of strategically
before this all comes in.
We want to be in a position where actually,
minor concerns are dealt with simply, easily in dialogue
and we meet everybody's needs.
And it's only very major concerns
that kind of go down the complaints route.
And I just wonder, when I look at what we publish,
what, how that helps us to achieve that
and whether we maybe need to think about
either doing that bit in private
and publishing more detail once a year
so that we can have a bit more of a discussion
and get into the sort of bonnet of the complaints.
Or, yeah, so there were thoughts really
rather than just to think about how we take that forward.
I think it's going to be, it's obviously going to be different.
And I think that possibly the way that we do it at the moment doesn't make it really
very clear what the outcome is for each individual complaint. So maybe we need to rethink what
we put about the outcome because sometimes you might say well okay an apology was offered
and accepted or an apology was offered but it doesn't actually say that in the way that
we write it at the moment. So yeah we probably will need to rethink how we do it.
But I think it is actually quite useful for the committee to get regular updates and not
just do it once a year because I think it's quite helpful for you to know that things
are being pursued and it's not that you just have to wait for the next year and go, oh,
well there's been an awful lot of queries about this or why have we still got 16 outstanding.
I think what I was trying to indicate is that I'm not sure if we think about complaints
as a source of insight in order to help us avoid complaints in future, the information
that we get in public does not help us do that, doesn't help me do that because there's
not enough detail.
So it was more how we consider complaints,
the level of detail that we get
in order to get those insights.
I'm not suggesting that we only get
the complaints once a year.
I am suggesting that we might wanna consider
more detail about the complaints,
maybe not in the public domain,
so that we can harvest any learning from that
and feed it in as a committee to the training
and other mechanisms that you might want to use
in order to avoid concerns moving forward.
and I'm not sure that the way that we do it at the moment serves either of those purposes
in the best possible way. Does that make sense? No.
What kind of information would you want?
So I think you put a sentence in the cover paper to kind of get an indication of the
sorts of concerns that are coming out. I think my answer would be I want enough information
to know what went wrong in this case and how can I stop that happening next time, basically.
And I don't think there's enough data in the, and I understand why there's not enough data
because we publish it and they're published cases
that haven't been, you know, often haven't been concluded.
So you can't, I don't think it's fair or right
to go into that kind of detail in public,
especially before a finding has been found
because that's not fair on the council members involved.
But if, and you may disagree with my premise
because my premise is two points.
One, it's about accountability and ensuring
that we hold the councillors to account.
But secondly, and I think this is for me very important,
it's about understanding how can we learn
and how can we stop things happening again.
And you can't do that on the basis of a summary of a case.
You need to understand much more detail
about what's happened and why
in order to learn from that
and support that learning towards others, in my view.
Others may disagree.
You're very welcome.
I can see where you're coming from.
I understand that.
I'm not going to instantly give headings to all the case types, but clearly if members
of the public are complaining that members are not responding to emails, we don't need
to know whether it's about housing or parking or whatever.
So that would be one category, which is quite different from somebody's not passed some
money on that they should have done you know that's perhaps a subcategory of
another thing but I think that's where Fiona's coming from too. Mark were you
trying to say something? I was going to say chair as the instigator of the
current system many years ago the idea of it being anonymized is so that it can
transparent and that the public can actually see what's going on kind of in
the in the broadest terms but I do get that if you want to do a more deep deep
dive then you need to have a not public session and so that would mean
considering details of complaints in private essentially because while they're
complaints they're still private and once they become you know if they
progress and always the aim is to resolve complaints you know at the
earliest possible opportunity but if they progress on then and actually in
Tamil Hamlet say generally don't because they are resolved which is to our credit
I might say but you know obviously when something goes to a hearing or hearing
subcommittee or then it becomes more more public and everything comes out it
becomes more apparent in public but in order for the learning exercise where
you're resolving complaints and earlier stage which we are and which we never
used to do quite frankly then there is a benefit I think to looking at the detail
of why they're arising the complaints arising in the first place but that would
need to be done in public because it would be identifying members and the
issues are arising and and it can be on both sides it can be from the
Complaining and from the member
Is this final or it is consultation
Sorry the changes to the code or the
Oh the government or sorry I was going back to reports
it's
So they've done their consultation. So this is their feedback from their consultation
So I don't think they will ask us again.
I think next time they will just tell us this is what it is and then we will have to react.
Now it may be that when they say this is what it is, they might say you must have a code of conduct
and you must have a committee and it may be they won't tell us what those have to look like.
Or it may be that, I mean, I think they indicate they might well do a national code of conduct,
which we all just have to adopt, whether we like it or not.
And it may be they'll even be specific on what has to be at the committee, for example.
I think we just have to wait and see.
My comment was really the new part to suspend a number of six months for serious code of conduct
And the second one is to spend for three months interim basis most
Thought for most serious cases a political party would take their own action against individual and with the whip
But you know, I appreciate that may not happen. It's in cases. I was wondering whether in those serious cases six -month
Withholding allowances plus maybe that member should not be allowed to attend committee meetings or vote at full council meeting
That will, in a fragile council with a makeup,
that will kind of make sure that political parties
take action against individuals to make sure
that they don't breach the serious code of conduct.
So that's my kind of contribution,
if the opportunity was there to kind of feedback.
And on the email point, I just thought,
so if I may, new intake councillor,
if somebody says, I don't want to cancel the email account
because I've got no time to respond to emails.
Are they compelled to have one?
Is there a code of contact for that?
That's a good one.
I think these days it's quite difficult
to operate a lot of our systems in IT
without having an email account.
Just be, it's kind of almost required
when you set up all the things.
But I mean, there's no absolute compulsion to use it.
There are issues around sort of data protection
and other things you've got to be slightly careful of if you start using other types of email.
So that's certainly not encouraged.
I suppose it'd be an interesting social experiment to try a counsellor doesn't use email at all and see what happens.
Yeah.
In that case should we have something in place in writing saying because of data protection and protecting their counsel's confidential document etc.
etc. that a member has to have an email account.
I'm just kind of playing devil's advocate as somebody says,
sorry, you know, this is not for me.
Well, there's a thought to take away.
I was going to comment specifically about your question.
There are a number of areas where in the government's response,
they say we will consult further.
So I think, you know, the LGA will presumably already be on it
and we recall, don't we, that we responded to the LGA survey that was done by Paul Hoey,
which has not been published.
So my guess is Paul, LGA, have already been whispering in ears.
But I think just to remind ourselves that Farhan,
and myself, did actually put some time into this.
And as you say Fiona, it's great that many of the things that we thought about and pushed
have actually come up with pretty high scores.
We don't have to be in the majority, but a lot of other people have the same thoughts.
One particular thing I was pleased to see in the government response was that they're very much for having an independent chair of standards committees.
and they clearly seen through some of these misguided ideas about whether the IP can be the chair and
Set out the reasoning why that wouldn't be appropriate
And also the point about the government saying that
Committees should have independence and not be controlled solely by elected members
finding and conclusion.
Fahim, have you got anything to add?
If I can remember, Chair. I didn't want to label the point, but going back to what Fiona said,
I think it will be important for us to have the lessons learned
sort of like when you have serious case reviews sometimes and a serious incident happens, sometimes
people don't get charged, but there's things that we learn from it, if that sort of makes sense.
And I think that will be useful, especially when some of the themes have come up. I can't recall the
case exactly, but it was a case where we sort of debated
for around 20, 25 minutes about the legalities of,
or some sort, I think it was financial misconduct,
I can't remember what the case was.
But I think it's good for us to understand
some of these themes, and I think some of these themes
can also work in some of the Ford training,
if that's what makes sense.
Since this workshop's happened, we've seen,
let's say for example incidents go down, I don't know,
but if some of these themes are coming up around
communication, it seems to be engaging with residents,
it could be that actually Ford planning or Ford training,
If it's a common theme this is something that we can incorporate into the into the training that makes sense of two parts
I guess is to summarise this one for us
It'll be quite useful by thing in terms of the training team and the governance team
To look at these themes and a deeper not darker but in a deeper level and understand how moving forward we can sort of improve
council relations
Yeah, just on that point again Fiona's point is there any
mileage in trying to understand what other council is doing in regards to
complaints? I mean I presume that you regularly look at other codes of conduct
and how people, how other councils work through particular complaints like this
and whether there is some learning to be done from other councils or are we so
good that we're trailing a trail of innovation? I mean obviously we're
Brilliant.
But apart from that.
So we, I mean, we certainly do look at other codes
of conduct we're in and we're involved in
sort of monitoring officer groups,
we have other councils and other stuff.
So we're in those sorts of discussions.
I mean, there's always stuff to be learned,
isn't there, you never think that we're exactly perfect
and that there isn't something we can take
from other people.
Mark, I don't know whether you've done anything recently
that's specifically worth referencing.
No I haven't to be honest but we are a leading light is all I can say because we have so
many independent members and dare I say an arrangement that I set up many years ago and
it's difficult you know what I always say when I'm doing training sessions you know
what's a bridge of the code in West Sussex will not be a bridge of the code in Tower Hamlets
because there's a different culture in each authority
so you really need to be aware of that
and what is politically robust in different authorities is different
it does vary from authority to authority, so you have to allow for that
because, you know, basically inner London
and to a larger extent the whole of London is different
to the rest and Manchester Birmingham is different what would happen in a county
and what they expect in accounting they've worked in all areas and you know
I can't say there's been any proper benchmarking between authorities but I
do think that you know will the national picture is being looked at obviously by
the government and by holy associates who kind of feed into that and they have
the bigger picture that we don't have because we don't have the resources
quite frankly to get that bigger picture but I think you know generally speaking
we're doing reasonably well I mean I suppose to to add to that when we're
being serious about blowing our own trumpet I mean when we had the best
value inspection, they were impressed with our standards committee and they wrote that
in their report.
And I don't want to put words into Paul Hoey's mouth, but certainly my impression was that
they thought that the world should move towards closer to our model rather than the other
way around.
And I think there is some of that in the government's thoughts.
So we're not complacent, there's more we can do.
Hence the discussion I think on lessons learned and that's probably perhaps a bit of a weakness
and something we can build on.
Anyway, Joel, I think you wanna come in.
Joel.
Yes, thanks, Chair.
I think I should just mention,
I mentioned earlier on about the Council Pledge
and that we're asking members
to look into designing a process
and that the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny
had proposed some options.
All of those options are very strong
on what Faham mentioned,
this sort of thematic learning,
opportunities to reflect on the themes that are prevalent
and to revisit the pledge in light of that learning.
Why is that important?
I think it's important because potentially
we may have at this council two sort of separate processes
for investigations into council of conduct,
one of which will be based on the pledge,
the other on the code of conduct.
If one of those has a sort of thematic learning element,
I suppose depending on, you know, if that is adding value, it may strengthen the case
to do the same with the code of conduct.
So I thought I should just make sure that everyone's aware of that.
Thank you, yes.
Any other comments on this?
No?
Well, it won't be the last time we talk about this.
Let's move then to 37, dispensations.
Which there haven't been any, sorry.
Jill, is that you? Or Matthew?
Thank you, Chair.
There were no dispensations.
I'm happy to take questions. Looks like Matthew's got a question.
Not so much a question, but just mention of course that the standard dispensations are agreed every four years
So actually next summer we'll be looking at them again and determining our standard dispensations
Thank you, yes
We didn't minute why super is not here but for those who don't know she's in the audit committee
Much more exciting over there.
I didn't say that.
Moving on to the work plan.
Matthew.
Thank you, Chair.
So we're coming up to the end of our cycle and indeed the four -year cycle, not just the
yearly cycle.
So I think there's just the one meeting left.
The induction plan is probably the biggest item for that agenda.
So if anyone would like anything else, then do shout now or we'll look again after the
election to see what we want to do over that period.
Something else, just as this is a moment to mention it as well, something that isn't
on our timetable itself is a report that's going to council to appoint the new independent
person because Rachel Tiffin's coming to the end of her eight years and we can't
appoint her anymore legally.
So that will happen at January Council.
I think that's about it, really.
Do you want to add that we interviewed people and...
Yes, absolutely. So we interviewed, we did the usual recruitment process, adverts and interviews.
And we have a candidate and we will put that out in the report.
I wasn't going to name them at this stage, but yes, all looking good.
They came across very well in the interview, I have to say.
Yeah, I took part in the interviews,
and I thought she was a very strong candidate who
will help enormously when it comes to the monitoring
officer and colleagues being able to discuss
at the preliminary stage how a complaint should move forward.
And she's got appropriate experience,
although she's not strictly NIP.
But she's done lots of stuff, interacting with members
and members of the public, so should be good.
Is there any other business?
Well, if not, thank you everybody for attending.
We'll close the meeting at 7 .44.
.
.