General Purposes Committee - Tuesday 17 March 2026, 4:00pm - Tower Hamlets Council webcasts

General Purposes Committee
Tuesday, 17th March 2026 at 4:00pm 

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Good afternoon and welcome to the General Purpose Committee meeting and my name is Councillor
Ahmad El -Kabir and I'll be chairing this meeting. This meeting is being held in person, committee
member and key participants are present at this meeting room. Only the committee member
present in this meeting room will able to vote. Other person may be also attending the
The fire alarm, there are no fire alarm tests planned to take place during this meeting.
should the fire alarm sound please calmly follow the sign and the nearest
fire exit and please do do not use the lift. Filming the meeting bring film for
this council website for the public viewing cameras are focused on this
participating in this meeting, but anyone in this room may be caught on camera if it's the background.
I remind members at this meeting to only speak on my direction and to speak clearly into this microphone
to ensure that their contribution can be properly recorded. Is there any apologies, Justina?
Yes, Chair. I've been informed that Councillor Shubha Hussain has sent his apologies. I have no other apologies.
Thank you, Justina. Can I ask that all the members and guests introduce themselves and declare any DPI? Thank you.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Councillor Shafi Ahmed. I have no DPIs. Thank you.
I have nothing to declare.
Thank you.
Officers, please.
I'm Jill Bailey.
I'm from Legal.
And Robert Curtis, and I'm the head of Electoral Services.
Justine Bridgeman, Democratic Party.
I am Patricia Atawia and I am a democratic services officer.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone.
Item 2.
Are there minutes from the previous meeting?
Yes, they have been circulated.
Yes, Bailey.
It's got my name on twice.
It's noted.
Can we approve this meeting for last December 2025 meetings?
Thank you.
Agenda item 3 is this work plan.
Do members with this add anything on this work plan for this next municipal year?
Nothing.
I think we're okay.
This is probably the last one for the next municipal year.
So coming forward.
I think whoever is in the committee going forward, they can make some plans for that.
That's my opinion.
Can I just say, Chair, as you are still part of the committee, if there's anything you want to see,
please let me know and I'll ensure that it's on the work plan for the next municipal year.
Thank you.
Rebecca Sultana, you want to add anything?
No, Chad, I'm okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Agenda item 4 .1 is an update on this upcoming election
preparation.
Robert Curtis, head of electoral service will give verbal
updates,
following by a question from the members.
Thank you very much appreciate it so so Rob Curtis on the head of electoral services
Apologise for this not being a written report, but we are
Very busy. That's I'm sure you're aware
but I hope I can cover some things and if there are any questions, hopefully we can answer them, but
As an introduction the preparations for the polls in May are going very well indeed. I
I would say that we're on track. We're certainly
ahead of where we were in 2018 and also in
2022
So that's really good and the team are working extremely hard putting things in place with the support of colleagues throughout the council
And that's very very welcomed
What I'd like to do chair if I may is I'll just read some figures out as we go along and give everybody an indication
of scale
Particularly over the next two or three weeks and and where we go before the actual statutory timetable starts on
Monday the 30th of March
so
recently members for those who live in the borough will know that
You would have received what is known as a household notification letter
Known as a H &L in the trade we sent out
153 ,000 of those to every household or resident in a residential property in the borough and
We've had a pretty good response with that lots of people telling us people that have moved out people have moved in
And that's really good because we had the annual canvas as we know and then the revision of the electoral register in
December when we republish the register and this is if you like an aid memoir for everybody to say look
This is what we have at the moment and that's worked really really well
It's a almost like a pre polling card sort of heads up for every
residential property in the borough
I will say that the factory is opened the elections team are now a factory or printing and publishing and
Getting things ready as you know, it's a huge logistical exercise that we have to get involved in
What else has gone out we've also sent out empty property poll cards
It's an interesting statistic this because we have a very high number of empty properties and the reason for that is students
A lot of the student accommodations are actually listed as in the rooms are actually individual
listed as individual properties almost and there are
43 ,000 of those
So it's a huge numbers, but we still write to them all to make sure that anybody who should be on the electoral register is
captured through that exercise and anybody who shouldn't be on the electoral register is also
deleted and then next week is the normal dispatch of
The normal poll card. So those people that are going to go to the polling stations and also
The postal votes now, that's two hundred and fifteen
15 ,000 items of stationery I'm going to add all this up in a minute and tell you how much stationery how much we're sending out
It's quite a mind -blowing figure. So there's two hundred fifteen thousand of that in itself will generate
Further inquiries and because there is an obvious time lag
Between when the data went to the printers and what we've done since we sent the stuff to the printers
We'll get a lot of inquiries
You might get some inquiries from people saying that we told the council a week ago or two weeks ago that we've left the property
That's because of the time lag between such a massive database going into the printers print
You know sent out and then we have to we've got raw mail. They only go out second class
And second class isn't as quick as it used to be
To be honest first class is not as quick as it used to be but you I'm sure you get the point
so the big date that is on the horizon, which is only nine days away and that is the
publication of the notice of election and the publication of the notice of
election is essentially the starting gun that's when the statutory timetable
starts and that's when perder starts as well so and that is Monday the 30th of
March and it's from that point onwards that everything starts to kick in all
the timetables the deadlines for applying to vote by post that the
Register to vote and all that sort of stuff the nomination process which I'm sure you're all very keen to know is it starts at that point?
and we're taking
appointments from many people to come in and submit their nomination papers
I can't tell you who they are. But at the end of the day that is is where we are
Now obviously the staffing is very important
We recruit about 800 staff for the election goes through my team
That is a separate
Staffing database than the council. They're not employed by the council. They're employed by the returning officer Stephen Woolsey
Separate from HR separate from the council
So that there's no accusations of influence or anything like that can occur and that is so
That in itself means that the training is huge
We have a massive training going on and will continue
We're rewriting guidance and everything else so for 800 staff now that will be
for the opening of postal votes that will be for polling day itself and then
also as you know the count and the count venue so that's where we are and at the
last GPC I can confirm that the count will take place in the Platinum Suite at
the Excel Exhibition Centre and that's the Friday which will be the
verification in the morning the mayor count in the afternoon and then the
award counts will take place on the Saturday and that's how that so we'll
send out tickets and all that sort of stuff as we get closer to the day there
is an interesting statistic in relation to postal votes postal votes can now
only be kept for three years whereas it used to be indefinite as a consequence
we wrote to 28 ,000 people inviting them to read reapply because their postal
votes were expiring and the deadline was the end of January and 13 ,000 of that 28
did not reapply at all that is consistent with across the UK in terms
of a percentage return government are of the opinion that these are people that
have had postal votes for many many many many many years and actually don't
really need it anymore for the circumstances that they had at the time
So they'll be going into the polling stations and that's what we hope that means that we've got about
15 ,000 postal voters on our database at the moment
I am sure when the poll cards go out
Members and everybody else starts knocking on the doors when you know
The competition is and all that sort of stuff is that that number will probably spike just before the deadline
But let's let's have a look but we will be in touch with all the political parties
All of the political representatives so that everybody knows what the figures are and how that will affect
campaigning and everything else that everybody knows where we are with that.
The police liaison is significant it's probably the the highest engagement that
I've I've ever been involved in I've been working elections for 30 years the
police programming and the meetings and everything else has been unprecedented
and there are a few issues that still need to be determined but at the end of
It's a lot of hard work going in in the background as you know, I mean, it's it's Metropolitan Police Chief Executive
Returning officer the Electoral Commission
MH CLG government are all working together so that this plan is delivered as it should be
For those of you that
Would have been interested in the the Gorton and Denton by -election in Manchester. I'm sure you would have seen that on the TV
one of the issues there was
Accusations that's still going on of family voting
We've been at the forefront of that and the deterrence that we've been putting in place since 2022
I think we do more than anyone else in the UK that is now increasing again has become very high profile
and we will be
Dealing with that as we approach polling day and we'll have proper plans in place so that we can prevent family voting throughout the
so that we are not criticised for not preventing any family voting that occurs
so that one aside we have three new things that are going on which I have
mentioned briefly at previous meetings one which is quite significant and that
is digital polling now it's not digital polling per se it's digital polling
stations. That means when people go into the polling stations with their polling
cards they will have a QR code which they will scan and the the system will
tell the staff which ballot papers to issue to the person it will then record
it it will also mark the statutory documentations automatically and then
the checking of the voter ID is recorded again on a touchscreen so the whole
process of receiving your ballot papers for the electorate will be far more sort
of convenient a lot quicker and should be a better experience for everyone the
beauty of it is that at the end of the day the presiding officer will press a
button close down the iPad and all of the data will be synced straight into
the count venue so there's no paperwork no adding up from presiding officers so
We don't have that delay. It was just we done automatically and that's proven across. It's been tested in
Many at many councils across the country. So we're very pleased to have that
The we also changing slightly
For members to remember back in 2022. We had the grass skirts, which was the ballot papers being stuck onto boards
We're going to change that slightly that's going to be kangaroo boards now
I don't want to go into that too, but I've got a video which I'll distribute to everybody once you all know
Basically, it's like the grass skirt, but it's reusable
So we don't have piles and piles of those things all stuck together. It's going to be a little bit more sort of
organised I hope and
And and very accurate indeed
And then finally the other new thing is that we have what is known as the McGonagall reader
This is a device that we've been liaising with the RNIB
and following threats of core action in 2024 against two London authorities, not us, that
there was no audio and visual and touchscreen voting device for people with impaired sight
or people who are blind, we will have that now available for all of our polling places
on polling day. So we're training everybody for that, we're trying to get a video done
for that as well. And so a really good enhancement and we're very excited that these three new
things will make the whole process a lot better.
All the equipment, the booths,
ballot boxes, everything, all done, all ready.
See, we've done a fantastic place down at William Place
in Roman Road and ready to be picked up and delivered.
So well ahead of schedule on that.
If I may, my team have been absolutely fantastic.
It's not easy, very labour -intensive,
picking these things up,
getting them all nice and neat and tidy, fantastic.
So that's good
and so just to just to sort of
End on the statistics if I may
153 H &L 153 thousand H &Ls
43 empty thousand empty properties
250 poll thousand two and fifteen thousand poll cards
16 ,000 poster votes we think will be sent out ish subject to the peak that I just spoke about and
And then we have the mayoral booklet the mayoral booklet has to be sent to every elector in the borough
So that's another two hundred and fifteen thousand envelopes that need to go out
That means that over a period of six to eight weeks from Tower Hamlets alone. We will be sending out
642 ,000 letters and envelopes
six hundred forty two thousand it's huge and if only ten percent of those people
decide to call us and with a query you can imagine the office all of a sudden
gets very very busy indeed so that's that's where we are so chair if I may
I'll finish there and and take any questions if anybody's got any questions
on on the preparation of the election but I will say everybody knows where we
are on the second floor at the town hall here and if anybody wants to contact me by email
or phone please do so and we'll endeavour to help where we can.
Thank you Robert, thanks for your updates. The Member have any questions?
Thank you Mr. Curtis. Very elaborately put your team, we obviously need to show gratitude
And thanks to the team who have worked so hard and your team being here and the ExoCenter
known to you for many elections.
So although it's not within the borough, we are happy with the decisions that were made
going forward.
There's two things I know in the general election.
You talked about the polling stations and the voter ID and some of our residents who
maybe were in a hijab or a niqab or want to show their face in front of the public, do
we still have booths or separate areas for our residents to feel comfortable to show
their identity?
First question.
And last question, one of the other questions is we talked about the voter, postal votes
numbers going down, which is in line with the national trend, is there any sort of media
engagement, bilingual, whether it's Bengali language or Malay language or the English
language going out from our local media source for encouragement or advertisement of ensuring
that postal votes are going out? People can register for their postal votes. Anything
on that level of from the council website or the council's social media outlets where
we're going to encourage people to come forward if they need to register their vote, postal
vote, or if they need to register, re -register some of them. Because they're knocking on
the doors, sometimes we say, oh, my daughter's 18, but she hasn't got her registration. So
we sort of say, oh, go online and, you know, register your vote. So I think something like
that from the council's own communication side it will be very
helpful if we knew there was something like that thank you thank you thank you
sir yeah thank you counsellor so the first question privacy screens yes there
will be a privacy screen in every polling place that can be used and that
will consist of a two compartmental booth that will be in the corner or a
separate room depending on the facilities at that particular polling
Place and the presiding officers and the staff will all be trained. It will be the presiding officer who will
Help the elector and also there are in that booth
There will be a mirror and things like that. So somebody can reset their their their garments
And if it's in a separate room, that's fine
That's all recorded as well
So that we know what the numbers are and the electric mission know what the numbers are
So yes is the answer that that will all be in place
As far as postal votes electoral registration and engagement is concerned
We have representations on the project board
Andreas is our head of communications as you know, and he leads on that
We have a proper comms engagement plan
That is approved by that project board and by the returning officer and if he's happy and that's that's where we are. So
our East End
An article went out in our East End got to every single person social media all the time
Social media has been monitored almost on a daily basis. We have the Electoral Commission and we dovetail with their
Plans as well. So they have an engagement plans across the whole of the UK and particularly in London
And of course the poll cards that go out to individuals has all the dates for proxy applications
postal of applications and also where people can apply to register to vote if there's any additional people and of course the
big change in 2024 was that the
Postal votes proxies and everything else and registering to vote is all done now online
it goes through a portal where the
Individual is checked against DWP records their signatures are checked and then it all permeates through to my team
and then we then process it and then we inform the elector so
Massive, I mean I've never known ever
The amount of communication that is going out. I'm it's across the UK, but certainly here in town Hamlets
And I've been here eight years now. We've never ever done this much. It's absolutely huge
Just the bilingual
Any communications going bilingual?
Different languages?
We have links to the electoral commission and there is bilingual.
We're putting some stuff onto the website.
The physical documentation that goes out, the only bilingual, everything has to be in
English, the only thing that's bilingual is on the envelope that says very important documents
and clothes.
We put that in Bangla for the first time so that people can pick it up and don't throw
it in the bin.
and
Yes, so and we have bilingual speaking staff in the office if any of course come through to explain for people as well, but
99 percent of
Everything that goes out from elections is in English
But there are avenues for us to go down to help people if they if that's not their mother tongue
Thank you.
Thank you.
Chaudhry.
Thanks, Sri and thanks, Rob, for the update.
Just a couple of things from me.
Like Councillor Shafi, I wanted to start by thanking you and the team for what you've done so far,
but there's obviously a lot more to go, and when you consider the numbers, it's enormous in terms of the operation.
just a couple of things from me so in terms of the phrase it so you know how
everything's online now even register to vote and a lot of stuff is moving
towards the online space for those that may struggle with that what support do
we have or what option do we have I think years ago and I'm not sure if we
still have it where you could physically sign a form and then complete your form
to register to vote I'm not sure if that still exists so I'm just trying to
understand what options are available for someone that may be digitally
excluded the second one is around the technology efficiency I think generally
I'm a big supporter of technology and the stuff you said around you know the
numbers and it's all going to be done hopefully automated and it will be
imported into the account in Excel.
And you said it's been tested a few times.
With technology, naturally, comes a lot of apprehension
as well.
So I just wanted to understand where it's been used
and whether there has been any sort of faults or mistakes,
if you want to call it that, lessons learned.
And just generally, I'm quite happy with everything else.
I appreciate when it comes to partners, especially with the police. There's so much going on
and
I guess just welcome once again, just like I think to a team partners involved in this
and I should say I'm one of the
15 or however many thousand that didn't return
the postal ballots or
refresher thing renewal thing
But you're right. I do suspect there will be some people like me
over then try and re -register so
that has generated probably a bit of work or will generate a bit of work before elections so apologies
yeah thank you very much cancer and no need to apologise but if you can do it as quickly as
possible i'd appreciate it that'd be one off the list um okay so um a couple of questions there
one is that um yes i mean predominantly 90 percent of everything now is coming through the portals
through the government portals for registering to vote and also the post -evotes and the proxies
But we haven't ditched the old system where and we even over the weekend I was receiving
telephone calls from people were saying no I don't have access to the internet.
Can you help me?
And yes we can revert to the hard copy, we send them through the post an application
with a prepaid envelope, they send it back and then we will upload it onto the system
for them.
But the issue is is that everything now has to go through the portal. So even if we receive
hard -copy applications from people that do not have the digital capacity
It's we still have to put it through the portal
It still has to go to government still has to go through the various security cheques
Is that okay?
That's it for the first bit the the second bit is that the IT went through massive scrutiny
We had two or three
Suppliers that we were looking at we have used this product before we used it a neighbourhood planning referendum many years ago
Just on a smaller scale
they
presentations the returning officer made the decision in the end which one to go to and
There's about 60 authorities in the UK who have used it for a few years now including ourselves. We've used it before
And it complies with all the ISO standards and everything else and our IT
have designated people to push this through to make sure it works and I will
say that the actual company on polling day are sending a representation to
Tower Hamlets only across the whole of the UK to make sure that this works and
works properly so we're getting really good service from them
Thank You Robert, thank you for the opportunity and I have one question on
basically you said you know ID bring what kinds of ID the I mean both are
looking for to us in the letter or do you need a photo card on it or many
people don't have the photo card ID so that's one of the thing so what are the
requirements on the back of the polling card it's a polling letter now there's a
list of what ID is acceptable unfortunately it's not a list of say two
things passport driving licence whatever there's a great big long list service
ID you know
So someone will need to look at that
But we'll say that the majority of people bring in their passport or their photo driving licence
And that's what we're finding across the whole of the UK
But there is a list on the back of their polling card, which will explain what that is
It doesn't mean if somebody comes into the polling station without ID that they can't vote
This the staff will say to them you need voter ID
The the fact that they've been in is put on hold they can go away
They can go and get their passport or they can go and get their driver's come back
And then they will be issued with a ballot paper, so it's not a definitive you haven't got it. You can't vote
That's it. It's a little bit more flexible than that, but and also something less
So we will also have posters in colour from the electoral commission
Which will be laminated and that will display in the polling stations what voter ID is?
is available for people to bring in if they wish to look at that as well.
It's also on our website.
Thank you, Robas. Thank you. Thanks for your updates.
Just in case it's been noted.
Thank you, Justyna.
Hi. Hello, Thián.
Hi. Rebecca Sultana, do you have any question?
Yes, please. Yes.
Yeah, please.
I would like to thank, first of all, to Robert for a really good presentation.
And also I have a few, you know, just to let you know that I have a few constituents who
are visually impaired and have asked what support is available when voting.
Could you please advise if there are any provisions such as assistance at polling stations or
braille voting options to help them cast their vote independently. Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor. Yes, adult social services have a list of which they're required to keep of
all people who are visually impaired in the borough or people who have registered with the council
as blind or visually impaired. Now, we have access to that and we wrote to over 500 of the residents
in the borough who are on that list to ask them if the provisions in the polling stations
or the provisions for them to cast their vote are in place.
I will say that 90 percent of the inquiries that we've had have been from people who want
a postal vote.
They don't want to come into the polling station.
They would rather us send them a postal vote and then be assisted by somebody at home.
That's fine.
But when in the polling stations themselves
We have a number of things we have what is known as a pack flat tactile voting device. That's a braille
Plastic sheets which marries with the ballot paper and somebody can then feel the Braille and understand
they can be assisted by a
The presiding officer so they will be trained to help them do that
There is a form that needs to be filled out on each and every occasion and there
is also a form if somebody or friend or whatever wants to help somebody who has
a disability it doesn't have to be impaired sight or blind it can be any
disability for somebody's that again another form needs to fill it's all
forms I'm afraid these days in the polling stations and then we've got this
new McGonagall reader and all of our polling station inspectors will be
So, the first thing that we have to do is to make sure that we are trained on how to
use that. Now, that is an audio tactile device where the elector will be able to put headphones
on, press buttons on the device, that will read out each candidate on the ballot paper,
the order that that person is in on the ballot paper, and then they will be able to mark
the the elected the electors they want to to vote for so that's an enhancement that we've had and
That is the preferred choice for the RN IB
so
So we're pleased we've bought 21 of those so there'll be one for every Ward
Some wars will be busy than others, but the inspectors will be out and if it's required
We've also asked people to contact us ahead of polling day
So that if somebody can only get to the polling station at a particular time
that we will make sure that somebody is there with that device.
I hope that's okay.
Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Rebecca Soltero.
Is there any other questions or comments?
Agenda item 4 .2, the report on this constitution update,
Matthew Menon, head of Democratic Service, will introduce the report
and Matthew over to you for the report. Thank you very much chair, good afternoon
everyone. So this first report on the Constitution, this one isn't it, is
that right? Yeah so there's been a few places I'm possibly repeating myself a
little bit but thank you Justina for that nod there. But I'll just very very
quickly run through so this is obviously a long going on outstanding project
where we've been working with Adso and others to try and upgrade the constitution.
It seems a bit clunky and old -fashioned, the best value of the space is picked up as well.
And one big part of that, probably the biggest part of that, was around the structure and around the system used to present it.
So it's been quite a big task, we've identified a new system.
As far as we can tell, no one's done this before or anything like it.
It makes it much more like a sort of a legislation type website for it.
And we put the whole of the constitution onto there which is no mean feat the way you have to do it.
And as we've done that as well, rather than just copying and pasting what we've got, we've re -themed everything.
So everything about non -executive committees is in one place, everything about scrutiny is in one place,
everything about the executive and the mayor is in one place, members, officers, etc.
So hopefully, and the public as well, it's just easier to find your way around.
Now we've done the first draught and we think everything's in there, but we're not quite
at the point where we want to launch this.
We need to obviously run through, make sure we've definitely got everything, that we need
to do all the references and links and other bits and pieces.
But we wanted to show this to members and give you a chance to say, yes, we do think
this is useful and we would like to move to this.
So basically asking if you're in principle agreement.
And then if you're happy with that, then we will come back to yourselves and Council in the summer and formally launch it when we're absolutely confident that this is right.
I have to say I think it's really good, the new system, I think the new structure of the Constitution is really good as well.
I think we will be one of the leading Councils if we can get this nailed down, so I'm quite looking forward to it.
and just the one thing that is significant in terms of content change, which is what you saw last time as we brought the
committee new committee procedure rules to the
December meeting I think it was wasn't it and we had a discussion
So I've tidied it up based on what was said then and it's in here
And so that will become part of the new constitution if you guys are happy with it
So we're coming today and we're also going to come to council next week's it feels like it's important
we should show it to council because obviously it's their constitution but
again it would be asking for in principle agreement subject to us doing
all the tidy up and assurance work but happy to take questions
Thank You Matthew. Thank You Matthew for the report. Obviously it's just a report
here that we are seeing, but I just want to thank colleagues all over for the last couple
of years, especially my Councillor colleague here, Councillor Abutola Choudry, who has
been part of that group, steering group, ensuring that there's fairness, there's consultation,
this thought and this process has gone into ensuring that hopefully we will be implementing
this going forward and it will be it's a statement to say that we work together
to make these changes and it will be it will set a precedent for other
councils as well and I want to appreciate the work that's been done
here and I fully support the changes that are here and I'd like to thank
yourself, your officers and the councillors for bringing this such an
important change to our constitution that was well needed and well within the
time that we are moving forward with. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Councillor Chaudry.
Thank you, chair. Thank you, Councillor, for those kind words and thank you, Matthew, for the introduction.
I think for me, obviously, we're moving with the times and initially when this was proposed as an idea, it was
seen as a 21st century constitution.
And it's good when we can lead the way.
And I know we're doing that in so many areas.
But more importantly one of the main drivers for doing this is to make it more accessible for our residents and with all respect like
lay people people aren't really
Politically involved. Let's just say so. I think I had a quick sort of play on the system
And on the phone because sometimes websites aren't the best on the phone and I think both work quite well
I think they seem fine
So I appreciate the point around, you know
Testing a bit more and then making sure everything's right and then launching it I think will be useful
So I welcome it. The only thing I'm just thinking of is
With all respect to the Constitution. I'm not sure it's the most viewed page on the council's website
so in terms of what difference this will make to
To residents and and how it's made a more accessible how many more people have seen it
I'm just trying to think how do we sort of evaluate whether this has been a good exercise or not and whether we've thought about that
in terms of how we measure
Success here. I
Think that's a really good question
I suppose I should just quick start to thank the members who've been involved in this as well over time because it's been really important
To do it with you
So I see this very much, I suppose, first response is this is stage one, so we get the constitution into a system which we can do more things with.
So for example what we want to do is once it's in there is create new ways into it for different sorts of people.
So it's kind of like you come to the front page and say well I'm an officer and it says okay well you're an officer you need to know these things.
If you're a member, it's these things.
If you're a resident, it's these things.
So we can make it more accessible in that way.
And I think it's when we start to do those sorts of things
that we see the real benefit for residents.
I can already see a benefit, even as it stands now,
with me and legal services, for example,
because I can send them a link to a specific paragraph
when they're trying to cheque some sort of legal thing.
And I know that they're going to be looking at exactly
the same thing that I am, rather than saying, oh, no,
it's PDF this one.
And if you go down to page 127, oh no, not that 127,
it's the one that's printed on it, not the actual PDF page
127, and all of that kind of stuff
we have to do at the moment.
So there's already the internal benefit.
But I think you're right, there's
a lot more we need to do for the public.
But hopefully, my intention is that once we're
able to play with this new system
and create these new ways in, we can start to think about,
OK, how do we let people know this is here?
How can we use this on different websites, different pages,
these different news things and get that engagement.
I mean, it's never going to be the most read page.
I mean, we're not naive, but hopefully it can be more useful.
And it's the sort of people who kind of know
they want to get involved but aren't quite sure how,
I think, are the ones we want to reach,
rather than necessarily aiming for every single person
to have read the Constitution.
Thank you, Matthew.
Do member have any other question?
Rebecca.
Thank you for your overview and updates.
Can you please agree to these changes set out for this report?
Agreed.
For agenda item 4 .3, Matthew Menon will introduce the report again.
Thank you, chair.
We are now on the member induction plan.
and certainly for Councillor Chaudry, if he feels like he's seen the Constitution a few times, he's definitely seen this one a few times.
So this is our plan for induction for post the elections in May, and again this is something we brought to the committee in September,
this one I think it was as an early thought, and we've also taken the Standards Committee and the Member Steering Group and CMT and various other places as well.
I mean it the report sets out what we're looking to do what the changes were the I think the key thing
Which I keep emphasising is that it's probably a couple of things is one is that this is much more
Ideas around skills base for members. So what sort of skills the members need to know?
rather than
Trying to teach them every single service that the council runs because that will take a little bit more time and just rushing that
It's just a load of data and it doesn't really mean anything to anyone
So hopefully the skill side of thing is really important really useful to members
And then I think the other thing for everybody to think about as well is that we have this induction plan
There's loads in it. There's lots to do. There's lots of opportunities, but it ends in July
But we're not saying that when we come to July every member is going to be perfect
I know everything there's no no more development is required because that's like, you know, we all need to develop
We all need to continue to learn things
so
So the key points there in the plan are that we've got opportunities for personal development
plans, we've got opportunities for mentoring both groups and individual, and that we will
have a continuous member development programme that goes from there.
And what we want to do at the end of the induction plan and the induction period is to go back
to members and say, okay, what do you feel like you know, what's stuck, what do you need
to do again, what new things are maybe coming up you'd like to go down that angle.
And also then because we've got the personal development plans we can go to members individually and say okay. What about you personally?
What do you think you need?
Which is something we've been offering for a couple years by needs the first time we were able to do
Like there's a real kind of moment during the induction and get everyone thinking about it
Collectively and hopefully then chatting to each other and coming up with ideas and things as well
So that's what I hope we really get out of it
But in terms of the plan and what you've got in front of you is to say it's roughly what you've seen
But there's a few tweaks which we've set out in the report
Thank you to everyone who's been involved and the suggestions. We try to incorporate everything inevitably. There'll be bits
We can't do there will be the odd clash as well in the summer
There'll be a committee meeting and there'll be a training session
You can't get away with it entirely
But we've done our very best to keep them separate
There may also have to be the odd change if for example an external trainer something can't do a date
We might have to move it
So little bits of piece like that, but very happy to take any final thoughts that people have
And then we will look to implement as best we can
I think you with you. Do you remember have any question?
Thank you
So can we all everyone agree about in those and member action plan
Do member have any other business wish to note AOV
That concludes the business for today and I would like to thank all members and attending
participants and helping me and the committee throughout this year.
Probably this is the last meeting for this year and I really appreciate everyone's participation
and help.
and the next meeting will update Justyna for next.
The next meeting, the dates for the meeting
will take place at the AGM
and that's when you'll get all the details.
Thank you everyone, thanks again.
Thanks for coming and thank you members.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir, we really appreciate you
for being on the issue, thank you.
Thank you everyone, thanks.
.