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General Purposes Committee
Tuesday, 8th September 2026 at 6:30pm

 

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Good evening and welcome to the general purposes committee meeting.
My name is Councillor Kamrul Hussain and I will be chairing this meeting.
This meeting is being held in person.
Committee members and key participants are present in the meeting room.
Only the committee members present in the meeting room will be able to vote.
Other persons may be also attending remotely.
Committee members and others who have chosen to attend remotely have been advised by the
committee officer that should technical difficulty prevent their full participation in the meeting,
it may proceed in their absence if I feel it necessary.
Now moving on to some housekeeping.
There are no fire alarm tests planned to take place during this meeting.
Should the fire alarm sound, please calmly follow the signs to the nearest fire exit
and please do not use the lips.
This meeting is being filmed for the Council's website for public viewing.
Cameras are focused on those participating in the meeting, but anyone in the room may
be caught on camera in the background.
I would remind members at the meeting
to only speak on my direction and to speak clearly
into their microphones to ensure that the contributions can
be properly recorded.
I'd also like to remind members present
that they have committed through the members' pledge
to treat one another with dignity and respect,
to give others the opportunity to speak,
to listen to different viewpoints and ensure that challenge is constructive and inclusive.
I look forward to seeing all attendees demonstrate this commitment through their conduct this evening.
Now to apologies. Matthew, do we have any apologies?
Thank you, chair. So we have apologies from Councillor Jonathan Purcell,
Councillor Martin Parker is substituting
And also to note that since the agenda was published there have been changes to the membership
So the membership has been reduced from 9 to 7
and so
councillor
for Faisal Ahmed and Peter Golds who are marked on the agenda and no longer members of the committee, so
Council goes here and he obviously is very welcome as anyone else
But they're not formally
Thank you.
Thank you Matthew.
I will now ask the committee members present to introduce themselves.
Please can you also state any declarations of interest that you may have in the agenda
items and the nature of the interest.
Can I start from my right please?
Councillor Martin Parker, Bow West, nothing to declare.
Councillor Abboud, nothing to declare.
Councillor Kabiha Ahmed, nothing to declare.
Councillor Shafiya Ahmed, Whitechapel Road, nothing to declare.
Councillor Amina Ali -Weaver's word, nothing to declare.
Councillor Gould, do you want to introduce yourself, please?
I'm Councillor Peter Gold attending the meeting nothing to declare
Thank You councillors
The minutes from the last meeting on 29th June 20 26 have been
Circulated can you confirm these are correct record of proceedings?
Agreed great. Thank you
Now moving on to the agenda.
Okay, sorry, apologies.
The work plan has been circulated for review.
Do you have any comments?
Please.
Thank you, Chair.
Just to highlight very briefly in terms of today's meeting that local authority governor
Applications was on the work plan, but there aren't any for this meeting
So therefore there's no report and the national scheme of delegation was going to be a separate report
But there's now an update on that in the Constitution update and that was all the information we had
So that's why that's just combined into a report and you can see the the planning for the next couple meetings as well
Thank you, Jeff
Thank you the plot
I'm select could be around it. Sorry Matthew. I was just gonna say as we've got loads of new members and stuff like that
would it be worthwhile for us to have a
Work plan attached to it kind of certain deep dives or stuff like that within particular areas of the general purposes committee
I can say say that back and identify which were which deep dives would be relevant for this committee
Yeah, let me let me tell that way. Yeah
Yes, Councillor Chaudry.
Matthew, just to clarify,
so you know some of the national reviews on things,
so I know we're discussing some stuff today
around planning, you've got the Fit for the Futures programme,
you've got so much stuff that's happening from government
that will impact us locally,
will they be covered in the various constitution updates
in the work plan,
or will they come in as and when we've got updates on each one?
So it depends a little bit on the work plan,
the nature of the changes.
The bigger the changes are, the more likely it is
it'll be its own report coming in at its own time.
Some of them might also depend on timing,
so the national scheme of delegation on planning,
we have to make a decision on that by the end of October,
so it's gotta go to council in October,
so it'll be a struggle to get it to a formal meeting,
but we might look at things like
the constitution working group or circulating informally.
There are other things we can do,
or if members really feel the need as well,
we can have an extraordinary meeting
if it comes to it.
Anyone else?
Thank you members. The work plan has been noted.
Now moving on to agenda item
5 .1 is the Constitution update.
Matthew Manion, Corporate Head of Democratic and Governance Service will give us an overview.
Then any question from members. Over to you Matthew.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm double -hatting tonight with the clerking duties.
I suppose I should say apologies from Justina as well, who's unable to make it.
So this is one of what you'll become used to, a series of reports that we provide on
the Constitution.
At most meetings there will be something that we talk about on the Constitution.
We feel that's important.
We want the Constitution to be seen as a live document, something that you keep bringing,
you keep updating.
we don't just let it gather dust in the corner.
Sometimes the changes will be relatively minor like they are this time, other times they'll
be very significant.
Some things will come via the constitution working group as well if they're particular
projects, especially if they're things that members asked for, and sometimes things will
come direct.
It varies.
So we just talked, I suppose we talked first off just very quickly on the specific changes
that we've got today.
So we'll go skip down to page 23 of the agenda.
Paragraph 3 .29 onwards.
So when you're looking at changes to the constitution,
there's two different types you'll generally get
at the committee.
There are those which officers have done.
They've already made the change because they have
delegated authority to make it.
Or it is something that we are proposing to the committee
and we're asking for the committee's agreement.
Most things in the constitution require members to agree.
There are a few things that don't
and
One thing that doesn't require members to agree is directorate schemes of delegation. So each directorate have a scheme of delegation. This is right
There's these bits of legislation who within the directory is authorised to make decisions underneath that
No big long list if you see them in the back of the constitution is tens of pages of these things
And each corporate director has the responsibility for making the changes to those
So we've got a couple here under housing and regeneration
One is a simple update because it used to be in communities and we've now shifted it
across to housing and regen and the other one is because of the Renter's Right Act 2025
and we needed some new bits in the constitution because of that.
Now you might ask well if these are officer decisions why are they here?
They're here really for a couple of different reasons.
Partly it's transparency.
It's all very well us saying oh well this one isn't significant so we didn't take it.
then you start getting into arguments about what's significant, what isn't significant.
So it's much more transparent just to bring everything to the committee.
And also, although there is a delegation, if over a time you felt as a committee that
maybe a particular corporate director wasn't managing this properly, you could ask for
a report on it, you could even get to the point of removing that delegation and saying
it has to be a member decision.
Obviously for this sort of thing we wouldn't want to do that initially, but that's where
you might get to.
So it's an important monitoring position for you guys.
So those are the two specific things
that we're noting for the Constitution today.
Then if we move back again,
back up to page 20, paragraph 3 .8 onwards.
The other thing that General Purposes Committee do
is take a general overview of how we're getting on
with the Constitution, what's going on,
what projects are there.
You might want to initiate things.
You might want to know what the Constitution Working Group
groups getting up to and all the rest of it.
So there's a couple of little bits and pieces here.
One is to talk to you briefly about the project we've got for a new constitution portal.
This is something that came out of an association of democratic services officers review of
the constitution and also was highlighted by the government inspectors, that the way
that you access the constitution isn't very accessible, it's loads of PDFs which aren't
particularly friendly to anyone and where the information is organised within the constitution
they didn't like either.
This is something we've been working on over the last year or so to try and create a brand
new portal.
This is a new system, no one else has this, which is designed to be machine read and searchable
and all of that kind of stuff that the internet needs these days and screen readers and all
the rest of it needs.
And also we're trying to re -theme the Constitution so that if you're going,
going, well I want to know about planning, you'll find all the planning stuff in the same place.
Or I want to know about the mayor's powers, well they'll all be in the same place.
Whereas in the other, the current Constitution you've got kind of an introduction,
then you've got more complicated stuff as you go through.
There will always be bits, you come in, oh that should be over there,
and this bit should be over here, it can never be perfect.
But this is a new idea.
The electronic version of this has a link to the portal.
So it's worth digging that out and having a look and straight after this meeting there is the opportunity to do some
Constitution training and I will take people through it in more detail then but I don't know it's necessary specifically for this meeting
the formal meeting
So that's that and then from page 22
To the top of page 23
It was just making you aware as well of a couple of areas where there are going to be some changes due to
government changes that are required.
So we've got the local government pension scheme
and the way that that is administered is changing
and we have to change some of our arrangements around that.
There's already been a detailed report
to the Pensions Committee and they've agreed some of this
and we're now trying to work through that
and kind of create the changes that we're gonna need
to see in the constitution.
And then there's also the National Planning Scheme
of Delegation which changes what sort of stuff
comes to committee.
Both of those are government requirements rather than what we've specifically decided
to do.
Both of those, though, need to be implemented soon and so they will be going to council
in October.
We're going to try and hold either a constitution working group or an informal discussion or
something with members in advance so that you can see what it is that's going on with
that as well.
And I think that's probably it for this specific report.
If there's any questions, obviously I'm happy to take them.
If there's anything you'd like to see in the future, let me know.
I suppose one final thing I should highlight from the constitution working group is at
the last meeting they started talking about council procedures and what changes maybe
they would like to see.
For example, how do you make best use of the public engagement element?
How do you make best use of the the member the motions the questions and all of that kind of thing?
How much do you want to hear from the chief executive announcements and all of those sorts of things?
So that's early days that project but we will bring that back to you guys later on for your thoughts
Thank You Matthew now moving on to members comments I think councillor Shafi
Thank you, Matthew and Chair, for allowing me to speak on this. I want to also echo the work that's
gone on behind as you've spoken about it and I think though it speaks for itself, you mentioned
that we've been shortlisted, not won it, but shortlisted for an award which is, which shows
Yeah, commitments and the perseverance of the team and also the constitution working group, which I know many of our members have been involved.
And I think it's so refreshing to actually hear that there is actually going to be a portal.
What my question here is, all those changes that are going to happen in regards to the planning scheme, the pension scheme,
Would that be automatically updated on the system to be in line with the constitution?
Or do we, number one, or do we have to, as a GPC committee, do we approve it before it
goes to the full council?
That's why.
Thank you.
So given the timelines and that it has to go to council in early October, I think the
plan will be that we will circulate it to members for your comments and we can, and
Constitution working group is easier to hold than a general -purposes committee's you don't need all the same formal
Gubbins around it but equally of course members are always free to call an extraordinary meeting and if members felt that was really what was
Required then that's what we could look at
But it may be that all the other discussions and debates and given a lot of this is what the government say you've got to
do
Would you know we judge it at the time?
Thank You comes a lot of chow tree
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks Matthew for the work that you've been leading on with members.
I should say I know Councillor Gough, Councillor Cappia, quite a few others have been part
of the committee and it's nice to see the progress because a couple of years down now
I've accessed the portal on my phone for the first time.
It reads quite well.
So last time, I think it was a couple of days ago when I looked into it through my computer,
I sort of could navigate quite well.
you could search things which is really good but I had an access it through the
phone and I think equally I can I can navigate through the Constitution which
is really good and the fact that no one else has it like that it's quite nice to
be the trailblazer in this regard so I look forward to hearing back in terms of
our the shortlist from ATSO and whether we've been successful and you
some of the discussions in the constitution working group now about how we can further
build on some of this work would be welcomed.
Everything else there in the report is for noting, so I don't really have anything further
to add, but just to comment on the portal, I think it just looks really good.
So well done.
Councillor Kabiramit.
Thank you, Chair.
It's actually quite interesting that both Councillor Gulls and Councillor Shafi Ahmed are in the meeting today.
I've just run co -pilot with procedural points and also checked on the website, a Google search for it.
And guess what? Peter, you don't have to bring the big bundles anymore. It's all there, laid out.
So yeah, I mean we have to evolve with the times and I think I think
And it's very clear and precise. So and Shafi's favourite words a speaker used to be what's the procedural?
And I know I know we go off and rats about that
But I suppose for members to operate and function properly
We need access to specific information and Peter knows how big those bundles were when he would carry into council
Okay, but now we have it, you know, a touch of a key. So one is educational and
two we can get the relevant points across but more importantly having
access to the Constitution for the general public means that they can hold
us councillors to account in relation to how we should operate both as members
and as a council as well because that's the backbone of the council, the
constitution.
Thank you councillors.
Any other?
Councillor Martin?
Thank you chair.
I would also like to say that I like how the new constitution is laid out, so I accessed
it also from my phone.
I just had a question to ask which, because I'm actually a substitute so I do not know
how this would normally work, is there's something in the Constitution which I feel should be amended.
How do I present this to the Constitution Working Group?
And the other, my second question is, has the Constitution been checked under Public Sector Quality Duty?
because the issue that I've identified I think falls foul of the Equality Act 22.
Thank you, good questions. On the first one any member is at any time welcome to
email the monitoring officer and say they've identified something they would
like changed and then what would happen from that it depends on what it was. If
If it was a factual error, for example, then the monitoring officer has the authority to
simply make that change and they will report it up to a general purposes committee for
transparency.
If it is more a I think this would be better if it was like this, then it would depend
on exactly what that was, but often those would go to the constitution working group
who would have a bit of a chat and decide whether they agreed or not and then would
work out what to do from there.
In terms of the public sector quality duty, I would have to cheque with the lawyers.
I know that when we got out so to do review they did a review of an awful lot of the Constitution whether they were
As thorough on that bit we may not have asked them that to be fair
I would have to go back and find out more about that
And if you've got a particular thing you think it falls foul of them, please do let us know
Thank you hope the answer is your question any other members wish to speak
No
Okay. Thank you all for your time
and that concludes the business for this meeting today.
And the next meeting will take place on December, 2020,
sorry, 10 December, 2026.
Thank you.
And just to say that if anyone does want to go
through constitution stuff,
we did put the member invite out.
So I will be around if people want to,
but it's not mandatory, it's just if you would like to.
.