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Standards Advisory Committee
Tuesday, 20th October 2026 at 6:30pm

 

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An agenda has not been published for this meeting.

Well, good evening, everybody. Thank you for attending those in person and online. Thank
you very much. We'll start with apologies for absence.
Chair, we have Councillor Abu Talar Chaudhry who has sent apologies.
Councillor Tlukta is substituting.
We also have Councillor sorry, we also have Antonia Bernard, the independent person.
She has sent her apologies.
Councillor Shinali Mia has also said her apologies and Councillor Sabina Akhtar is
actually I was substituting Abu Talal Chaudhry and I think the DM is substituting Shinali.
Okay sorry about that. Yes so we've also got some members online Councillor Minara
Thank you.
The good thing is two of you are here in person.
We are in court.
Let's proceed.
Declarations of interest.
Please.
Thank you, Chair.
Just for the record, I'm the chief whip of Aspire, so time to time I do get contacted by the monitoring officer and so on.
Obviously it's not named, but I just want to put it on record.
Yeah, that's fine. I don't think there's anything on the agenda that puts you in a conflict of interest position.
Thank you for that. Minutes of the previous meeting, which you have in front of you.
Are there any corrections? Fiona?
Yeah, I mentioned in the minutes, but not as attending.
Thank you.
Not that I said it on speaker as a correct record.
Thank you.
Moving on then to reports.
3 .1 Register of Interest, DIFs and Hospitality update.
Thank you, Chair. This is the first update post -election to the Committee.
It's just a short report to confirm that all Councillors following the elections have completed a declaration of interest
and also all co -opted members as well.
We're just waiting for one to be signed that was submitted without the signature,
but otherwise we now have all declaration of interest in,
and there have been no declarations of gifts and hospitality.
Thank you.
In the environment we have now, it's clear that people are no longer pushing gifts and hospitality,
except on certain exceptional circumstances.
And we know how to deal with them.
Any other comments or questions?
My question was around, I think, I can't find it.
I've read it somewhere.
There were two members, core team members,
that were outstanding.
Is it one now?
They were at the time of writing,
but we've since got them in.
Sorry, I should have clarified that.
But yeah, you're right.
At the time of writing, we were waiting for two,
but we've now got them all.
Any timeline because it's quite a governance issue here
So I think because it's there's been a lot of recruitment of co -opted members. They were new ones
So no that the timeline wasn't an issue for them
We all content with that then yes, so shall we move on to code of conduct?
Thank you chair, so you've got the report in front of you plus the list in the appendix of all the complaints that were received
So he told him number
2024 complaints received in the preceding year
Happy to take any questions
I'm looking to members for questions.
Thank you.
24, so are there any previous, there's no backlogs or anything from the election period.
Any outstanding complaints?
So 24 complaints for the period from May 25 to April 26. So we are reporting retrospectively.
So in terms of current complaints, we're dealing with them very swiftly. So we don't have many
complaints in and the ones we do receive, we deal with them swiftly and within the time scale.
I think I've had a look, it looks like the complaint's been dealt pretty much I think
within four or five weeks, which is good, so I'd like to acknowledge that and thank
officers, especially monitoring officer or the legal officer, because previously it was
quite a lengthy process, so I'd like to acknowledge that and thank your team and everyone that
involved. Thank You council I'll take that away and let the team know as well.
Thank you. Thank you I just like to echo our friends comments here and I think
it's really helpful to see the regularity of the things being chased up.
I just had one question which were related to a case where it's number 003
I think it's this one, where there were various deadlines giving to the elected member, but
the case was proceeded, the process was to continue in the absence of a response anyway.
And I didn't quite understand why the member hadn't been given a chance to respond before
the process continued.
So I just wondered if you could just help me with that.
Page 9 of 11, yeah.
So for example, so 30th of July 26,
acknowledgement sent to complainant,
complaint sent to elected member with response requested by the 13th of August.
And then on the 10th of August, so before the deadline,
case reviewed and elected member response chased,
processed to continue in the absence of a response.
And I wondered why that was,
given that the response, as far as I could see,
wasn't overdue.
And then a reminder was sent.
And then on the 12th of August,
even though the deadline's the 13th,
it was agreed again that the procedure could continue.
I just, just from a fairness perspective,
it didn't make sense to me,
but it might be that I was missing something,
So I was just hoping for some clarification.
I'd have to look into it in more detail.
But from what I can see, this member was sent chases.
It could be that we had the information we needed
in consultation with the independent person
to make a decision.
I can go back and look at the facts and reply to you.
Online.
Nothing from me. Thank you.
I just have one comment. With regards to the anti -racism training issues, it appears in
the minutes from previous minutes, but I'm a little bit confused. It doesn't show how
much information.
Sorry, could you refer us to the relevant report?
Yeah, but this is what I'm trying to look around page 9, 9, 10.
Under the members.
Page 9, 10. I'm just trying to.
I'm just opening you up, Councillor.
Yeah. Page 910 from previous minutes. Sorry. That's what I was referring to.
If I may, I think the council is referring to the point I was making in the last meeting
about the anti -racism training. So that was a general point that was made rather than a
specific point in relation to any complaints that had come in from councillors. The point
was that in the NHS, Lord Mann has undertaken a review into antisemitism in the NHS and
there's reports going back to the Health Select Committee about specialist antisemitism
in training and also anti -Islamophobia training,
maybe anti -Islam training.
Sorry, get that right.
So that was the recommendation that came out of that report.
And my question was, has that been looked at in the context
of local government?
And I think people were going to go away and sort of explore
the report and see whether there was any learning
for local government.
So I was going to pick that up in any other business.
Thank you.
I can quickly cover that now if it's any help, but not necessarily anything from a wider
perspective, but we have contacted two training organisations looking to run our own anti -Semitism
and Islamophobia training, and I've been doing, I've spoken to the chief about that.
So hopefully that will be coming soon, and hopefully yes, we can learn some more stuff
from the others as well, but at least we're taking our own action.
Thank you.
We often do.
We do often contact yourselves and other WIPs where we need to.
But of course we don't know the party of this particular.
I
Think it's best I go away and look at it and then
Yeah, we do
Any further questions or comments on this report then
Elected members know I was asked a question
by council saying
When I spoke to the annual report for Council
earlier this month and
I've got a reply
which I've yet to set but I'll copy it to members of this committee and
By osmosis or Matthew it will go out to full council as far as
people remember the question, but I'm sure they will remember the question, but it's a straightforward answer,
which is the disparity in the numbers was accidental, but my email will terrify,
and all of the complaints didn't meet the threshold for detail kicking about, a technical expression.
So I'll be telling that shortly
If there are no other questions on this report we'll move to member inductive Matthew
Thank You chair
So this is
Well, underneath this is our annual report to the committee on member learning and development.
But obviously as we've just had an election and we've just had a big member induction
programme that kind of, I don't want to say overshadows, obviously everything is important,
but that's the biggest sort of part of this report.
But just as a starter, just to draw attention to the fact there is a little bit of information
left over from the end of last year's member development programme, so that is there as well
if you're interested.
But I think the induction programme is probably the most interesting part of this.
And we, as some members will remember, we came to the committee a couple of times in
the lead up to the election and we prepared our programme then and we got the committee
to feed into it and sign it off, as did General Purpose' committee and then we implemented
it, particularly Trish and her team worked very hard to implement the induction programme.
There were various elements, information provided in advance of the election, there was what we did on the day of the count,
and getting them all signed up, and indeed giving them this nice welcome brochure which the chairs got a copy of their friend.
And we'll just have a look, then the chairs got a copy to hand around.
We don't have many left, so if we can have it back that would be great.
But that's got lots of useful information to members in it.
We had a welcome evening, we had an admin induction,
and then obviously we had all of the training programme
from May through to July, and a couple of bits
sort of fed over into September.
Inevitably there's always something
that gets delayed or deferred.
We particularly made an effort to go for external trainers.
That was some particular feedback we had.
In terms of engagement and how members found it,
in the report I've given you sort of a summary
of the scores that were filled in, which were really good, and certainly we got lots of
good feedback, and a few little suggestions on things we can improve as well. But I think
more than that, the engagement levels were really high. So it wasn't just about members
coming along and sitting there thinking, well why am I here? They were actually getting
involved, asking lots of questions, chatting amongst themselves as well, and building those
relationships which was really good and I think even just the fact that the surveys were filled in in itself says something because
Last time four years ago. We really struggled to get people to fit in surveys and this time
We really did get get that kind of engagement was really good
In the appendix, we've got the attendance
And you'll see that for the new members. I think they averaged something like 15 sessions each
Over that period that's I think it's more than one a week, which is really really really good
So we're really pleased with that.
Returning members, you wouldn't expect to see as much
because often a lot of this stuff they know already
and they don't need to come to them.
Some people do, some people don't.
Obviously it's targeted at the new members.
We like everyone to come, but we don't have to.
And yeah, it feels like a really good sort of foundation.
Obviously there's a lot more to do.
We've got to develop our member development plan
for the next year and for the years after that.
We've already got some ideas, we talk about the anti -Semitism and the Islamophobia, we're looking at AI as something we should be looking at to teach members, and there's lots of other bits and pieces coming in.
And we're doing a survey of members this autumn where we'll ask them for their overarching view of the induction programmes, so not the specifics on the particular courses, but what they still feel they need, what overall was good, and just kind of generally get that.
We'll report that back to the committee as well,
either by email or by report.
We'll talk to the chair about what you think
is the best idea for that.
We've nearly completed our PDPs, haven't we, Trish?
I think there's one more to go, something like that?
Two more to go.
Once all of those done, then 38 of our 45 members
will have PDPs, either this time or from a couple
of years ago, which they've carried on,
which is a really high level.
When we did the charter mark a couple of years ago, those who remember we did the charter mark,
they were kind of advising if you manage to get half your members doing a PDP, personal development plan,
then you should be really happy. So we're well beyond that kind of level.
Obviously we now want to see them make use of it and identify the training courses and that kind of stuff.
mentors as well will be offering all of the usual stuff and group mentors as well if people
would like that. I think that's probably it for a summary, somebody might remind me if
I've missed something, but I think thank you very much to the team who did all the work
putting all that on, thank you to all the trainers and thank you to the members for
actually participating and being engaged, it made it feel worthwhile.
Questions and comments.
You're saying that obviously we should achieve it, but then again you're saying some work
needs to be done.
Exploring how member development work supports the council's partnership working.
I'm trying to get that.
What are you trying to say?
Yes, so that's a good point.
I knew there was something I hadn't talked about.
So the charter mark, last time we went for it a couple of years ago,
we went for the standard charter mark.
There is also a charter mark plus, which is like the higher level.
And at the time we decided let's start, get the charter mark
and then worry about the plus later.
And it's now time to start worrying about the plus, as it were.
So we had a set off meeting with the southeast employers
who score it and that is the one area where,
it's not so much that we're lacking,
it's just we've never provided them with the evidence
because we weren't trying to before.
But it's about showing how the sorts of training we do
benefits members when they're working with partners.
So we just have to, we need to think,
we need to talk to you guys as well
about what sort of evidence we should be using for that.
We've got a couple of ideas,
but we'll come to members as well.
How can we?
How can we talk to them like that?
We want to get that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we'll talk to you,
so we don't need to talk to all partners,
we need to talk to a couple,
think about the sorts of skills
and the members use when they're dealing with partners
and how can we show that links back
to our training programme and that kind of thing.
I think things like mentoring is probably a good example there because obviously cabinet members have all of those links with partners and anyone who's had successful mentoring, they can say how they've used that, what knowledge they gained from that when talking to partners.
And also some of the sort of, probably some of the training around dealing with big chairing meetings and engaging with people.
I've got some case studies we can use.
Just on that, of course, when you come to tell us about Charter Marker, what you've done,
it would be good to see a couple of case studies, even if they have to be anonymised,
because, I mean, whatever you have to send to the employers, they can find.
but I think in terms of what we put on public record and as far as anywhere ever watches us
It would be very nice to hear and therefore have on the record
Particularly across the parties and particularly with the number of
As you call it brand new members this year
It'd be very interesting to see and I'm sure what I know of the course contents and the
the kind of things that people can benefit from, for which I supplied encouragement at the Council meeting.
There are some real benefits there and it would be great to see somebody say,
I didn't realise what I now know and this is really great in terms of my work.
Thank you, Chair. So I would just like to thank the team for all the kind of training
that has been provided for members. I know when I first started, from then what was available
to now, it really has developed and progressed and I can see from my colleagues who really
attend and they enjoy some of the seminars and the training and the development sessions
that you guys have carried out, so it's really been helpful.
I just want to say, you know, appendix two,
that it's got Y's.
What is that indicating?
Because I understand the numbers before that,
saying how many training sessions
the members has attended, but.
The Y's is the one saying, oh,
bring the paper copy to the lab.
So what is, like, what tally is that?
Sorry, there was, I think I sent around my email, I meant to bring some paper copies
so the appendix two didn't come out quite right in the pack so it probably does look
slightly odd.
What it's attempting to show, oh it shows it a little bit better.
The wise offer they attended that particular training session but where there's those
big oblongs that should be the names of the training sessions.
Yeah, I was thinking, okay.
And we've circulated a copy of the works of this and I'm meant to bring some paper copies down.
And the first table shows the numbers?
So the very first column which actually has numbers shows the total number of training sessions that person has done over that period.
Not just the induction, it's also the period at the end of last year.
Okay, so I obviously had the personal development session.
PDPs, yeah, so that wouldn't be in,
this is just the group, like the general training.
So when I did have that personal development,
and I can say like some of the things that I've reflected
over the years of being a counsellor,
and I did recommend my colleagues to actually take part,
because it kind of gives you that onset
to kind of reflect on yourself and your work,
and keeping that balance as a counsellor,
and the work outside that is expected.
I recommend to my colleagues to do that.
It is helpful and takes you outside the box.
So, yeah.
Go on, please.
Hello?
Yes.
Go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Sorry, I wasn't sure.
I just want to say that I think it is important to remember that
Thank you. Firstly, more of a comment. All the training and the member inductions and
that being one of the newly elected members was really beneficial, I would say. And even
speaking to other councillors around the country or in different parts of London,
and even our neighbouring somewhere, neighbouring boroughs,
they haven't had the extent or the level of training
that we've had.
So thank you for that to Matthew and all the team
and all the officers involved,
because I feel like as newly elected councillors
is really enhanced and helped us to start off our roles
in a good, positive way.
And the other one, the other thing was
With regards to the PDPs, I've had my PDP and I know most of my consular colleagues and others
have had. When do you expect them to come to develop and when can we expect them to happen?
the specific trainings and the outcomes from the PDPs. Thank you.
Thank you. That's good to hear that it was of benefit. In terms of the PDPs, so
we usually get all the information back once all of the PDPs have been completed
and as we were just saying we were on the last couple this week so we're very
nearly there. In terms of what we do then, there's sort of different bits to it.
So obviously each member gets their own PDP and can identify particular things
they're interested in. So for example if a member is it's identified that there's
a particular local government association course or types of courses
the the member is encouraged to have a look on the website because it's
It's obviously quicker if they do it themselves.
We will also have a look and try and identify things
for members, but there's 38 of these PDPs now.
There's too many of them.
They shouldn't all be signing up, should they?
As we've got to go through them all now
and cheque everything and come up with some ideas
from ourselves, that can take a bit longer.
That's a good point as well from Trish,
is that the PDPs are confidential to the member themselves
and me and no further unless the member is happy to allow others to see it. So obviously the more
people who can see it the quicker we can process them but the more people have seen it. So it
depends on whether the member is happy with that and usually we don't ask them that question until
they've seen it themselves. But also on top of that the South East employers they give us like
summary and they'll particularly highlight so maybe there's a certain
type of training the a dozen members it's come up for a dozen members and
then we know that and so we might well target that as a first priority and try
and put that on as an offer it to everyone because we know it's something
that is useful so there's you know there's different ways of doing it but
But hopefully, as I said, hopefully we'll start to move quite soon.
I just wanted to echo all the hard work of the team and the councillors in terms of achieving what you have outlined in this paper.
And I look forward to seeing how that continues.
I wondered, so I'm just coming at this question as a resident.
and I wondered whether there were any metrics that you could look at from residents. I mean,
obviously there are elections, but I mean, are there other metrics from residents? Because
the sort of the hypothesis is, you know, this level of engagement and training leads to
good service for residents on the council.
And I just wondered whether there were any other metrics
that could show impact from that perspective.
It was a question, really.
I mean, it's an interesting thought.
Yeah, I'll have a think.
I can roll back.
Ha ha ha.
We used to have online, I mean,
The amount of members inquiry council has raised is to be updated on the website.
I'm not sure if we still do it.
This can be obtained through FYI, I think.
And also attendance on the website.
You can search for like how many meetings each member is expected to attend and how
many they have attended.
So these metrics, I mean, these are just some examples.
I can also add that with all this training and personal development plan, we would hope
that we would see fewer complaints maybe against members from members of the public or member
to member and also maybe committee meetings would be conducted as they should be, so fewer
complaints.
So that's what we would hope to see or behaviour at council meetings would be a lot better. That's what we'd hope to see
Yes with all the goodwill that's around and the achievements of putting this together
I was wondering whether there's any way I'm maybe done already whether it would be good to showcase
Some of this in a public forum somewhere or on the local newspapers or something in a way to demonstrate
like as a resident to show that
you know, councillors are achieving and committed to good service and they've
achieved these kind of levels of induction and training and stuff. I mean
it just, there's a level of reassurance that in the public perception of how bad
or how good councillors are doing and probably most people don't engage with
their councillors very much but I think as a way to showcase the work publicly I
think it might be might be good to do something that way I'm not sure
necessarily but given the amount of work and the amount of hours and time that's
been put behind it it'll be good for the residents of Tower Hamlets to know that
their counsellors who work on their behalf were actually committed to good
training and quality delivery. Yeah it's a good thought I'll talk to comms about
that and see what we can do. Yeah well those of us who are registered to
receive emails from the council will be looking forward to
something that which might
Connect that might provide a link to something else
Being in the email itself. I
Don't want us to
Finish this item before myself commenting on the brochure, which I think was a very good idea
Particularly for quote brand new members
And I'm going to take it home.
I will give you back before the next election.
But I've already seen that it reads much more impactful
than the printed version that we've got here.
And in my pedantic way, I was spotting
typographical errors, which clearly are not in the brochure.
It's just the way it prints down.
So have other authorities used this kind of approach?
We did a bit of research, obviously, when we were putting it together.
We did find the odd one, not many, but there were a few out there.
But I think it is a less common idea.
But hopefully more places will take it up.
It is good.
And one of the things we did was we did provide a little pack of information and like a little bag and everything for all to go.
So it feels like you're getting something worth looking at and worrying about rather than just a couple of sheets of black and white paper or whatever.
So hopefully members felt that when they picked it up.
Well certainly the atmosphere and the ethics and probity training two sessions that I attended was good.
So already people were getting in the swim of things and it was across parties and warm in its content, so that was good.
Maybe this is the point where I could say that I was going to report separately on Fiona and I having met the Chief Exec on Friday last with Matthew Tresin,
But one of the points that Steve made was that the
envoys
Themselves thought that the last council meeting on the 7th went very well and was well behaved
Not just because I was on the platform looking at people not at all
No, because I think hopefully people have got the message
Which is the point you were making there?
Any other comments?
Yeah, I just had a comment in regards to appendix 2. I've noticed some councillors who are no longer councillors on the list
So we may want to update it plus with the heading of the training that they attended and up
Because it was obviously going to be there on the website for others to access
So maybe if we can just update it because I can see people like
So this is the issue with the name. So they should be on there because it also looks at
training from last year. So there's that what is what but it's not clear because we don't
have all the titles. So we can we'll provide the proper version. The version we circulated
by email we'll put up on the website as an extra supplement as well.
We might want to put, if they have to be there, the previous councillors, we might want to put an asterisk to say they are no longer councillors.
Because obviously it looks like their training is very low number, which is why it attracted my eyes, thinking why have they just done one?
Well, because they are no longer councillors.
I'm looking for any other comments or questions.
Thank you. Thank you, Martin, Tricia and all the team again.
Very good. Let's move to the work plan then.
Thank you, Chair. So I don't think there's a huge amount of
reports on the work plan in terms of changes. I think the highlight, the main item at the
Next meeting will probably be the continuous improvement plan update that Joel West from
the project team is planning to give us.
I think that will be quite good.
And that probably links back, I would say now rather than under AOB, but we were talking
about continuous improvement and deep dives and things and the reassurance this committee
needs that whether there's anything that this committee is responsible that has been
Discovered, you know issues discovered in any of the deep dives or anywhere else
I'm not sure that was necessarily specifically what Joel was planning on his report there
But we'll link it all together to make sure that it the you got the richer and so you were asking for from there from the
chief exec
on that issue
But yeah, and apart now that we the code of conduct as usual and the Gibson hospitality as usual
Any other suggestions for what we might
No, but if we can think of any, we'll tell you.
Yes.
If anyone's got anything they need to add, please let me know and I'll add it. Thank you.
In that case, moving on to any other business. Fiona.
Matthew.
Thank you, Chair. Yes, you just asked me on top of that point about the continuous improvement
work, just asked me to make sure that co -opted members were aware of the changes that have
taken place in relation to the monitoring officer role. So the Chief Executive has announced
recently some structural changes at the top of the organisation and one of those is the
creation of a new Chief Compliance Officer post which looks at a number of the sort of
the audit and governance type areas,
so information governance and internal audit
and legal and democratic services and people.
And that role will become the monitoring officer
once they are recruited to.
The intent is for them to be recruited to fairly soon,
obviously depends on a successful process.
At the moment, Mark Norman is covering,
formally covering the MO role,
but Shupriya, myself, Jill, et cetera,
continue to do what you think we would be doing under that.
We always were part of that team,
and I say always will be, we are part of that team.
Obviously it would be for the new person
to decide how they want to organise that.
But just to make sure that the COPT members
were aware of that.
And then there was the best value thing,
and then was the, oh, and COPTs as well,
we should say that, so a number of our COPTs on standards
are coming to the end of their terms,
and we're having to sort out either reappointment or you know continues or
interviews and all of that we would obviously keep the committee updated the
chair is fully involved in that process
Thank You Matthew so Fiona and I met the chief exec on Friday as one of a
continuous series of just being up -to -date and knowing each other so to
speak and I raised the matter of the Chief Compliance Officer because I only
learned about it through the Open Council Network email but I understand
that the way the timing went was why it sort of sit down the cracks and we
weren't told. I also raised for reassurance I didn't imagine there was a
that the external auditors had, and again this was in the open council network reporting
that any resident can have, and I suppose we know how many of our residents use that
national service. The auditors had reported on lack of controls and governance matters,
and I didn't imagine it commented on the work of our committee.
And indeed the chief exec confirmed that was the case.
We're not seen as in any shortfall of governments and controls in our work
because we're conscientious and we carry on doing what we do.
We're not complaining about Steve it's on our our part that we have confirmed a date
Is there any other business?
In that case, thank you everybody for attending thank you see you shortly
Thank you very much
Thank you.