General Purposes Committee - Tuesday 4 February 2025, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

General Purposes Committee
Tuesday, 4th February 2025 at 7:30pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

Okay, everybody, I'm going to start the meeting.
I'm told Councillor Corner is very much on his way.
And I think the same is also true of Mr. Parry, who's going to be joining us remotely.
So I'm going to start the meeting.
And first of all, welcome to everybody.
Hi Matthew, welcome to everybody this evening. Actually where is, there is one
other missing. You saw him, he was, I saw him earlier. Okay, all right I think I
think I'll steam on all the same. So we haven't actually received any apologies
this evening. I'm not going to go through everybody in alphabetical order
and get them to introduce themselves. What I propose is, as I've said at
previous meetings, is when you come to speak, if I call you to speak, please say
who you are, say Councillor whatever and where you represent or however you want
to describe yourself. I'm also going to suggest this evening that as it's the
case across the council that increasingly we are using people's first
names rather than titles and surnames if it's all right with members of the
committee and do object if you don't like it I was going to use people's
first names here this evening as well yes go on then Councillor Graham surely
this is something for the task and finish group to review and then make
recommendation.
Well, I suppose it is, but on the other hand, I like to try and be an innovative chair.
Listen, I won't do it if the minority party object.
If you object, then do say so.
Otherwise I'm going to use people's first notes.
I think we'd like a bit more notice to think about it rather than...
You would?
Yes, thank you.
All right, okay, that's fair enough.
If that's the case, we will stick with Councillor Graham rather than your first name, et cetera,
as we go round, as I call people to speak.
Okay.

1 Minutes - 18 November 2024

So I'm going to go to the minutes of the meeting, the last meeting.
Are the minutes from the last meeting agreed?
Agreed.
Very good.

2 Declarations of Interests

Are there any declarations of interest from anybody this evening?
Anyone want to declare any kind of interest?
No?

3 Democracy Review Progress Report (Paper No. 25-36)

So that brings us straight to item three, the first proper item on the agenda, which
is the Democracy Review Progress Report.
and I'm going to invite somebody to present it. Is that Mr. Chowdhury? Yes,
please. If you'd like to briefly introduce Item 3, please. Yes, of course,
Chair. So, members, the recommendation before you is to note, rather than to determine anything,
which is the progress on the items that have been discussed at the task and finish groups.
The three areas that the task and finish group meetings have focused on have been to move away from the current arrangements
whereby overview and scrutiny committees review all decisions to be taken by the executive,
the introduction of financial threshold for key decisions and the reform of the arrangements for call -in of executive decisions.
So, members, the detail is set out in the report rather than read those to you.
What I will ask you to look at is around the timeline that is set out in the introduction
section in paragraph three, that is, the detail of the constitutional changes to implement
the changes that I referenced earlier will be considered by the Executive at
its meeting on March 3rd and then for onward consideration by full Council on
5th of March and if the changes are proposed and agreed by full Council the
changes will take effect after the 5th of March.
So, Chair, a little on the detail
of the paper. I'll make it quick
if I can. With regards to the scrutiny
function operated by the Council, it is somewhat unusual
amongst other authorities that operate
a cabinet and lead a form of governance, also referred to as an executive form of governance,
whereby in this council all decisions to be considered by the Executive are
subject to pre -decision scrutiny by the overview and scrutiny committees. That is
an unusual provision but it isn't an unlawful provision it's been operated
for a number of years. The discussion at the task and finish group was to move
away from that and the detail of that proposal will be worked up and there's a
the future arrangements could operate.
In summary, the intent is that the existing scrutiny committees continue to operate, but
the statutory scrutiny function to call in the decisions of the executive will be exercised
by one of those committees rather than each of the service areas currently covered by
the different committees.
The overview and scrutiny committees will continue to function.
They will have a slightly different remit whereby they are not just considering 11th
hour scrutiny of decisions to be taken by the Executive, rather they will look at the
forward plan of the Council as well as particular matters that the scrutiny committees intend
and to look at and develop proposals for executive and, if necessary, for full council.
In terms of the key decision threshold, again, there isn't a financial threshold in Wandsworth,
and some consideration has been given by the task of the Finnish groups around setting
a threshold on that.
And the accompanying that part of the discussions to the task and finish group, members will
have received the research that we produced around the threshold that authorities across
London operate as part of that.
And then finally, chaired by way of introduction with regards to the call -in provision, the
The current provisions on call -in procedure for executive decisions reflects in effect
the statutory minimum when you're operating a leader and cabinet form of governance.
It contains very minimal notice periods in terms of when call -in requests can be exercised.
So the intent around that is to revise that and to produce more detailed provisions around
the timelines and the category of decisions that Council might consider relevant, might
consider to be most appropriate where call -in is exercised.
So that's my way of introduction.
I'm happy to assist with any questions.
I also note that Mr. Parry is with us now and he has joined the discussions at the task
and finish groups as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chaudry.
Just very quickly, Mr. Parry, do you have anything to add in the way of observation
on any of that?
No support, I'm telling you what Mr. Chaudry has already said, Chair.
Thank you very much.
So, comments first of all.
Councillor Graham.
Inevitably.
So, this is as a preface to the actual contents of this report.
My understanding was, and I did say this in private a week ago, so this will come as no
shock, that we had set up the task and finish group in order to come up with recommendations,
or at least see if we could come up with recommendations.
There's recommendations from the task and finish group once they've been derived,
would then come to this committee as the parent committee, and we would look at what the actual
changes to the constitution would be in detail and look at what line by line the drafting
of those changes would then consist of in order to ensure that we all knew what we were
doing and agreeing and it was going to come out of that cross -party process.
We have had two online meetings of the task and finish group.
We haven't agreed any recommendations.
Indeed, the discussion that summarized here that somehow would come
to consensus, it was largely that there were lots of other questions we needed to look at,
lots of other pieces of the puzzle that needed to be pinned
down before we could adequately say what we wanted a call -in procedure or a key decision
to apply to, to know what it would mean.
because you have to know how it operates in context,
to know what that would be.
And so I don't understand why, when
there have been no recommendations and no discussion
of recommendations at the task and finish group,
this has been plucked out of that process by officers
and placed back here prematurely, so prematurely
that there isn't any detail.
And we are now being told that instead of members
discussing that in a cross -party way and trying to find agreement, it will be determined by
the Executive, which when we had this debate before, it was agreed that the Executive is
not a committee of this Council. It is a one -party group that would be marking its own homework
on how it was scrutinized and making the recommendations directly to full Council when we have not
given it that function in our constitution.
The executive has no function to make recommendations
on the constitution to the council.
So this just seems to me to be going against everything
that we'd agreed, jeopardizing that potential cross -party
agreement that we could reach in order
to pluck certain things out in advance
and ram them through without any of us
getting to see what they would actually involve.
And therefore, I'd like some understanding of why we're here right now, why we're having
this meeting to discuss these particular points when that task and finish group has barely
begun its work, let alone reach the stage of recommendations.
Councillor Apps.
Thank you very much.
So I'm Councillor Apps and I'm the member for Shaftesbury and Queenstown, along with
two others.
Yeah, I just think that we need to bear in mind,
like let's not look the gift horse in the mouth.
You know, we actually have a huge opportunity here
to have a really good system of scrutiny
for both opposition and for majority group members.
We've had more discussion on this probably,
and frankly, more goodwill discussion on this,
and we have on many different issues.
So, and you know, if there's a failure
to bring recommendations, you know,
we must all be part of that.
But we do think actually on our side that there were some very clear directions of travel that we can look at and
That they can provide a guide for moving forward
But we want to make the most of this opportunity to to to basically to actually allow all
counselors who are involved in scrutiny who are all backbenchers to have an opportunity to to
to look at policy making, to make sure
that we're implementing that, to make sure
that we're able to feed into that process.
And that will actually be really positive experience
for all of us.
I think the other thing is, is this is not,
one thing that has really struck me through this process,
is this is not rocket science.
You know, the fact is, is that call -in processes,
key decision processes, and the brink,
breaking the link between scrutiny and executive decisions
is really commonplace, there's a common standard of behavior.
It's very easy to look at other councils
and how they've progressed this.
And actually, we are a complete outlier.
And the way that we conduct our business
is extremely unusual and unhelpful for moving forward
and making sure that all councils do give their best
to developing public policy.
The fact is that at the moment, we're not.
We're just involved in looking at very, you know,
decisions which are about to be made.
So we can't really have any proper influence on them.
So we just end up squabbling in a party political way,
which is super unhelpful.
And the fact is, is we want to make some progress on that
and move that forward.
I recognize we're slightly still in an old fashioned state
where we're still making decisions close to the decision
and that is influencing the process.
But we would like to move beyond this
so that councils can play their full part in our democracy.
Councilor Coroner.
Thank you, Chair.
Look, in terms of the recommendations of this paper, it says that we're only being asked
to note the progress on items discussed at the Tastes and Finish Group.
So we might be able to do that this evening, but I don't see to Councillor Graham's point
that we're any closer to landing at kind of recommendations that we can endorse to the
wider Council.
That's not to say that the conversations we've had so far in the two Tastes and Finish Groups
haven't been helpful but I think they need to be a lot more in -depth and a lot
more definitive in terms of what they're bringing to this committee and of course
to the wider council. I take Councillor App's point as well I actually agree with
it but I do think we might need more time before deciding on things would be
my input for where we go from here. A few comments on the tasks and finish
group. I think it's a really helpful thing to do to meet in private but I
don't think we've got the support actually at the moment to be an
effective task and finish group. What we need is an agenda and options that feed
into those meetings so that we know what we're deciding on, what we're rejecting,
what we're approving. Now that doesn't all have to be on offices or the Centre
for Governance that could be councillors doing homework themselves in their own
their own research. You know that would be something that I would be happy to do
and I'm sure others around this table would be.
And then we could actually have a purposeful discussion
with clear conclusions that then get
discussed at this forum and by the wider council.
Instead, we've really got no record of outputs.
There is a record of inputs in this paper,
but no real record of output.
So it's not clear to me what exactly we're noting.
So whilst I'm happy to note that the Tarkson Finish
Group has progressed things, I would
cautious about recommending changes to how the council operates at this stage.
Okay, Councillor Grimston. Thank you, Chair. I've increasingly felt that the whole
process, it feels rather like in the Greek picture. There are detailed
bits but there's no sense of how they all fit together. I mean, to give one
obvious example. I think we kind of agreed that one of the challenges the
ones were faced, one of the areas we don't do terribly well, is cross -departmental
thinking. We tend to be very siloed and at the moment we have a structure of
scrutiny committees that contributes to that because they are organized
along the council's departments, they're organized along the portfolios. There's a
real opportunity if we're looking at scrutiny from the basis that we can move
away from scrutiny being organized as inward looking and focusing on the internal structure
of the organization and move it towards looking at the external issues that directly face
our people like that.
We're aware, obviously, that, for example, if we're looking at educational achievements
of some particular groups of our youngsters, then housing is important in that.
Transport is important in that.
Social services is clearly very important in our children's social services particularly,
but quite possibly, we might need to look at support for parents in those situations.
And I think to be... and similarly the focus on calling, yeah, okay, calling is an issue that we need to look at,
but it's a tiny part of what scrutiny does in most authorities.
And indeed you can almost argue that if it's got to the stage of needing a calling,
then the scrutiny process has sort of failed because of the overview side of the scrutiny focus,
has failed because the scrutiny which is looking ahead
is kind of before the policy agenda,
it's designed to shape the policy agenda,
so there is no need for it to get very party political.
The party politics and the opposition
comes at a later stage in the whole process.
And so I just feel that we're not,
we've lost sight of the big picture here
of what are we worried about with Wandsworth.
We're worried about being far too inward looking
rather than outward looking,
and being far too siloed
rather than being cross -departmental.
And we're focusing on tiny little details that don't really address those sorts of issues.
And so it seems to me, and a disappointment I've had really through this, is that rather
getting to grips saying this is the issue, what might a structure look like that can
address this issue, and then coming to the questions we're coming out, we've launched
in on the detailed questions without looking at where it all fits together and how it will
actually contribute ultimately to us being more aware of the issues that our residents
are facing and are likely to face over the next 10 years, say, and what we can be doing
to shape those issues rather than simply responding and reacting to them, which sadly I think
has been the ones with way for some years.
Thank you, Chair.
Councillor Hedges from Ballin Ward.
Just wanted to raise a point about the introduction.
So, you talk about, the paper talks about detailed constitutional changes that will
be considered in the March meeting.
And then further goes on, talks about proposals for the first phase of changes, which is obviously
the call -ins and the thresholds.
I mean, can we allude that there'll be a second phase to this?
And if there is a second phase, do we get any transparency on that?
Because whatever is agreed in the first phase could potentially have a knock -on impact to
the second phase.
So some more transparency and shedding some light on that would be really helpful. Thank you
So Ambash
Jeremy Ambash
counselor for West partner award I
Wanted to follow what counselor Grimston was saying because I've got a lot of sympathy with what?
What Malcolm was saying and it's probably a question for mr. Parry
As I see it, we're trying to make some changes to free up some capacity in our OSCs so they
aren't rammed full with all pre -decision scrutiny of every decision under the sun, big and small.
And we can make some changes to move in that direction, to give our OSCs that freedom to
be able to choose to look at earlier policy development or whatever by defining call -in,
by talking about key decisions and thresholds, and the forward plan, and changing standing
orders in the Constitution.
They're all mechanisms.
mechanisms. But the other feedback that we've had from the Center for Policy Studies was
that we're in a culture where our OSCs are dominated by party politics and therefore
not getting at some of the policy and the service issues. And that's been my experience
of my last 11 years on a number of OSTs, but particularly on this finance committee. And
I just wonder, Mr. Parry, in terms of working with other authorities, what's it taken in
terms of councilor development, the culture that councillors have established, the leadership
of councillors, to try and make those changes? Because we can change the calling procedures
and this, that and the other, but we can keep behaving in this rather unproductive way.
Can you give us some clues? What were the first steps we need to take to actually bring
about some real change rather than just the mechanisms?
A direct question there to Mr. Parry. I wonder if Mr. Parry could respond to that.
Thank you. Happy to chair. There is no kind of flick of a switch that moves you from one
place to another instantly. This is a journey. I think the first thing to do is to kind of
rearrange the structure where you have a very tight situation between scrutiny and the executive
in the way it scrutinizes executive decisions and there isn't sufficient space and distance
between the decision and the scrutiny of decisions to allow it to give it any real input or impact.
So that's one thing. The second thing is to try and give members of scrutiny greater say
in what it is they see as the priorities for scrutiny to scrutinize. They shouldn't and
couldn't and probably would be ineffective to try and scrutinize everything, everything
that goes to executive for example because everything that goes to executive is not mission
critical, it's not important to the residents, it's not important necessarily to the wider
council. These are things which are kind of business as usual decisions and do they all
need scrutiny perhaps but do they all need to be done by a scrutiny committee? Probably
not. That's not the way it's done in most councils and I have to say Wandsworth as we
know is an outlier. It's not the way it's done in most councils. There is a process
of rational decision making about what scrutiny decides to scrutinise and what it chooses
not to scrutinise and there is a kind of methodology that sits behind that which is very much driven
by members and in Wandsworth it's very much not driven by members in terms of what they
scrutinise and when they scrutinise it. It is formulaic, it is process, it's not always
impactful and it rarely adds any value. So it's trying to put some light and air into
that arena for scrutiny to be able to operate in a much more positive way rather than this
tightly constricted way that seems to operate right now. But it's a journey, as I say. They say that,
you know, culture eats structure, but sometimes structure can help culture. If you've got the
right structure, it can start to lead to better relationships and better approaches to the way
things are done and the relationships that develop from that.
Thank you, Mr. Perry.
Councillor Graham.
Yes, so first of all, I wanted to concur what Councillor Grimston said and think that it
actually goes even deeper than what he said because what I was trying to point out is
until we've got the other pieces of the puzzle together, even if we've got specific changes
on key decisions, if we define them exactly, even if we've got specific changes on calling
procedures and we've defined them exactly, we still won't know what the impact of that
is because we don't know, for example, on calling procedures
what decisions are actually going to go to the executive.
So you can call in decisions that go to executive.
OK, what decisions are going to executive?
We haven't decided that.
So how can we know what we want to call in?
It's that kind of question.
I'm not doing it to try and cause trouble.
It's genuinely, even if you've got it in black and white,
you still don't know what it means until you've
answered other questions, which I think of as prior,
but certainly that need to be dealt with together.
I also wanted to agree with what Councillor Cornish said, both in terms of we recognize
that this can be changed.
We want it to see some streamlining.
We're not against changes to this.
But that does have to be done with us all working together, at least to have a chance
of setting a cultural change that would actually lead to more cross -party working and more
of the things that Councillor Ambasch was talking about.
Now, he was right that this paper, the recommendations here are just to make progress.
That doesn't endanger that.
Why we are essentially replicating the debate we had before might be a different question.
The problem is what's in paragraph 17, which is that after we finish talking tonight, the
next people to look at what actually happens and what that detail will actually be is not
us.
It would be the executive and it would be the executives making the recommendation to
full counsel.
So I've got two questions for Mr. Parry on that.
The first one is whether he is aware of any or certainly whether it's the case that many
councils are allowing their executive to determine what the shape of changes to the constitution
would be and make those recommendations to councils and if there are any, presumably
the functions allotted to their executive in their constitution allow them to do it,
whereas don't.
Perhaps you could answer that one first and I'll come back to the second question.
Are you happy to answer that Mr. Perry?
Yes, yes indeed Chair.
Again, two points, and another source of the question was asked of me. I just wanted to
reiterate that the purpose of call -in, it's not for members to choose what to call in
because they don't like it or disagree with it. It's a constitutional release valve or
safety valve in the sense that things which are outside policy or policy framework, agreed
policy framework or outside the financial envelope agreed by the council and haven't
gone through proper scrutiny, it's then within the gift of scrutiny to call those things
in providing there is the criteria is met and the threshold is met. It's simply that,
it's not therefore an option to just call in whatever you feel like. Therefore, it's
not a question of calling things in before they get to executive, it's usually things
are called in after executive. And in terms of authorities, councils deciding what to
recommend to full council, this is usually done by the executive or cabinet and those
councils which are cabinet control or cabinet run, have a cabinet governance system like
you do. It's usually the executive or the cabinet that recommends to full council what
those decisions will be. As the executive or cabinet is the senior part of the council,
they have the delegated authority from full council as the decision making forum within
the council. It's there you can make virtually most of the decisions within the council and
And there's only a few decisions which are reserved matters for Council, such as the
budget and the election of the leader, etc., the Council plan, that are reserved for the
Council as decisions to be made.
The rest are decisions to be made by the executive.
That's what the law empowers them to do.
And whilst in your constitution you've made other arrangements in law, the executive can
still decide that it's they who will recommend to Council what it feels are the appropriate
recommendations. Now, wisely, the Council's cabinet has decided to go through a process like this,
which it wants to listen to its members and listen to the views of this committee, and I'm sure we'll
take those on board before anything is finally recommended to full Council.
but that is in fact the way cabinet systems run virtually across the land and I think
you will find that Wandsworth is different rather than the rest of the country's cabinet
systems being any different. That's the way it does run.
Thank you Mr Perry. Just a second. You've got a second question I think Councillor Grant.
I do, but if I could just come back on that first, because I just want to make sure.
Obviously, that is correct in terms of executive decisions.
However, my understanding, as I've served under other local authority, is that constitutional
changes are not normally regarded as an executive matter, which is why either they go to ad -hoc
committees or they have general purposes committees.
But the second part of my first question was that given that, we have not given that function to our executive,
how can the executive then assume that function in March when it doesn't have it?
Because it already has it, that the constitutional changes can only be made by the council,
that is one of its reserve matters if you like.
The constitution is for the council to agree and changes to its constitution is only for the council to agree.
but the recommendations to it could come from this committee or it could come from the executive,
but it could be that the executive chooses to take on board this committee's recommendations
and make its own recommendations to Council. That's not to say it would change anything,
but in principle the executive has significant powers to be able to do these things. They're
already there.
I don't understand the response, but I won't prolong that debate.
Can I ask you to have a think about it and we'll come back to you in a minute?
Should I take part of my question?
I thought you had done it, but forgive me.
I was clarifying the first part.
The second question was a simple one, that given that we're talking about calling procedures tonight,
if it is the executive which will determine the form of the recommendations in March,
and that is an executive decision on what to recommend.
Presumably that decision is subject to call in.
If it's outside the policy framework or financial envelope, yes.
But it's unlikely to be.
I think you've got an answer to a couple of questions.
Have a think about it. We can come back to you in a bit.
I'm going to take a few more contributions.
I've got, first of all, Councillor Apps, then Councillor Corner, then Councillor Lawless.
Thank you very much.
I have to say I'm looking forward to working with opposition members on really productive scrutiny.
Spent a very good day with Councillor Corner on a school visit recently,
where it was good to learn about different policy interests and aspects.
So I look forward to more of that continuing.
And I do think, I mean, I think there's a fairly few nuts and bolts issues,
which are things like key decision threshold, the call -in procedures.
where we've got some thoughts actually which do evolve naturally from the Tusk and Finish
Group.
But that also, there's far more to this than that.
Once we've got those nuts and bolts dealt with, there's public involvement.
There's looking at select style scrutiny and how we can make that work.
There's looking at full council and how we can make that involve the public more.
There's lots more for the Tusk and Finish Group to look at if we're so minded and then
to hopefully be more productive in terms of recommendations
that we can then push through to be looked at
as part of a following course of action.
But I wanted to come on to one of those
that I think that was very clear from our discussions
in the task and finish group,
which is that the link between scrutiny
with executive decisions is unhelpful.
It would be better and usual practice,
best and usual practice, if OSE members in Wandsworth
were free to be able to exercise independence in how they scrutinize policies so that they
can contribute to policymaking. The requirement in the constitution that all decisions be
that considered by the executive are pre -scrutinized by the OSCE hampers this process and as I
think was alluded to us earlier also hampers co -production and actual relations I think
between the two groups to some point. So I think we could therefore say that we believe
we would like it to be noted that the Constitution should break this link so that scrutiny members
then will be free to decide which decisions, which key decisions they would like to examine
in depth and that will still be possible, but also what other policies they want to
look at and hopefully looking at things further in advance.
So when any of us come up with good ideas of how we'd like to see policymaking in the
future, that we can actually get that considered at a point where there's still an openness
and a readiness to hear those ideas rather than a bit too late so it just turns into
a party political posturing which is what, to be honest, happens too often now.
So that would be something that I'd like to be noted, that I think that follows naturally
on from some of our TASP and Finnish group discussions.
Okay, a very clear point that you'd like minuted and noted in the meeting.
Okay, in the notes of the meeting, very good.
Councillor Corner.
Thank you, Chair.
I do agree with the sentiment expressed there
with Councillor Abst and I agree with her
that on the recent school visit that we had,
I think members of that committee gained huge amounts
from engaging with the people who will be affected
by the policy, perhaps more so than they would
in a public meeting of the committee.
I just wanted to respond to her point
about there being lots more to look at
by the Tarson finish group.
I completely agree.
What we do need to see, I think, as a committee is a schedule for that Tysons Finish Group
so that we can see when the subsequent meetings will be and when we will actually be making
proposals to the Executive and recommendations to the full Council.
It's a bit non -committal in paragraph 17 as to whether there will be further meetings
of the Tysons Finish Group before recommendations are made to full Council.
And of course, the fact that the executive are making those recommendations is highly
controversial and not something I'm sure I can support.
I think a better approach would be for us as a committee tonight to commit to working
together collaboratively, as we have done already, to having proposals we can make to
the executive and the full council that command cross -party support.
and that will ensure that we don't have party political kind of dividing lines emerge in
this work, which I think is really important.
The other point I'd just like to briefly make is this debate around the linkage of OSC agendas
to executive decisions.
I think it's a really good idea to have OSCs being able to scrutinize executive decisions
effectively and efficiently and also being able to pursue their own work. The
thing is that already can happen at the moment. Opposition members of a committee
for example and indeed majority party members of a committee can put their own
items on the executive or on the committee agendas already. So it's not
actually clear that we need to do huge amounts of work to change that maybe
it's more about changing the mindset of councillors. For me I actually quite like
the fact that there is linkage between the executive decisions and OSC agendas because
it means that all Councillors who are on those committees and holding the relevant directorates
to account are able to see everything that's happening in the Council to the level of detail
required to really be able to scrutinise it.
I think where there is an opportunity is in having cross -party working to design the agendas
and work schedules of those committees so that we don't have excessively long agendas
as perhaps we've seen at some committees.
So I think there's possibly a work, a task and finish session just in what I've just
described.
I'd be really happy to work with any colleagues to design that task and finish discussion
so that we can have some concrete recommendations to make.
I'm not saying that everything I've said has to be agreed upon or else I'm not willing
to participate.
I want to have that debate with colleagues and maybe work with everyone to come up with
some solid proposals that both parties and all members can agree on.
Okay, I mean, we've tried very hard in these formal meetings to make sure that these kind
of views are being properly minuted in some detail.
and you've made a number of suggestions there which I think should be reflected in the minutes
regardless of what we agree or don't agree in these discussions.
Councillor Lawless.
Thank you.
Councillor Lawless, Tooting Broadway Ward.
As Councillor App says, there's a few things we want noted from our side that we think
would be useful to add to the minutes.
So it sets our position and she's mentioned the link between Scrutney and executive decisions.
On key decision threshold, we've had a look at page five and the appendix was very useful,
but we think setting the council should explore options for setting the threshold at a million
pounds for capital and revenue spending.
It would bring us into line with most of the councils when you take into account inflation,
considering a lot of the ones that were set were set a while ago now.
Yeah, 2001.
So yeah, that's one of the things I wanted to note, please.
Councillor Graham.
Yeah, well, just on that latter point, the paper itself
notes that the most common threshold operated by councillors across London is £500 ,000.
And even those that operate a £500 ,000 threshold
allow other criteria to apply on a range of decisions,
or most of them do, recognizing that some decisions
can be below that, but then less politically sensitive.
I mean, it's parallel in some respects
to the sort of sensitivity matrix that's applied
to procurement that we were looking at,
that you can tick various boxes
and that there are some things where it's,
so I mean, I would be loathe to suggest
a level of a million which is double the norm,
And, well, we haven't set a specific level here, but effectively five times what our,
in effect, key decision threshold is.
And as I said, I just don't think that it makes any sense to talk about what the figure
should be if we haven't decided what the other procedures are.
If key decisions are all that are going to go to the executive, for example, then—and
that would suddenly go back the other way and we say, what are the executive decisions?
Well, they're only key decisions.
And somehow, they're then saying that everything
below a million pounds will either
be a delegated decision to officers,
or it will be a cabinet decision.
But we haven't even discussed what the cabinet should decide.
One of the abnormalities of our system that
ought to be addressed is the fact
that cabinet members have no power in their own right.
They only have power operating through the executive.
There is some suggestion that the leader in the Constitution,
that the leader could alter that by a mandate
he gives to annual counsel.
None of the previous leaders have done so.
And so therefore, you know, Cabinet members in their own right have almost no power at
all.
Well, I don't think that makes sense.
And where I think there is legitimate concern from officers that certain decisions being
bound up in the paper process and the committee process, a lot of the pressure on that could
be relieved while still having the political oversight by instead of delegating all that
to officers, allowing the Cabinet member to take it as a Cabinet member decision.
So it doesn't have to go and wait for an executive meeting.
It doesn't have to do any of those things.
It's not SO83A.
And also it is then their decision.
And then there's some accountability for it as well.
Because what we don't want to do is hand over power from elected members to officers.
Because actually, you know, the administration, we're not in charge right now.
You've been elected to run the council.
You ought to be running it.
You want them to be, you know, suddenly just handing over a whole swathe of stuff to officers to do.
Even if those officers are competent and will, you know, take those decisions in good faith,
the fact is that some decisions ought to be made with political direction.
So that's why I just think that we're, it's really difficult to talk about those details in isolation.
And I was wondering, building on what Councilor Cornard said, whether Councilor Apps and others
around the table, because we have two members of the Executive and, you know, Senior Group
Whip on the other side, whether there be some willingness to agree not to put those, not
to put detailed proposals through the Executive, but instead to have a further round of discussion
where we can see if we can agree something and put it up through a normal means as an
actual recommendation of the task and finish group with that space that we don't have right
now where we're meeting in private and we can actually thrash things around without
it being played back on video or clipped on social media or whatever.
Because I really do feel that there is scope for us to agree, but if we suddenly start
plucking bits out and ramming them through via the executive, which we have no representation
on, no ability to participate in.
And so the first chance that we've got to look at it is when it arrives in full council.
It just doesn't make a lot of sense.
And it doesn't make a lot of sense to have these two things to be the things that are
suddenly pulled out and put through in that way either.
So if there's concern that there should be something at least on these two points by March or in time for the annual council,
I mean, I would have thought the sensible thing to do is put a set of changes in so they apply to the next committee cycle.
In other words, all of those OSCs that are meeting in June and onwards.
Well, I actually think we could go further than this in terms of changes we could agree for June.
We could get more change in in that process.
But we need to look at it as a package that would there be some willingness, not to withdraw
this paper, but just to abandon for the time being the suggestion in paragraph 17 that
these two things are going to be plucked out by the executive and determined without any
further cross -party discussion.
And actually, let's put those back into another meeting of the working group.
We're prepared to make our time available to do that on a timetable that suits the executive.
And then we can see if we can get some bigger package that actually fits together so everybody
understands what it is in place for that OSC cycle that begins in June.
Because we are willing to try to do that.
And I think that if we go down this executive path, I think we're just throwing all the
goodwill away unnecessarily.
Okay.
Councillor Henderson first.
I think it is important
we don't lose the sight
of the main chance
and the opportunities
which we have here.
I certainly welcome
the recent meeting with
Councillor Hedges
and Councillor de la Sechaux
on the subject of all.
I think this is a very good example
of how we can work
together
collaboratively on an issue which frankly should not
be party political.
And that, I think, is where we should be working towards.
There is undoubtedly a question of culture.
And I do think that the current systems actually
mitigate against that cross -party working.
It is incredibly adversarial, and unnecessarily so.
I certainly agree entirely with Mr. Parry's analysis.
It really is a question of how do we actually get
where we want to get to from where we currently are.
Now, in terms of the paper which has been drafted,
I see that as really identifying a few key issues
where hopefully we can achieve broad agreements on.
We may have specific differences
in terms of some of the detail,
but I see that as really picking out some key areas
where we can actually make progress.
Now, in terms of actually presenting them to council,
we can certainly, in my mind, path them to an extent
whilst we consider other fundamental issues.
But what this paper's actually trying to do
is first of all to stimulate discussion and thought.
As you can see,
it is written in very general terms.
It is intended
for the opposition to consider
our direction of travel,
etc,
in terms of what we would like to see
and have a constructive
debate around that.
So I think it is important
for us to gather some of it
by hanging
to identify key areas
where there is agreement and then we can
move on from there.
I have to say, I do
entirely agree
with a lot of your
naps.
I agree with 100 %
of what you said, Malcolm.
Absolutely.
I certainly do agree
with your analysis,
about cross department
working.
Pretty much all our departments
have operated in silos.
We are trying
to break that down.
but I certainly agree with you
that the current committee structure
certainly mitigates against that.
I actually though see that as a much more substantive change
and something which I think we should probably come to
a bit later.
I mean I think we need to take people with us
as part of our culture change
and although I think your analysis is absolutely correct,
I wouldn't actually want to postpone
some significant changes we can make on the basis of mutual agreement
This is an important subject and I'm not denying that but I think we can actually come back to that on a much more collaborative
Basis, thank you
Counselor apps
Thank you. Well, I
I commend Councillor Henderson's remarks.
I mean, I think he's made some excellent points,
so I won't bore you all by repeating them.
But you know, I do have sympathy for Councillor Graham's
concern about being involved,
and we're very keen to hear views,
and it's been really good discussion tonight.
But the more I've looked at this process,
the more I've realized that there's a few core changes,
which are what I call bread and butter changes,
where there's not that much variation
from council to council.
The main thing is we're very different where most councils are.
And I think it's different in approach as well that Councillor Graham's attitude is,
well, nothing can change till everything's agreed, you know, whereas I feel it would be better to make
some step changes to bring us more into line with normal council processes, which are some few basic
changes. And there actually can be, I think where the really interesting discussions are is how we
look at, for example, full council and how that could work
in a much more productive way and actually be helpful
for the people of Wandsworth.
How we could look at making sure that the people
of Wandsworth have a voice within our systems
while making sure that we represent
the wide range of our community.
There's so many interesting things for us to look at.
And these things, when we've all had access
to all those tables, there's not a great deal
of variety around those.
There are some key changes which are pretty fundamental
to making progress on these issues.
Hey, Councillor Graham.
Yeah, so to be clear, and I can see how it could be interpreted the other way,
I'm not suggesting that nothing can be agreed until everything is agreed.
I'm not saying that certain things can't be picked out.
We don't have to change the format of full Council meetings
in order to have a different model applying to the OSCs.
We don't have to even determine the new model for how
the executive meeting should function,
because I think we all agreed that having five minute
meetings that are entirely pro forma,
that serves no real purpose.
We don't have to have agreed that easily.
What we can just look at is what levels of decision
there should be, who should take each of those decisions, what
the kind of reporting and documentary requirements
are around each of them.
Some of them don't need any, some of them need a bit,
some of them need more.
It's those kind of things, just pin those down.
So it's not trying to agree all of the whole scope,
it's just agreeing enough of the bits to make sure
that we know the implications of what we're doing.
Because as I say, if we define key decisions in a certain way
when we know that there are statutory safeguards attached
to those, but we don't know what other safeguards we're creating
on other things internally, we don't know
the impact of what we're doing.
So, and look, she can, and you all can try to work with us, and if you can't reach consensus,
you can push through what you want anyway.
You do have the votes.
So you can't, you know, we can't hold you up in that sense, and we've got no incentive
to do so, because then you will just do what you want over any issues or concerns that
we express.
That's why we are trying to come at this in good faith.
So I think I sort of detected some willingness
maybe to move away from the implication in paragraph 17.
We're not voting on paragraph 17,
so that doesn't necessarily need to be settled right now.
But from our point of view, I'm just making it clear
that we are willing to take the time to your timetable
to get a package of changes so that where we actually
understand what the bits are in place for the OSC cycle starting in June.
And we'll make time available, and I think we could thrash something out.
And if we can't, you can just do what you were going to do anyway.
But I think there is an advantage to doing it that way rather than none of us looking
at the detail here and then the executive suddenly deciding something and there being
a massive route for Council about it being imposed and contrary to all of the discussions
and process that we have created so far.
We are tending to go round and round in circles a little bit now.
I will take Councillor Corners' contribution but I do want to move towards some sort of
conclusion to this discussion if I can.
Thank you, Chair.
This is a very quick contribution, which is just to say that I think that if we want to reduce the extent to which the council is adversarial and that businesses approached from a party political divide perspective, then we really need to have that reflected in this process.
I think it obviously completely agree with what Councillor Graham just said.
Can you imagine how good it would be if we had a timetable of tasks and finished
working sessions to the executive timetable we make ourselves available
for them we work in general genuine collaboration outside of public meetings
and then at the end we could actually have a set of proposals that basically
signed off and approved publicly by both political groups on the council and
and ideally the independent as well,
Councilor Grimston.
So, and that would create huge amounts of goodwill
and really actually I think precipitate
a genuine culture change in the way
that meetings with the council run.
Okay, what I hear is both sides trying quite hard
actually to find some sort of agreement and move forward
is how I would interpret the contributions
from both sides this evening.
And if I can overstep the role of chair just a tiny bit,
I wonder if I can move towards a decision which tries to take some of that into account.
There is a note, I think, circulated by Councillor Apps and others,
which is not an amendment to the first item.
It's yet another element to be noted,
which I think to use Councillor Henderson's phrase shows the direction of travel
that the majority party I think would like to move in.
And it has no more status than that.
As I understand it, from the minority party point of view,
you've got no objection to noting this item, this document,
but you do have a kind of uneasiness about paragraph 17.
What if in order to show that uneasiness
and if you like a direction of travel from your side,
or at least whatever the opposite of a direction of travel is,
a kind of a slowness to an unwillingness to agree
or something like that.
If you wanted to indicate that, what if it were clearly minuted?
I mean, I have gone out of my way as chair of this committee several times to make sure
certain items are minuted in detail so that we don't just have a record of decisions.
We have a record of what was argued from all sides, including the minority party, for posterity
to understand.
plan. What if the minutes of this meeting note your reservations and concerns about
paragraph 17, which is not actually being agreed, it is only being noted anyway, so
that we can move forward on the basis of this item on the agenda and pick up your suggestion,
Councilor Graham that we have other detailed discussions with more changes in as we go
down towards the summer.
I mean there are other suggestions that I've said ought to be clearly minuted.
For example, Councilor Corners concern for a schedule.
And I remember rightly in the task and finish group there was a feeling that while it was
all right to meet virtually. There was a preference for meeting face to face. And perhaps that
should be clearly minuted as well as a result of this discussion this evening. If we can
get that package agreed and minuted this evening, is everybody broadly happy with that consensus
approach? Councillor Graham.
Yes, broadly, I just want to understand where in that you think these, what status within
that the note circulated by the majority party would have or would that be outside.
I mean, it could be noted as just that's where the majority party currently feels we
ought to be going, which is fine.
I actually think this would be very helpful as a starting point for a discussion, the
discussions that we can continue to have in the task and finish group.
And I'm not dismissing it and there are, even though I've expressed reservations on the
one million pound threshold, depending on what the rest of the framework looked like,
I might be even able to agree to that at some point.
I have reservations but I'm not setting my face against it.
So I think it's a question of what status this would have because we don't want to have
that we've taken a definitive stance on stuff that we don't actually think we can until
we know the other pieces of the puzzle.
As I understand it, the note from the majority party is a broad indication of direction of
travel.
It's not a categorical statement of position and indeed could be interpreted as an item
for discussion going forward.
Is that accurate?
We are happy with it on that basis with the caveats that I have applied.
Move to a decision then on whether we note this document, on the basis of what I have
just described and the full minute, a fulsome minute of the discussion, are we happy to
note item 3 this evening?
All those in favour of note agreed?
Anyone against?
Any abstentions?
Okay, item 3 noted.
We can move on to the next item on the agenda.

4 Amendments to Standing Orders (Paper No. 25-28)

Thank you very much, everybody, for your approach to that matter.
Move on to item 4, amendments to standing orders.
Do we have an introduction from Mr. Chaudry?
Yes, we do.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
I wonder if we could let Mr. Parry go because he only came for the first item.
Mr. Parry, if you need to get away, of course, yes.
Thank you for your contribution this evening.
Thank you, Chair.
Good evening everyone.
Thank you.
So thank you, Chair.
It's a short report that members, you have before you,
posing two changes to the Council's standing orders.
The first is with regards to Council's questions.
Members will know from how Council's questions
have operated in recent meetings,
which hasn't been entirely through consensus.
And so there is an issue with regards to how
The standing order 11A15 operates, namely with regards to the number of supplementaries
that the original questioner is entitled to ask.
The provision states that the questioner shall have priority, and historically that is operated
to mean that they have priority for the first question, but when asked to advise on whether
priority could include both questions, well that could certainly be read into that standing
order.
So the proposal to members to consider to recommend to Council is to clarify that first
– that provision in the standing order so that the original questioner shall have priority
to ask only the first supplementary question.
And the second matter before you members is with regards to stop notices on planning,
committee decisions. Standing Order 51D, I have to say, is rarely used. There is an application
reliance on that standing order before next Council, but it is an unusual provision amongst
local authorities where planning applications committees act in a quasi -judicial role in
determining applications that are presented to them.
And the proper challenge to their decision
is usually through a judicial route.
It is unusual that those decisions
can be subject to a stop notice and asked
and be considered by council in order
to ask the Planning Application Committee
to reconsider the decision.
Because council isn't permitted to make a decision
on planning application matters.
it's one of those matters that Mr. Pario earlier referred to are not within the
remit of council there in fact it's a regulatory function that is specific to
planning applications committee. So the intent behind this proposed change is to
exclude the right to service top notice on planning application committee
decision so that the decisions taken by the planning application committee are
final and that the applicant any objectors they are when the decision is
made there is finality on that a contributions yes Councillor Ambash can
I just say I hope it's non -controversial the first recommendation because my
experience from chairing the Council is it's been very clear what the tradition
is that the person answering the first question has the first priority for
supplementary and then it's offered to one of the other in the one of the other
party not their party but if there's no one from the other parties that wants to
ask the second supplementary. There's a bit of a space in the air and it can be
someone from the people who've asked the first question to ask the second, but on
the second question the party that was asked the first doesn't have the
priority. So I think what Mr. Chowder is saying is standing order 11A, Roman 15,
Just really clarifies that it's only the first supplementary question that the person has the priority for
Hope that's clear
Very good anybody else want to contribute on this council a corner
Yes, thank you. Just a quick
question on the on on standing order 11 a 15
As drafted the proposal is that the member asking the original question shall have priority to ask the first supplemental question
It doesn't actually talk about the second question at all,
to my understanding.
So that's just a point I'd like to make.
And I think it possibly runs counter
to what the intention is here.
Counselor Graham, I think I saw.
Yes.
So I think we have to, I'm coming at this from the context
that we've had a series of incidents where a power has been used once by the opposition
and then at the very next meeting, for general purposes, there is a proposal from the monitoring
officer to ban it.
So that happened with the right of reply in a debate.
It happened in calling special meetings in the AIC, exercised once in three years, used
once when a meeting was so jammed with papers that there was no chance to debate it.
And off the back of that, the ability was removed.
Stop notice was issued in December, first time, I would say, three and a half years.
And immediately, the next meeting of general purpose is now.
There's an amendment to standing orders to ban it.
It's not like there's been overuse of these provisions.
These are powers that were available to the opposition and indeed I understand, I haven't
been able to verify this but I have been informed that both Councillor Belton and Councillor
Cooper exercised the Paris stop notice on a number of occasions when the administrative
motion and the majority group were in opposition.
We didn't ban it.
We allowed them to exercise it.
And for this to come forward with no discussion, no warning, is part of a pattern.
And it does seem that when powers that are open to us are legitimately used, the first
reflex of the administration is to remove it when they themselves were able to use and
did use the same powers when they were in opposition.
I mean, I'd make the obvious point that they won't have this available if they return to
opposition, but it is a fundamentally undemocratic way to proceed.
And the fact that so obviously follows that pattern shows that this isn't about shaping
a sensible system.
It isn't about looking to reform and looking at things in the round.
It's simply indicative.
It's you dare to use a power that you're entitled to,
so we're going to shut it down and never let you do it again.
That is how it must appear and there can surely, I mean,
beyond coincidence that this keeps happening.
And I would point out as well on the second supplementary point,
there to be fair, it could be said that this change is in,
it designed to uphold the conventions.
And bear in mind that we've had all this stuff about how
the Constitution is outdated and we
ought to change everything.
But it could be argued that that's
trying to uphold the convention, at least it has applied.
And I wouldn't disagree with that.
But the reason that, in this case,
the leader of the opposition, and only
the leader of the opposition, not others who it's also
open to, have started to try to exercise
the Second Sumplimentary is because the answers
from a leader of the council were becoming so long that no other member of the opposition
got to ask a question.
We uniquely have the case now that we never get – unique for the last 40 -odd years
– that we never get to question four on leaders' questions.
Routinely, we got to question four, five, six under the previous administration.
So the fact is, because we get speeches as answers, the only way to ensure that there
are more questions from the opposition and that we can get more answers has been to try
to use it.
So although there is the defense available that this is just enforcing convention, convention
was broken by the attempt to talk out questions beyond the third question on the order paper.
And to make this change without time limiting, as should obviously happen, the responses
to questions seems nonsensical.
And we've had the situation where Councillor Apps,
and I have some sympathy with her,
has become quite annoyed that opposition members are reading
out questions or giving a statement of what
their question is rather than just calling out
the number on the ballot paper.
And I agree.
But that's not here.
And surely we could come up with a change that
could incorporate this.
But there's been no discussion.
This has been imposed.
And as I say, it seems entirely vindictive.
Councilor Apps.
Yeah, thanks very much. I'll try not to become annoyed.
So yeah, so the reason why I didn't put in lots of other things that no doubt I would love into this is because we were just trying to,
it was just a matter of restoring custom and practice which had been breached and that we wanted to see restored.
before we have a look at how we might reshape questions.
So I thank him for being understanding of that point.
I think people have different memories.
I mean, the thing is, I always speak to Councillor Belton.
He's got a memory as long as, you know,
as long as this council practically,
in fact, I think it is as long as this council.
And he tells me about lots of times
when we've only reached question three with previous leaders
and he also tells me about times when he said,
I said, well, we used to try this and we used to try that,
but every time the standing orders got changed
to stop us from doing that, so we didn't do it.
So it's not, I don't think this is quite as new
as he would embed the cancer grounds implying,
but I do understand the point,
and I wouldn't have wanted to change the notice to planning
if it was a recognized and kind of common practice approach.
But the fact is, when I first heard about the call -in
to the planning, I contacted a number of colleagues
across councils and said, oh, can you just tell me
about how this works, I've not come across this yet.
And they said, what are you talking about?
This doesn't happen in councils,
you've clearly got something wrong,
because they had never come across this practice before.
And the fact is, and I understand,
and I think it's perfectly legitimate for the opposition
to use tools in the box, but the thing is,
is in Wandsworth we've got some very strange shaped tools
in that box sometimes, and this is one of them.
And one thing I would say is that it probably featured much less under your administration
because you weren't prodigious house builders of new social housing.
And we've got a really important program of social housing that we want to deliver for
local people so that they get new homes that they can live and enjoy and get them out of
temporary accommodation.
And the fact is, is that this is just an inappropriate way to politically interfere with decisions
that are made by a planning committee,
which is very careful, as Councillor Humphreys
would tell you, very careful to take
independent, non -wit decisions,
and then it just gets thrown into this political
kind of climate, and then when we mess about with it
and treat it like a political football,
and then it just goes back to the planning committee
where the same people make, presumably, the same decision.
So it's just a matter of delaying something.
It's extremely unusual.
I don't think it's really appropriate and a number of colleagues would agree with that
I think so so I so much as I understand that that it might not be popular because it's
Removed an ability to do something that you might have enjoyed
I I think it will be to the benefit of people of Wandsworth that this is no longer in our standing orders
Councillor corner lawless than Graham
Okay, councillor councillor lawless, thank you
So I can't think of a full council meeting since I was elected just over a year ago that
hasn't been disrupted and I imagine people watching it in the public area online must
be horrified by some of the things that take place.
Councillor Graham talks about using the tools available to them, which I can understand,
but I think it will also be suggested that it's exploiting a bit of a loophole in the
standing orders to try and get two supplementaries.
And as our Prime Minister said, we are the party of toolmakers, not tools.
So in that spirit, that's why we're going to agree to this.
This is, I think it makes it fair, I think it makes it clear, and like whoever asked
the question gets the first optometry, it makes that clear, but it also opens it up
to scrutiny because it allows someone from the opposite side to get in on the second
one if they want.
Okay.
Okay, Councillor Graham, yeah, I said I'd take you.
Well, I'd have more sympathy with that if the answers to the questions weren't taking
five, ten minutes a pop.
It has become ridiculous and I think members of the public watching will see the answers
as absurd as much as they would if they were concerned about any protests about the ability
to ask questions.
Coming back to Councillor Apps' point, she starts to politicise it by saying that we
hadn't passed homes.
I would just gently point out that I
think it's around 650 of the homes in the 1 ,000 Homes
Program were given planning permission under us.
So her point about, well, and a good 550 of them
were for social housing when they were passed.
So that just isn't the case.
And the fact is that actually, she
says that she's not aware of it anywhere else.
When Councilor Austin was coming with his text
for the stop motion because we hadn't put one in at all.
Bear in mind, we weren't in opposition.
He had a text that he had got from another authority,
and I had to point out to him that it needed to be adjusted
because ours, somewhat unusually,
has to take the form of an amendment,
even though there was no decision notice to amend.
That was a debate on our side.
Ours is peculiar, but it's not unusual for it
to happen on planning elsewhere.
I don't know how widespread it is,
but it does happen elsewhere.
And I'd make the last point that this has not
been exercised in relation to a regular planning application.
This has been exercised in relation to a planning application by the council itself.
And therefore, the additional scrutiny that comes from bringing that to full council,
I don't feel that's unreasonable.
Because members of the planning committee on the administration side, although we all
understand that formally it is not a WIPT committee, nevertheless, the pressure on them
to pass what is an administration scheme,
and the pressure on them from their group colleagues must be significant,
regardless of whether it is formally whipped.
And the public certainly feel that the Council approving its own applications
without any further scrutiny is odd.
And I can say that members of the public who have already seen that the Council is acting
to withdraw this power to have further scrutiny at full council feel that it is
an attempt to push things through without that scrutiny and without that
focus that they feel given that they are being impacted and their homes are being
impacted that they feel they deserve. So I don't see why when it's a sparing use
that has been used once and in relation to an application that the
to allow that extra scrutiny for council.
Okay, all right, Councillor Grimston.
Thanks, I should have said Councillor Grimston
West Hillward earlier.
Just briefly, and the same theme here,
might be helpful if we go back and ask ourselves
what the function of questions is,
what we're actually there for in the,
I mean from my mind, and part of it is
eliciting information, part of it is to put
an alternative view to the administration.
So the function of opposition within that.
And some of these questions about a second supplementary
do go back then to the point that Councillor Graham
was making, that for that to work, the person answering
the question has to keep in mind what's going on here.
And rather than, it has felt like filibustering
occasionally, very, very long answers from the leader
and from cabinet members indeed from time to time.
And I think in a sense the change in the Constitution, again, shouldn't be the main thing going on here.
It should be a reflection among ourselves.
But I actually think it's good for the administration to be challenged on these things.
I often say if they're getting caught up, if they're having difficult questions asked by the opposition before an election,
they may find that they don't get difficult questions asked by the public at an election if they've put right something being raised.
So it's in everybody's interest, I think, for, but maybe particularly in the interests of the administration, to foster a culture whereby that sort of challenge is available.
And the way it has worked out in the last council, there was very little challenge possible there because the fractiousness between the two groups sitting as an independent was, and I don't put that at the door of either group.
I think both groups were involved in it.
But we kind of lost sight, I think,
as we've done many times, of the public interest in this,
and again, got focused on and obsessed by
our internal squabbles and internal structures.
So I've no particular problem with the proposal itself here,
but I do have a problem that it could,
unless there's some cultural change all the way around
about members not speaking over the mayor
and repeating questions at great length,
and not giving very long sermons in response to that question,
then we're probably not getting the best out of questions.
From the point of view of chair, can I just, for clarity,
can I just establish, there seems to be a difference of attitude
to the two component parts of this agenda item.
The first is the questions bit, and the other bit is the stop motion bit.
And there is a subtle difference, it seems to me, between attitudes of the committee to those two.
Am I right in thinking that if somebody is objecting to anything in this agenda item,
that it is helpful to take the agenda item in two parts?
Or do you want it taken all as one?
I see some nodding in favor of two parts.
Councillor Graham.
I think regardless of whether we vote the same way or differently on each of them, it
should be taken in two parts because they're entirely different proposals.
I just wanted to come back on one thing, but I'll be very brief.
It's all very well set out that the majority of the parties set out as a party of toolmakers
or at least tool factory owners, I think the case was, but they're not making tools here.
They're removing them.
And that's the problem.
OK.
OK.
So am I in a position to move to a vote then on this?
I'd like to move to a vote then on the first part of it, which
is the section on questions.
I think everyone's had a bash at it.
I just wondered if anybody, because I've
seen emails that have come in from angry residents
about the stop notice and specifically
its impact on potential future schemes.
I just wondered if anybody wanted to respond,
because I do feel that there is a difference between hauling
in a private developer's application that
has been seen by the committee in a standard way
and hauling in the council's own application to itself.
Would it be reasonable if we went straight
to a vote on the first part of this agenda item
on the question section?
Can I see, and I don't know if it's helpful, I mean, again, I don't want to overstep the
mark as chair, but a number of people seem to be saying that they were happy with the
provision in principle, but only if the fractiousness between the two parties were less of a problem
at full council.
I mean, that's not coming from everybody, but that does seem to be coming from some people.
Is that the case?
I think we may have been minded to accept this had it included restrictions on the length of replies to questions.
But without any restriction on the length of replies, it just enables, as Councillor Grimson said, filibustering.
So it's not that we're going to death to defend second supplementaries,
but they should not be removed without wider reform of the question system.
Well, I'm happy for that to be minuted at any rate, if that's any use to you.
So I'm inclined to move to a vote then on the first part of the agenda item,
which is the section on the questions and supplementary questions.
Can I see all those in favour of that standing order amendment, please?
Okay, have we got that?
All those against, please?
Any abstentions?
No.
Okay, so that's carried.
I still think that some sort of minute ought to be included about the fractiousness of
full council, but all the same, that has been carried.
And can we move then on to the second proposal?
Now, you, have you finished all your points on that, everybody, or does anybody else want
to, you want one last shot, is that the case?
I'm just going to repeat.
Would anyone, well, I repeat the question, repeat the question to, whether anyone on
the other side would like to respond to this not being a stop notice exercised on a regular
application but on the council's own application to itself.
Like, if this proposal was even limited or amended, said it only applied, it could only
be exercised on the Council's own applications, I think we might even back it.
But it does seem to me to be an important point of principle.
All right, Councillor Ambash.
Can I make a point?
But Councillor Graham is very eloquent in terms of what he's pushing.
but having been for three years on the planning committee and having been briefed that it's
a non -party, non -WIT, it's a quasi -judicial committee, which is my understanding, as I
don't know all the legalese, but it's kind of the decision of the Council.
It doesn't actually make sense to be able to call in and stop that decision because
It's not a decision that's not within the Council's framework.
It is within the Council's framework.
So all the call in does for the Planning Committee is it just delays the decision of the Planning
Committee.
Because there is no reason.
You shouldn't at the political level go in whether the planning application should be
accepted or not.
It just refers it back to the next Planning Committee.
So it doesn't make sense to me within the call -in procedures to have that apply to the
planning committee.
And as I understand from talking to Councillor Apps, that's the received wisdom for most,
if not all, authorities across London that call -in doesn't apply to planning committee
decisions.
Okay.
One last comment then from Councillor Grimston.
Yes.
I have sympathy with both sides of the argument here, but I am not just as with the questions,
I think the solution doesn't seem, the proposed solution doesn't actually seem to answer the
question.
If all that can happen from this is it goes back to exactly the same group that made the
decision in the first place, then it is fundamentally very, very different from what we are doing
with calling of a scrutiny decision or an executive decision where in principle the
full council view takes part.
On that, I am not sure that this, I absolutely take Councillor Graham's point that it is
always uncomfortable when the Council is giving itself planning permission.
But the Council has to do a load of things for which it needs planning permission from
itself.
And if it were open for whatever reason that every time the Council gave itself planning
permission, I don't know how often that is but it must be very, very frequent, then it
could be called in.
I just don't see how that solves the question.
If it's just going back to the same group that took the decision in the first place.
I think I'm going to move to a vote.
I think everyone has had a just on a technical point.
What's your technical point?
So this doesn't force it to go back to the planning committee.
It just means it has to come to full council.
And sort of a delay can only ever be of a couple of weeks.
No but it allows.
It's fine not to have a discussion of that nature.
You've made a decision.
technical point, and I think it's been challenged, but you've made a technical point. Can we
So can I see all those in favor of the second set of proposals in this agenda item, please?
All those for?
Okay, all those against?
Any abstentions?
It's been carried.
Okay, that brings our discussions to a close this evening. Can I just
Congratulate everybody this evening on what was actually quite a good -natured discussion on what could have been a very very
contentious set of issues.
Serious points that had to be discussed and where disagreements had to be aired.
But nevertheless, a good -natured discussion, I would say.
Thank you for that everybody, and thank you for your participation this evening.