Transcript

it doesn't work [PAUSE] [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] So yeah, this is-- OK, that does work. [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] Ready? OK, brilliant. Thank you. Welcome to this meeting. My name is Councillor Crichard. I am the chair of the General Purposes Committee. Members of the committee, I'd like you to introduce yourselves very briefly, starting on my left with the Deputy Chair, Councillor Belton. Good evening. Tony Belton, Councillor of Batsy Park Ward in Batsy Park. Norman Marshall. Good evening. Claire Fraser, South Ballin Ward. Hello, everybody. Councillor Rex Osborne, Tooting Broadway. Good evening, everyone. Jeremy Ambash, West Putney Ward, Councillor. Good evening. Councillor Woyrowshar, Spring Queenstown Ward. Malcolm Grimston, West Hill Ward. Matt Corner, Nine Arms Ward. Councillor Lindsay Hedges, Ballin Ward. Councillor Peter Graham, Worcester Common. Thank you, Councillors. And I believe we have apologies from Councillor Jefferies and apologies for lateness from Councillor Richard Jones. And I also say we have a number of officers here who will introduce themselves as and when they come to talk to the committee. OK, we've got a very short agenda tonight. First of all, the minutes of the previous general purposes meeting on the 5th of October, 2023. Are these agreed? Agreed. Excellent. And are there any declarations of either pecuniary, other non-registrable or registrable interests? If there are members, please could you raise your hand and explain that interest? OK. Nothing. And the paper we have before us is concerning the political proportionality and allocations to committees. It is paper, excuse me, 24-150. I'd just like to ask if there are any questions on that paper before we move to any decisions. Councillor Graham. Thank you, Councillor Critchoff. So first I should preface this by saying that we are grateful that the administration is willing to accept an amendment on our understanding in relation to this paper in order to ensure that Councillor Grimston can continue to serve. And I think on both sides of this room we recognise his experience, long experience on this council and value of his contributions. And I think it is a very good thing that that has been agreed and that he will be able to continue. So we warmly welcome that. And had that just been the only issue, I think we could have wrapped up the conversation there. We have of course agreed as part of that not to move any further amendments. But there is one issue, underlying issue in the paper that that amendment doesn't resolve and what we would like just to scrutinise, even though we accept that we will not be attempting to change it tonight. And essentially that issue is that if you look at, on page 9, at the table in the paper as drafted, you can see that for the ordinary regulatory committees there is a total of 50 positions, seats across those committees and the proposed allocation was 30 seats to the Labour group and 19 to the Conservative group. Now, unlike the overview and scrutiny committees, which have to be politically balanced individually, the requirement in legislation for the ordinary regulatory committees is that the balance relates to those totals in the bottom row. The problem that we have is that, as you can see, in the recommendations, the Labour group now has 58.6% of the councillors and the Conservative group has 39.6% of the councillors, 39 by 7 if you round up. That is not reflected in those totals. In fact, the closest to those totals, the closest numbers, would be 29 to the Labour group, 20 to the Conservative group and then the one unallocated. So if you look at what's there, there is actually a variance of over 3% from the average, whereas that variance would be below 1% if it were adjusted in that way. So we are concerned that we, as a group, have been, in the underlying paper, deprived of a seat that we should have had. And, of course, it is perfectly easy to adjust for that. We accept that it has to be reasonably practical to make those totals reflect the overall balance of the council. But just by adding one seat on one committee, that could be done while maintaining the other statutory criteria, which obviously includes the administration having a majority on each committee. So we are concerned about that because it means that, in effect, there is one less seat on our side than there would otherwise be. And when adding Councillor Grimston on, that does affect the overall totals, but it just perpetuates that problem. And so it is quite difficult at this point because what I wish to do is ask the administration why they were unwilling to adjust those figures. And as you can see in the summary box, this paper is at the request of the administration, but the administration member responsible for this paper and those recommendations is not here. I don't think it's particularly fair on the monitoring officer to ask him why the administration was unwilling to adjust those totals to reflect what the legislation says they should be. And I'm wondering if any of the administration councillors know why they are whipped to oppose that this evening. Right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor Graham. I'm just going to check. Councillor Osborne, you had your hand up and I didn't know whether we need... No. Okay, Councillor Osborne. Can I first of all just reiterate how much on our side, from the administration, we also welcome the fact that we are on track to include the independent councillor, Malcolm Grimston, on this general purposes committee. And I want to make sure that it's on the record to represent us. But I think the point is this, that everyone should take note of. This council is about to go through quite a deep-rooted and possibly dislocating, certainly very changing process as a result of the democracy review which we have commissioned. It's exciting and I think it will move Wandsworth Council far forward from where it is. I think we are, if I can put it as bluntly as possible, a bit of a backward council in the way that we approach decision-making. And I think we can move towards a better and more democratic future with some major changes. Those changes are going to require participation, commissions, working groups and so on from members of our committees from all sides. It's going to be a different style of working. And I think on balance what that means is it's a very good idea to increase, if nothing else, increase the numbers on the committees, which is the main thing which we are trying to do at the moment. Not by very much but to increase committee size to about 10 in almost every case. Some have gone down a little bit, some have come up a little bit and so on. But that's the general target so that that work can be done. And it's the first time we've done this since the administration won the election in 2022. It's the first review we've done, it's the first look we've had at it. And as far as we're concerned, the changes we are currently proposing are within the proportionality limits that are required of us in legislation. And therefore that's the way we want to go forward. I hope that parties on both sides can embrace that process and we can get it decided this evening. Thank you. Okay. Councillor Graham and then hopefully we can move to the amendment. So I think the issue here is that I took a look when looking at the principle because essentially it is very difficult to see how accounting for the legislation and complying with the legislation does not mean that that total number of seats and the allocation across that total number of seats should not be the closest possible to the percentages of the makeup of the council. That is what I read the legislation to mean. I also looked at about seven or eight other councils to look at how they've allocated proportions across their ordinary regulatory committees. And in every single case they had chosen the number that was closest to the percentages. I struggle with the notion that a different number should be adopted and it still be compliant. But the point was if it is compliant there was therefore a choice between options to choose the number that was closest or to choose a number that was less close. So perhaps I can ask the monitoring officer, given that our constitution and I will just -- yes. Our constitution of Article 13 requires clarity of aims and desired outcomes and says that decisions should make clear what options were considered and rejected in the making of a decision and giving the reasons for that decision, whether the reason for that choice is in the paper and if not, where it is, given that we're being asked to take a decision this evening. You okay with that? Yes, of course. Thank you, Councillor Graham. My name is Andy Childery. I'm the Councillor's Monitoring Officer. Councillor Graham, you've answered your question at the start of your initial opening, which is that this is a proposal that is put forward at the request of the administration and the given allocation is as set out in the paper. And the given allocation of total seats is set out in the paper. And the allocations to groups match as closely as possible or as reasonably practical within the principles set out in the legislation. There are, of course, alternate calculations that could have been done. You know, the numbers could be increased very significantly to achieve as close to mathematic proportionality as possible. But that's not what's before this committee. What you have before the committee is an allocation and a split of the seats to the relevant groups as set out in the paper. I understand that there may be, you know, an alternate proposal put forward. That too would still, in my view, meet with the principles set out in the legislation subject to members agreeing it. If I could just come back. So first of all, you said that it was the closest possible and it isn't. And secondly, you said it was as close as -- you correct yourself -- as close as reasonably practicable. But it would be entirely possible to add for one of the committees where there are proposed, for example, planning committee, but there are six labor members proposed and four conservatives. To make that six five, that's reasonably practicable. And then the total numbers would closer reflect the political balance. So I don't think that's the case, but that wasn't the question. You didn't answer the question I asked you, which is that there was a choice. Where is the reasoning for that choice and the reasoning for rejecting the closest possible allocation set out? Thank you. I think I'd just like to come in at this stage. Councillor Graham, I appreciate your concerns. Obviously what is quite difficult is that the reasoning behind it is not in the paper, and clearly that has been -- it's all been handled very, you know, very quickly. And I think that that might -- the reasoning behind it would need to be sought outside this committee. The proposal in front of us is to do this with an amendment. Well, I understand that, but the amendment doesn't actually address this point. This is an underlying point in the paper. The amendment is a separate issue to that. And our constitution, Article 13, says that those reasons should be set out at the point of decision. This is the point of decision, and we don't have those reasons. Article 1 also requires all of that to be interpreted to ensure that those responsible for decision-making are clearly identifiable to local people, and they explain the reasons for the decisions. Now, this was the decision of the Labor Chief Whip. She made the choice between those two options. She is the one who has also said that she is unwilling for the administration to accept any amendment that would correct the balance and make it more accurate. She is not here, and she is not accountable. So the fact that there are no reasons set out is contrary to Article 13, and the fact that she is not here is contrary to Article 1. And this is of our constitution at the moment that, as Counselor Osborne has said, we're trying to initiate a process of change. It doesn't instil confidence in the way we're going to go about change to our constitution if we are breaking it in the process of initiating that happening. Okay, thank you, Counselor Graham. Yes, I hear what you've said. It's been noted, and hopefully we will be able to come up with an answer for this. Counselor Ambasch, I'm mindful of the time. I'm wanting to move that we move to the next business, please. Well, sorry, we can't do that at this stage. I'm not taking that because we have to have the amendment. Yes, but take the amendment and then take the... Sorry, let me... Right, okay, I'd like it if we could move... We obviously understand there is an amendment to the paper that's in front of us, yes? So I think, possibly, if the administration can say that they will retrospectively provide a reason, a letter from the whip in order to be minuted, that would go some way to meeting my concern. But the fact is, we are making a decision tonight, and we don't know why. And that is a problem, so I think it does need to be addressed. Sorry, can we move to the amendment? Hang on. I thought the... let me just pick this up. I think I understood the amendment was the opposition's amendment. I will obviously take away and pass your concerns back to the chief whip. Right, but if we could move, the amendment, I think, came from your side, which was... I'm happy to do that, but I did notice that Councillor Belton had his hand up, and I wouldn't want to deprive him at the moment. Councillor Belton? Well, very briefly, in fact, the chair covered it after I put my hand up, in fact. She said she would take note of it and report it back. So we have taken note, I certainly have, of your comments, and we're trying to make sure that this doesn't happen, if indeed anything has particularly happened, in the new situation that Councillor Osborne was previously explaining. So I understand the point, and clearly the chair does, and we'll take note of it. As you know, there are other things tonight. Can we move on from that, on that basis? I'm grateful that there is some acknowledgement that there is a bit of an issue here that can be rectified. Right, so thank you. This is a bit of a practice, because we've talked about this. So what I'm going to say is to sum up, the discussion has been around the questions on the percentages, on the closeness about it, that we've heard that the committees need to be as close and as reasonably possible to the percentages of... Excuse me, I'm summing up, Councillor, as close as reasonably possible and practicable to the percentages of the councillors on the committee, and that I've agreed to take away the reason why one of the councillors, that there is some concern. Now, I now understand there is an amendment. There is indeed an amendment, which I hope there are copies of available... Yes, please circulate. Excellent. Thank you. I think we've all, if you'd like to just propose the amendment... I'm happy to propose this amendment. Which is broadly to... This is very simply to adjust the proposals in the paper to increase the size of the general purposes committee by one, and to put that one additional seat in the unallocated column, where it can then be picked up and occupied by Councillor Grimston. Okay, do I have a second for this? Which we are either second or accept, which is necessary. I think we've got a former seconder, is that... Do you? Which is Councillor Belton, he's stuck his hand up. Okay, are we all agreed, do we need to vote on that, or is everyone happy with this proposal? Agreed. Thank you very much, and including the chair, who will vote on that? Okay, thank you very much, councillors. Before we go, we should probably note, Councillor Critchard, that due to some of these changes, this is your last appearance chairing this committee, so I think we ought to all say thank you for your efforts. That's very kind of you, Councillor Grim, but I'm sure we'll see each other again on finance. Okay, and Councillor Grimston, I'm also very pleased that you're going back on general purposes. Thank you. Okay. Okay, and I declare the meeting closed.

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