Transcript

Good evening everyone. A couple of minutes late starting. We are expecting Faham, but he's not here yet. We'll start without him. Apologies for absence. Thank you chair. From the committee I don't have any apologies for absence as such but note Mike Houston's online and apologies from the normal clerk who's off sick I'm afraid so you've got me. But we are quorum because we've got two members. Moving on then, declarations of interest. Anybody? We've just moved to declarations of interest. No? No, no. Thank you. Let's move to minutes of the previous meeting. Some of you would have heard I've spotted a typographical error on page 9, second paragraph at the top, or it's a new version of an officer we know well but now called Particia. We'll correct it in the minutes. And Fiona? I just had a correction in 5.9. I think as well as... Can we therefore agree with that suggestion from Fiona that they're a true and correct record? Agreed. Moving on to the first report registered. Sorry, can I just say Michael wants to say something but he was on mute. Yeah, sorry. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, just a couple of things. First of all, I did actually send my apologies for the meeting on the 26th of June so if that just could be minuted as well because it's not on there at the moment. And yeah, Fiona was right to point out 5.9 and I will include myself in the lack of attendance in meetings and I apologise for it. It isn't through desire, it is really through capacity. I would like to formally say yes, I'm still on board for the time being, it's just in the last year or so I've struggled to attend but I will be reassessing my capacity going forward to be able to be part of the committee. But at the moment I'm fully on board but I just want the chair for you to note that I do send my apologies for my lack of attendance in the last year or so in particular. Mike, thanks for that. We accept your desire, no we're glad of your desire to continue. Thank you. Therefore, moving on to register of interest, gifts and hospitality. Quarter of the update. Thank you, chair. This is, as you said, the regular update. Any changes have been reported to the monitoring officer. We've had responses from all but one member and we'll continue to... Any questions, comments? No? Everyone, can we accept the report and move on? I suppose in theory I'm not suggesting that it's the case with anybody but is there any scrutiny of the accuracy of the reporting of gifts and hospitality just as a matter of interest? How would you do it is the question? I don't know. I go around as many restaurants as I can and I can't find anyone. No, I don't. I think there's a challenge. Members would know if it was some function like the mayor's because it would be there and we do get declarations. I mean if somebody were bought a couple of suits and several pairs of glasses by a donor, would we necessarily know? No, it's just as a matter of interest. Please don't think I'm suggesting anything but it's a piece of governance that's absent, isn't it? Well, Matthew? I think it's an interesting point. There is a limit to what we would suggest but something we could do, for example, is we could send a note to the WIPs asking them to raise it in their next group meeting and just confirm that they have done that and that they're on top of it, if you like, as well. There is another structure where you do have to report and we, as chief WIP, I would monitor and keep reminding the Labour group but ultimately it is up to the individual to put themselves forward. But if it's at most events, it is no knowledge to the entire group and there will be a reminder before and I will always check to see who's attended and if they've received any gifts and try and encourage members to report that way. I think that does help. I mean, we know from the newspapers that the mayor attended the launch of a potential new political party. He probably paid for himself to go there. Several pairs of new glasses. Sorry? No, no, it's legitimate. I think in the case you're referring to, the chap did actually notify it but the question is should he be receiving that kind of thing and was it late or was it not late? There were some other items. Not to be minted. No. I think there were some other items which were late. Okay. If there's nothing else on Gibson Hospitality, we'll move on to the LGA standards committee guidance. Linda? Sorry, chair. I think that was down for me. I'm on mute today. I'm mute. What? I was going to say, Linda, I think that was down for me. Did you want to do it or? Yeah. No, it's fine because I think it's better because you're in the room. That's why I was just a little bit taken unawares. Because it's never quite as good presenting from the screen. So I'm grateful for that, Matthew. Thank you. Well, you'll be able to contribute anyway. So, Matthew. Okay. Thank you, chair. And thank you, Linda. Okay. So we'll all remember this discussion from last time. Hoey Ainscough Associates are organizing some -- or doing some work for the LGA around the standards committee, whether there should be sort of more guidance around what a good standards committee looks like. We discussed this at our last meeting. And we also had various -- we agreed various submissions would be made to the chair, the vice chair, and then the monitoring officer on behalf of officers all made responses. There -- which were circulated to all members. And I do have -- there's a briefing note and I do have copies if anyone wanted one as well. The next steps from this speaking to Paul Hoey recently is they're still collating everything and they're in discussion with the LGA about what they'd actually like. And I think potentially it's a bigger scope than the LGA thought it was to begin with as there's more things that maybe committ -- councils would like to do with their committees. It was also specifically highlighted in this that they're interested in how Tower Hamlets organize our standards committees. They think that it's quite a good model. They like the number of co-optees that we have. It was something that certainly I assume was public. One of the best value inspectors was here last time and was very complimentary about our standards committee, which I think is good. So we wait to see whether that features in the submission to the LGA from Hoey and Scoff and where they go with it. So there's not much more I propose to have a discussion about it today, but obviously the committee is welcome to should you wish, but I think we're really just waiting for next steps. Thank you, Matthew. And Elizabeth? I just wanted to ask, paragraph 310, you say that Hoey and Scoff have asked for more information about our standards committee. I just wondered what kind of information they wanted. So they asked for two or three paragraphs on why we've established it in the way we have and why we think that's a good idea and any pluses and minuses. We've sent that already, so I can circulate it if members are interested. It doesn't say anything you wouldn't already expect, but for transparency I'm happy to organize that. Thank you. Well, it won't surprise Linda and Matthew to know that from the standard and then go to the LGA and come back, because we can use terrible phrases, terms like there are some quick wins, but I think there are some things that we might consider. I don't think we agree on what are the short-term and longer-term things. We started with the long-term thing, minimizing my voice because I've got a cold developing. We could start with Fiona's contribution on whether there might think this is something we've agreed between us. It's not something that we could start, we could decide now, implement now, but it's something that needs to be thought about. And the extent to which our thinking can develop, maybe if we come up with something, we can feed it into Paul Hoey. But anyway, Fiona. Yes, I think really in short, I know you will have had the chance to read all of our comments that were sent and it's dealt with internally. Sometimes the question is about how much confidence can you have in the process because of how it's all linked and everyone works together and how independently can you actually investigate the case. And there's another thing we need to look at our process and improve it. Fiona, perhaps you'd just say what your professional background is, which would help to some extent. Yes, so my background is in health regulation, but we have legislation that looks at what's gone wrong and what sanctions should be put in place. But that doesn't really help patients and doesn't really necessarily help the system to learn about what's gone wrong and how it can make things better. So that's really my interest. One of the pieces of legislation for the physician associates and the anaesthetic associates, there's lots of controversy about it, but one of the things it's tried to do is to enable complaints to be resolved at an earlier date. And it can inhibit concerns being raised and sort of learning. And the particular stuff that I quoted in my response around restorative just in learning culture came from a trust called Mercy Care who've been doing a lot of work around enabling a sort of positive culture where concerns can be raised and resolved without fear of people sort of being isolated and sacked, basically. Unfairly when perhaps the problem laid elsewhere. So that was the sort of thinking. It's a different context, obviously, health and, you know, the democratic workings of the council, they're not equivalent. But then, you know, I thought some of that may be helpful, at least in thinking about the purpose of our complaints process. Elizabeth. Well, my background is in financial services regulation and we certainly had quite an extensive complaints process there. And I agree, I think it shouldn't be about complaints, which is very negative. The whole purpose of complaints is to reinforce the standards and if an organisation like a council has and maintains high ethical standards, but I think that's a very positive thing for its public to know. I mean, there has to be a complaints mechanism, but if you see what I mean, it should be in that context rather than saying you can complain, you know. And I think the other aspect, given that most people understandably find bureaucracy very tedious and difficult, that it would be helpful to explain the different kinds of complaints. Because, for example, if you have a complaint about a council service, it wouldn't come to our area at all, or a complaint on information governance. Nevertheless, people don't necessarily understand the difference and I think it might be helpful to explain, you know, the standards throughout the whole organisation and what members of the public, what recourse they have if they do have an issue. I'm looking for other contributions. Well, one way of taking this forward, and I'm looking at both Linda and Matthew, is to, of course it's about saying yet another working party, but there are clearly people who are interested. And there's no reason why Tower Hamlets, which in many ways is an exemplar council and clearly in standards how the associates are interested in how we tackle things, there's no reason why we shouldn't pioneer something else. My question is how, and it's too easy just to say let's have a working party and that goes off into the long grass and you don't know, can we do some thinking offline rather than try to decide now how to take this one forward? It's clearly not something we can do immediately, you know, processes like this, but is there some scope, you know, maybe the LGA would be interested. Could we get some funding for a pilot given that office time is scarce? Maybe we'd have to involve, you know, universities who are interested in this kind of topic to help us develop something because, you know, you've all got day jobs and you're not sure what things to do. Let's do some thinking around there and any contributions from members after the meeting can come by you, Matthew. Sorry, could I just ask that in minuting that, that we make the point that the working party would be designed to draw on experience from other areas? I'm sure members have different, you know, experiences from their own working lives and it's, you know, learning from other places rather than just inventing something. Yes, that's a very good idea, essentially in fact. Okay, moving on then. The way I've set out some of the things I wanted to talk about is in the order that the guidance came to us. There's a heading on terms of reference and there's some comment in the paper here. One, starting with the subheading I've got, using their terminology, work with key stakeholders and the wider community. Now, again, that's something we could start immediately but we'll never be able to say in a year's, we won't be able to say in a year's time, oh, we've mastered that. But we might be able to start with asking officers to identify who the councils see as key stakeholders. Members will surely be interested, members will have their own ideas of who are the key stakeholders where it may be helpful to the council. I think it would be, in my own view, for the standards committee to reach out to these people so that they have a better understanding of what we do. That can only enhance the council's reputation and we can see what responses we get from them. Sticking with that one, so reaching out to key stakeholders and the wider community, can I have some? It's not currently in our terms of reference, so the question, I suppose I should have put it, should we look at whether it should become in our terms of reference for the standards committee. We're not going to decide that tonight but should we start to approach that kind of thing, should we try it first before putting it in the terms of reference. How are we going to be more public facing and we're going to engage the public and the generations that are coming up and their approach to local government is going to be very different. We have to start steering that change and it's worth starting to put that down and making that change. I know it's not going to happen tonight but if the public understands what the standards are, well firstly they should tell us what the standards are as well if it's any different from what we've already got. But also they should be able to know where they can report change if they don't see the standards in their politicians or their council, whatever it might be. And I think this council has got an amazing engagement team and the way that we do things so it's not going to... Linda, I don't want to put you on the spot. I'm not expecting you to come up with definitive, unchanging views. But I think this is something you commented on in your paper saying interesting or something like that. Have you got any immediate response? I think it's something that we can think about and I think the main thing is thinking of the people that we would liaise with. But the other thing, I think this sort of thing, I know you said about a working group, I think that careful thought needs to be given to that because trying to sort out something like this by committee, I think it's almost like one or two key people or maybe three or four could come up with some suggestions both about this and other things that we've picked up on. And present that because otherwise we end up just like talking about things and nothing happens, whereas if we've got something a bit more concrete, I think we can sort of move forward on that. And yes, I mean, we've got so much going on at Tower Hamlets, the thought of having another group, it's just another thing. I think if it's very focused and we just maybe pick on one or two things, so for example, I mean a key thing which Fiona has said and I think Jill would agree with is about how we deal with complaints because I've worked for a number of authorities and over the last, I don't know how many years I've worked for a lot of authorities and everywhere struggles with how to deal with them. Because the bottom line is that we have very limited sanctions, there's very little that we can do and sometimes the effort to not achieve a great deal is substantial. And so I think things like that, that really does need to be the focus and I think once we can get that right, then we can start looking at the other things, but the others things to me seem to be more sort of the icing on the cake, but I think we've still got some basics to sort out. Well, thank you for that. Elizabeth? I don't disagree with that at all and I think the other thing we might be just useful to think about in general terms is who are stakeholders. Obviously, it's the constituency, the public in the borough, but effective communication is very difficult with individuals and in other experiences I've found that a very effective way, for example, is to go through an organisation which is an amplifier. So it might be even just a community group or a faith group, but to work through others because particularly if somebody is a member of a faith group, they're likely to trust that source of information. So I think when we say stakeholders, we need to be fairly open minded about who we mean. Yes, I agree with that. Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of points. Maybe for Matthew, just to double check, there's a number of projects and work streams over the past year that have been focused on engaging with the community, whether that be the community engagement strategy that went to cabinet. There's a new target operating model that went through a years-long consultation with the community and just to see whether the standards committee and any associated works with those two things and any other things that may have gone on in the last year. It includes the standards committee and some feedback associated with the work stream. So rather than duplicating, if we can feed into some other work that's already happening, it just makes us a bit more efficient. Yes, I think that's right. These are things you're mentioning that don't come to us. We may as observers of other parts of the council know they're happening without actually knowing the details, so that's very helpful. Okay. I'll move us on because there are quite a few headings. Again, under terms of reference, they've suggested member-officer protocol. So we look at the member-officer protocol and make suggestions, but we then move sight of it. So I'm wondering whether we should include in our terms of reference the following up of complaint investigations. To the extent that there are, and I've said in my paper, in any large organization, there's bound to be some, but actually we've no idea how many there are. I'm not asking specifically now how many member-officer complaints there are, but inevitably there will be some. So is there any support for including that in our terms of reference? Potential difficulty with employment complaints. So we'd have to be very ready to be very, very specific, which might be a bit bureaucratic. There'll be particular things that go down that route, but to the extent that we're made aware of them, without, I mean, they're clearly going to be anonymous anyway, may be helpful, I'm suggesting. And there are a few nods, so I'll move on then. There was a discussion in the paper about whether membership of the committee should be combined with audit, and in this perhaps scrutiny. And I think we're firmly of the view, officers and members, that no, it's better to have a pure standards committee so standards doesn't get lost in audit and all that kind of stuff. But I suggested in my papers that we ought to at least examine having a liaison between chair, vice-chair of those committee and standards. I don't see something you meet every month, but perhaps once a year, in the same way as we've started getting co-opted members from other committees to be aware of what the standards regime is and the code of conduct. I'm seeing nods for that. If there's anyone against, just say so, otherwise I'll move on to my next one. Developing relationships with political leadership. Again, I said I have informal relationships. I've got a standing invitation from the mayor to go and see him. So I've asked to see him, and I'm still waiting. But you know that. I think it's probably a good thing in that political leaderships are stakeholders in a different kind of way. But I'm looking for guidance from elected members and officers here because one wouldn't want to be thought of as in any way interfering with the politics of the borough in undertaking those kinds of things. I guess we've figured out how we do independence because we have a few of those now. It will make sense because I think a lot of times when you could get stuck in process here in this committee, but it helps to have the experience of elected councillors to be able to put some colour into what you're doing. And help put context in. And I actually think, going back one step as well, regarding the committees, I understand completely why this committee does need to stay independent and away from everything else. But it is worth having at least once in a while the experience of seeing what a meeting is like, the process for council, all of that. Just for different members, I think what you read in reports and what you see, you get to get a real sense of the culture and the standards in practice. So that's just what I'm going to suggest. Thank you for that. Matthew, do you see any difficulties? I'm Linda, but I can't see a particular difficulty with meeting occasionally with the political groups. Or indeed you could set up some kind of idea around going to visit, scrutiny visit, audit and watch them and experience. You'll be at full council. I don't think that's a secret at the next full council meeting, which I think is valuable as well. It won't surprise you that somebody of my age has witnessed full council meetings in a number of authorities, including Birmingham. But that's a whole other story and it wasn't my fault when I was there. OK. I think the general agreement there. But moving on again, the question was raised as whether there should be a lead cabinet member for standards. So it's not something we can resolve. I'm sort of throwing that back to a cabinet member for you to raise formally with the mayor and your colleagues as to whether... I mean, maybe you're already designated in his term. I don't know. But we'd like to know. Thank you. It's something I can come back to you on. We can have that discussion and confirm. But maybe I am. And to the Labour leadership, is that something you think would make sense if you were the mayor running a cabinet? Would you? OK, thank you for that. There was an item, a thought suggesting, which I think we're OK on, but I'm listing it, that the monitoring office should meet regularly with the IPs. And therefore the share of standards should also be involved in that meeting. We've not had opportunities since Linda's been doing the interim role, but I think that's something that, you know, again, could be done on an annual basis. I know that there's no IP here today. So again, so that they're aware of our discussions, I think it would be useful. So can you add that to your long list? I was just going to put my hand up there to say that, I mean, I have met with the IPs and obviously I was involved with meeting a lot of people when I first came to the authority. But I would agree that maybe you should be involved in that going forward. And I have also had some discussions with Matthew about the IPs attending this meeting. I think it's a dilemma. We've got two very good IPs, but a bit like Michael, they're very, very busy. And that's why we struggle, you know, sort of with attendance. And we obviously try and make meetings as convenient as possible for people. But when you've got a number of people that have got other commitments, it's actually quite difficult. But it is something that I have been mindful of and certainly the other authorities that I work for the IPs do attend on a very regular basis, which is why it's sort of been very much on my radar. Thank you for that. Elizabeth. Just on that last point of Linda's, I was the IP for a number of years and I used to attend this committee regularly and I found it very, very useful. I don't think that it seduced me into any wrong decisions as far as when I was dealing with the individual complaints, but it was very useful to know people's thinking. And it just made me wonder, and I'm sorry I didn't raise this before, but in the guidance, the LGA guidance, might it be a good idea to suggest that IPs should be welcomed to attend standards committees because there was a little bit of uncertainty at one point as to whether it was legitimate for them to be there? Yes, I think that is a good idea. I didn't comment on that because I suppose I'm used to IPs, particularly when I first joined the committee, you were the IP being present. But we don't know to what extent it happens in other authorities and it clearly is of benefit, mutual benefit. Thank you. I've only got one other item on this, although there's lots in the paper that others may wish to comment on. And it's this question of voting rights for co-opted members. We, on the one bit of legislation, have rights to vote, but how does that affect, I've forgotten the point made in the paper, but that's Matthew, what's the difficulty? Thank you, Chair. Yes, so this is something we're kind of looking at at the moment, grappling with a little bit. So this committee was set up very specifically as an advisory body and by doing that, it means the co-optees have the same voting rights as everyone else, because at the end of the day, there isn't any formal decisions being taken. The difficulty comes where you get to hearing subcommittees and dealing with complaints and some of the processes around that, where you are requiring an actual decision, for example, how to deal with a specific complaint. So where do you end up? Do you end up with an advisory body which then actually can't take the decision, so it would have to be what the monitoring officer takes that maybe? Or do we slightly rearrange it, so you end up with a committee that's only of members but has advisory co-optees? So our processes at the moment probably aren't quite right and we're looking at exactly what they should be to meet the legislation. Or, of course, there's always the argument that we encourage the LGA and the government to change the rules so that we can have things the way we like them. At the moment, our rules say, our procedures say that if we were to have a hearing, it would be two co-optees and one member. So it's something we're grappling with at the moment. We don't have a final solution. I suppose it's not an issue commonly around the country because we're unusual in having lay members. That's interesting. I never thought that through before. Yes, that's right. Lots of councils just have members. Indeed, on their standards committee, they'll just have members or maybe an advisory co-optee. So we are unusual and we're therefore battling with this. Is the LGA why co-optees can't have a vote? Yes, it's legal rather than constitutional. So it's not something we can change. It's something that's in the regulations. It's about the councillors and they're the only ones with the vote. Well, how we've done it so far is that we've said it's two co-optees and one member and they would all have a vote. But if we were to follow how many councils would do it, it would be yes, they'd just be councillors on it and they would just be the people who vote. So that is quite common. Whether we think that's a good idea or not is another matter but that's quite common. But we like having lots of co-optees around. We think that's valuable. So it's how do we deal with that issue is what we're looking at. In practical terms though, we've only had one Code of Conduct complaint that went all the way through to a hearing. And as it happens, I was at that ten years or so ago and there wasn't any particular dispute about the finding other than by the complainant. But it didn't go any further and there were no sanctions involved. So I'm just wondering about the report and what this committee advises or decides together on an opinion, on taking a position. If the opinions are different, surely you take a vote and see where the majority of people on this committee are, right? And therefore the co-optees will have a vote in that? So in terms of anything that comes to the regular committee, yes. We would take a vote to know what the committee's final position was, yes. That's it on my list. Are there any other matters which people have spotted in the guidance? Elizabeth. Apologies again that I haven't raised this earlier, but I think it was a couple of years ago this committee proposed to the council that the committee should be able to raise issues, not complaints as such, but an issue which it thought ought to be further investigated. And I don't know whether we should refer to that in our comments because the idea was that because it weakens the whole system because it's entirely dependent on somebody complaining. My memory is that the previous chief exec assured us that there was a mechanism for us to do that were we to become aware. I think you went to full council, John, didn't you? Pass. Matthew. Thank you. Just quickly checking the constitution. So what we did was we added to the terms of reference of this committee an extra line to say that the committee has the power to report to council on any matters that it considers appropriate. So that was how we did that. Which means everything and nothing. No, I think you've refreshed my memory, Matthew. It does mean that we could raise matters in terms of report. We'd need the cooperation of the monitoring officer, director of legal, if we wanted to mount an investigation. But as far as we have an ability to report to council, one would hope that some accommodation could be reached if we're aware of something that we think needs looking at before it gets to the point of a council meeting. As another Tower Hamlets innovation, should we propose that in our comments? I think yes. I mean we could add, you know, send another little comment just to say this has occurred to us that we think this is a good idea. Linda, have you got anything to add to that? I think we could add it. I mean, it's how far are we going to go? That's what I would say. I suppose it's how far Paul Hoegh is going to go in terms of what he forwards to the LGA. But it's a quick email, Matthew. I was going to say I'm happy to drop him a quick email tomorrow just to say we had this discussion. The committee noted this bit in the terms of reference and thought it was one that was worth drawing to his attention in case he hadn't seen it. And Paul does know Elizabeth through other routes, so you can say that Elizabeth led the discussion and the committee agreed that it was worth bringing it to your attention. Then if he wants to contact you directly, he will. Okay, sure. Members may not know, but Paul Hoegh Associates run courses for IPs as well so that they're aware of what's going on around the country and what decisions are being made. Let's move not too far away. What's the term? Segue into Standards in Public Life webpage. Matthew. Sorry, just making myself a note about the last action. Thank you very much, Chair. So this was something that came up in the spring, the idea of whether the Council wanted to launch a Standards in Public Life webpage just to kind of highlight the importance we considered of it. We took this to, I can't remember if it was the last committee or the committee before, and we agreed that it's something we would look at. So for this committee, we started trying to look at what we could do. I had a quick look elsewhere to see what I could see, which wasn't a great deal, and had a go at sort of some ideas. I think there's some, I put an appendix up and there is some basics there. I don't think it's the most riveting webpage that's ever been created. If anyone's got some ideas of jazzing it up a little bit, I think that might be quite a good thing. But more generally, if anyone's got any comments or directions they'd like this to go in, then I'm all in. Elizabeth. Could we give some examples? That real life thing tend to create more interest. But in terms of the idea of having a webpage for this, does that get support from members? It'll be interesting to find out the authorities that do have a webpage, how many people actually visit it and how effective it is. Not to say that we shouldn't do one because others have done it and no one accesses it, but just to know how useful it is. I know there's work going on to look at our websites overall and how we engage digitally with our stakeholders. But yeah, I'm just struggling to work out whether it's going to be useful or not without any further information. I suppose it could have been part of the democracy section of the council where you have the council's detail. Page accessible people, special needs and disabled people. I think the reason to have it is so that we are seen as terror handlers. Yes. I was just going to say it goes back to what we were talking about, about trying to inform stakeholders. The purpose needs to be really well thought through. My really good points around accessibility and interest. I'm really interested to know how far we can learn from the community engagement strategy and the things that you were talking about earlier on. Because in many ways it's not what we think that's important, it's the people accessing it and so where are their voices in terms of their comments on what its purpose is and how best we achieve that. I think it's important that how it perhaps needs a bit more feedback. Thanks. We are running a Be a Councillor campaign as you're probably aware and I'm just looking at the website. It could be a link on that. If we wanted to add graphics or caricatures we could do that but we already have a web page on why be a councillor, what do councillors do, talking about profiles, how to become a councillor so we can add it to an existing page. Matthew? I think that's a very good point about linking it to what's already there. As you say if we just put this up on its own no one will find it and no one will know to look for it in the first place. So the only benefit then is if you get a peer challenge and then you can just say well we have this thing but there's more to life than just responding to peer challenges I'm told. And I also think there's other ways we can think around it so we've got even if you don't have the full text just making sure that people are aware of these things through our agendas and other stuff like that that we do. So there's things to think about but I think the point about the level of interest is important, we don't want to spend a lot of time on this if actually it's of limited use. I mean in theory spend loads but we've all got quite a few things to do so it's where you put it in that list. All right well you've got some ideas there Matthew and it wouldn't surprise you that I've got some editing on the appendix. Short sentences are better than long sentences but I'll give that to you separately. We'll move to annual review of code of conduct. Matthew. Jill do you want me to start this or were you going to or? I'm happy to start it if you'd like me to, I mean you've done a lot of talking. Just for variety's sake. So basically what we did was we looked at particularly the complaints and the code of conduct and we ironed out some annoying little discrepancies so for example at one point it says three months and six months so we tried to make sure that that was a bit less wrong and that it was consistent. And we looked at the length of it and to try and make it so that we have things in one place in the constitution rather than having a similar thing in two places which means that when you update one you don't update the other. So we're going to try and sort of combine the two and put it into, we thought appendix D, sorry part D of the constitution would make more sense because it would be easier to amend potentially rather than having to go to full council every single time. And the really important thing is the item which was circulated today with Matthew's highlights which basically is continuing the discussion that we've just been having about what is a committee and hearings and what do we do about that. And what we tried to do, well Matthew in particular has tried to do is to get around the issue of this being an advisory committee by making it recommend that so the findings are made as recommendations rather than being actual findings so then they have to be ratified elsewhere. So we thought that probably this committee would have lots and lots of. Just say chair as well just on top of that, slight apology in the cover report I did say I would do a track change version showing all the little changes and I just, we've been discussing this so late in the day I just haven't had a chance but I will circulate one so you can all see exactly the little changes, a lot of them are typos and things. The changes I've left in yellow are kind of the areas where the biggest changes have occurred and I should say as well this is a draughtful consultation this is just some ideas we've got so it's perfectly fine for the. Yes, so there's a couple of bits in particular I could draw your attention to now if that's useful so roles and functions part three we've updated that and I think there might be from. Some of our discussions and around some of the things the committee would like to do it may be the want to take that further review of what the committee is what the role of the committee is as that lead links back to the discussion around the LJ guidance. Attendance requirements number five that's a change but that's just to bring in line with that new the new rules around co-opty attendance that co-optys have to be physically in attendance of half of the meetings in the year it was different so we we synchronize that. We then go on to 814 investigation subcommittee so there are two subcommittees that we have in relation to hearings and come dealing with complaints. The first of them is where the monitoring officer can go to a subcommittee and say you know discuss an item say do you think that you go to a full hearing and full thing at the moment that's a decision making body which runs into the problems we just talked about around voting so an idea is that we turn that into an advisory body a bit like this committee. So it would still be the monitoring officer's decision but the subcommittee could have a very clear guide as to what they think should happen so obviously monitoring officer would have to justify themselves if they went against it. So that's an idea I mean it should be pointed out I don't know if if and when we've ever had one of those subcommittees I can't ever remember it but it is something that exists I mean one thing might we find out is do we even bother I suppose if it just doesn't happen but. People might like it. And then the last bit was around the hearing subcommittee as Jill said so one option and it is just one option is that. We keep the process as is now with the copies on it but when you got the two copies you can't have voting so they can't take a decision so therefore under 830. This is the original list of sanctions but you just kind of change it to read recommend to the monitor officer you do this or report this thing to council or recommend to council they do this. And that way the subcommittee doesn't take a decision it's another body taking the decision but what you want is very clear and obviously somebody else who went against that would have to justify that pretty clearly but it does take the decision away so you may not like that. But it's it's it's a way we can think of that keeps the copies involved with as with as much voting rights on the subcommittee as members. But it doesn't mean it's the only option for that so those are the big things. Oh and then also to make it clear right at the end 835 that there aren't any appeals processes so something goes to a hearing hearing makes a decision or whatever we come out with. So the complainant doesn't like it at the moment there isn't a complaint appeals to that. So at the moment we've just made that statement that there are there isn't is factually accurate for what it is now. Unless of course the committee decide there should be an appeals process in which case we'd have to add one but it was just adding that clarity. Although can I point out that the LGI LGA guidance says that there should not be an appeal process. Oh are there any immediate comments because clearly we're going to read this and come back to it. Fiona. Sorry technical point just about the appeals process that you just talked about review whoever makes it in this case the monitoring officer. I think potentially pretty much anything a council does is judicially reviewable whether anybody would really bother I'm not sure. Because the amount of money that you'd actually would be ridiculous in comparison to the pain that you'd suffer. But that would be outside the appeals but that would be outside this process anyway. So as in the council's appointed to an external body but somebody complains about their actions there. Jill do you want to? I'm pretty sure we've talked about this and I think that if somebody is appointed as a councilor to an appeal to an external body and someone makes a complaint about them on that external body. Because they're appointed as a councilor they will be subject to this procedure and not the external body's procedure because it's an external body and they're not there. You've not got your mic on but I can point you to the specific guidance we've written for members appointed to outside bodies you'll recall we started to talk about the training. I don't know how far you got Matthew with that. I'm pretty sure we did run some training but I'll have to I can't remember everything off the top of my head I'll have to come back. There was. Yes there was. There was and Bethan Evans presented it and we've got the slides and I did think we circulated them but if not we can do that again. Yes I remember her being recommended me supporting that she should do it but I don't recall receiving the slides so. I was there I attended alongside a lot of my colleagues so I know for sure they happened. Good good excellent. And we'll circulate the slides. Are there any other points to make at this time because we're going to come back to it here. Yes clarity. Thank you I must say I find it quite confusing when I was trying to review it it is confusing and I do think that the advisory committee that was that was called the disciplinary not that hearing subcommittee the other one the investigations committee. I think that's really I think that is confusing I can understand why it's there there because I can see that under certain circumstances the monitoring officer might want a bit of cover to make sure that you know if they say something which somebody really really doesn't like they've got other people to back them up and they're not the only person up for you know getting yelled at. But it is confusing. Yeah you're right. Is it confusing or complicated I mean confusing both. I think I think having looked at it quite hard I think it's complicated but I agree at first blush it looks confusing. Time for a flow chart I always say when we come to criteria to determine which is the appropriate rate and when the route kicks in because without those criteria it's it's murky and transparent and opens the room for thinking so how is this decision being made and for what reasons. And I I don't I don't see that you talked about all about the monitoring officers interests and for the monitoring office to get cover and actually in my head that that's not a valid reason for a decision to go here or there. What should be is this is a particularly serious objective criteria this is a serious case or it involves you know criminal offenses or whatever it is there might be a set of criteria that mean it's a more serious case that needs more eyes on it. And that might be what you were saying in a different way but I think it's I think again it goes back to the purpose and clarity and transparency and why and confidence and trust in the process. No those are all good points and we could insert a bit about these are the cases where it would be expected that this committee is used something like that. To do. Yes. We'll come back to this. Anything else on this item. Report on code of conduct matters. Jill you're on again. Yes you can't get enough of me. So basically we said that the good news is that when I prepared this report we had one outstanding matter which has now been resolved since then we have had another complaint in which is in the very very early stages. I've just gone off to the counselor for a comment. So we have resolved all the old complaints left over from last year and we were down to having zero active complaints at one point but not for very long. I think we are still having difficulty with some counselors not responding as quickly as would be helpful. I think sometimes counselors don't really understand what's going on. I don't think they always understand exactly what the monitoring officer is and I have had to ask for other people within their political group to assist to help people help counselors to understand and to engage with the process. It has been successful but it is unfortunate that it's it's got to that point that the counselor themselves has not just got back because it wasn't that complicated but it's a pity that it got to the point where I needed to. It's in the report. We got up to number 13. In fact two of those were complaints which are registered accidentally or wrongly. So we have got 11 complaints last year. We had one complaint which was we have some complaints which went on for really quite a long time but so we had a couple of complaints left over from the previous year which we dealt with but yeah it was basically it was 11 this year. Last sorry last year and we we are now up to three this year. I haven't heard anything so I don't know whether she did actually do it because I would expect to hear from the LGS CO if something had happened and I haven't heard anything so I don't know. Can I say something chair please about that just for comment? Yeah I mean that seems to be the only one on this list at the moment and I was just looking at the date range between the date perceived by the monitoring office of June 2023 and actually being like you say going to the LGS CO on a year later. Is that typical for the process to take that long or was it as you referred that there was time lag between getting information between officers and members because that seems to take a lot I mean if we had a sudden surge of complaints then one would think that if one is taking a year then a number of others would take a lot longer and what is our capacity to be able to deal with more complaints coming in. One hopes there's not but I'm just looking at the length of time this one's taken. That one was particularly long-winded. The investigation was actually done comparatively quickly but then it got caught up with Janet Fasson leaving and Linda Walker starting. So there was a hiatus and it needed to have the monitoring officer to make a decision and eventually once Linda had arrived and had time to deal with it because obviously she had a number of things to deal with. She did make a decision and that one was resolved but yes it is unusual to take that long. Most of them are much shorter as you'll be able to see by the dates. I'm sorry Jill but I can't remember what all the letters in LGSCO stand for. Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and just to go back to what you were saying that you don't know does that mean it's got to remain unclosed from our point of view. That one's closed. I see. I see. OK. We don't have to keep it open to the methodology of the of the report that table is that things if they were active during the year they are left on the list so that you know so that the committee knows that they were active during the year and that one's been resolved. If you want I can make sure. Well I mean I don't actually know the outcome. So I don't know whether it has been sent or not. All I know is that the complainant said that a referral had been made. So I can't comment about what seems unlikely that that was June. It does seem unlikely. I'm sure that I would have heard because they normally I normally if I do get a complaint through within a week. Can I just come in because I've had my hand up on a couple of things. One that Jill mentioned about members not responding and that has been a big problem. It seems to be a bigger problem at Tower Hamlets than I've come across. And I did three sessions of training earlier in the year. And that is something that I've reinforced with members that it's actually a breach by not complying and because that members have an obligation to comply both with any investigation and you know the dealing with a complaint as well as the sanctions. So I did reinforce that and there's something else I was going to say about the training and it's gone out of my mind. I've been holding on so long. The problem is poor sharing I'm not looking at you. It's harder to jump in when you're actually sort of sat on the screen. But there was two points that Jill made and it was just really to say that, you know, they had been covered off in the training. I'll make a point when I report at council in October of mentioning this. I was just going to reinforce that because delays. I mean, I was an IP years ago and it was a terrible problem. And in fact, it made the complaint cases into bigger things than they actually were in the first place. And I think maybe members don't think it's important, which it often doesn't seem to be. But maybe that's something else that should go in the LGA guidance that members need to be encouraged to respond in a timely manner. Because otherwise it makes the process much more laborious than it need be. And I don't know, maybe we need sanctions against them. Sanctions is the big issue in that they're very, very limited. I have remembered the other point and that is just actually that I wanted to make that, yes, we may have some delays, we may have things that go on longer. But I have to say, in my experience, the number of complaints you get are very few compared to very many authorities. So, you know, from that point of view, you're doing fairly well. And another point that I made on my, when I did the training, is that one of the things that's actually quite noteworthy is, although it comes up occasionally, is that on the use of social media, in the other authorities I've worked at over the years, that is a huge issue with complaints, either between members, member on member or members of the public. And that isn't something that generally occurs at Tower Hamlet. So, you know, you don't need to sort of beat yourself up. Actually, you're not doing too badly on the number of complaints. Thank you for that Linda. Fiona? I just had a question, again, it relates to how the findings were made and then the case was closed without reference to any form of committees at that point or possible referral to the Ombudsman. I just wanted to just understand that process a little bit. What happened in relation to the process that's written down? That was the first question. And the second question was, Linda may well have covered it, looking back over that concern, what lessons were there to learn and how have we gone about learning those? OK, it didn't go to informal resolution. That was where the monitoring officer made a decision about what the outcome should be. And what we've learnt is I think we need to look at informal resolutions as a much, much earlier stage. He got at the front of my mind when dealing with complaints. When I look at complaints now at an initial stage, I think, can this be diverted to another route as much earlier? The only thing that is going through my head is there's so many gaps for something to go wrong. Not that I don't trust our officers and our members. You absolutely have the best interest, but it's open to abuse. It really is. And even one other thing, and it should be a very simple thing to do about counsellors not responding, clearly, like, counsellors can also abuse this process by not responding back. They come to full counsel. That's one thing you have to do. If you miss three, you're no longer a counsellor, so you should never go beyond six months. I don't think there's ever a month or few weeks that they're not contacting us about something or the other. It's either committees, it's about do we have dates to rearrange this? Or training and everything else. I just don't understand how they can get through so many cracks and not respond back. As from Labour Group, I can tell you, if this was something that you sort of brought to my attention, I'd make sure this is sorted out within a few days, within that week. It shouldn't be going long. Look at some of these dates. It's ridiculous. So if the individual counsellors aren't responding and they belong to a party, the party should take responsibility in making sure that there's a response, and it's a response in an effective and in a good manner. Because, like, this is officer's time. That's also been, that's costing money. Right? So let's think about that as well. Let's suggest that I've seen counsellors contact via email and Teams messages. I never check my Teams message. I do check my emails several times a day. I'm just wondering, in addition to that, whether or not, you know, member services have everybody's house at their home address. So that might put some fear into them. Just a suggestion. Thank you, counsellors, for your suggestions. And Jill, I think it's fair that we're actually a lot more proactive as well, because I think we had a process and got bogged down in that, whereas now we're looking at things a little bit more creatively, which is why I think, you know, having a little bit more success. So we are involving things like the group. Yes, I think we're finding ways through the thicket, but it's not been very easy. I wonder whether that's something we should think about for our, in a year's time, reporting how successful we've been, if we're being more imaginative now. Well, maybe people will just see a list of very, very short complaints. That's how we'll know we've been successful. Thank you. I just wanted to endorse the idea of taking it further, not just forgetting about it, because it is an issue, and it does use up a lot of officer's time, and the IP's time too. Well, we're providing whatever support we can, and we look to you, we'll hear again what success you're having. Thank you. I think Councillor Islam's suggestion is a very good one. And yeah, we will certainly be taking that on board. And yes, the idea of sending a letter to people's houses, if necessary, we will also consider. So thank you very much. Thank you. Let's move to the work plan then. A lot more, haven't we? Thank you, Chair. Yes, there's been lots of discussion today, so obviously we'll have to come back with more ideas. But you can see on here where we're up to, and what was scheduled for the meetings for the year. If we look at January, so we've got an update on the Member Learning Development Charter. Hopefully we'll have some significant updates by then. Annual report on member training, and in particular we'll look at the sort of work around individual member training budgets and the personal development plans and things like that that we've been doing this year. Scarily by next year we need to start thinking about the member induction for 2026, so I don't know who's up for that. But we'll just start the process of discussing that, and then a couple of regular reports there, the dispensations and the gifts and hospitality. And obviously there is stuff from today, but if there are other ideas that members would like, then please let us know. Should we put some kind of timeline on the things that we've added to the work plan? Some discussions relatively shortly, yes. I can't see the item I've started with on the guidance. I can't see a new process being developed quickly. But we can at least hear from officers thinking on how that might be approached. Do we need some external resources to help you? So yes, there's a lot coming from that, but we need to prioritise it. Yeah, it's a fair question. You might think, well, I didn't accept it, so therefore I shouldn't have to declare it. We encourage it because it helps us spot patterns. So if people are pushing things on members and members are all rejecting it, then unless somebody tells us by declaring it, we don't know that it's happening. So, for example, it could be a developer who's trying to give gifts to lots of people because they're hoping that will help with decisions and things that are happening in the future. So we can see that and then we can follow that up. So that's the main reason. And also it's just transparently proved. If somebody kind of sees the discussion and thinks, oh, they must have accepted that in the end, it's kind of a waste. No, no, I didn't. In that case, do I have to be a group who wanted to offer the gift? We do encourage that, too. For example, if it was a developer like that, we wouldn't know what to do if we didn't know who it was. Is it a person? Yeah, similar guidance, yeah. Let's move to any other business. I've got a couple. There's his price. You'll recall that an expansion in the papers that I've written to him. As a matter of report to you, I've written to him. I've reminded Linda, and Linda's going to remind Steve. So that's still outstanding. I'll leave that with you, Linda. Just to say I have reminded him on several occasions. I suppose I'd grab him at something at the council meeting. Hopefully before that. Also, coming from the previous discussions and agreed with Steve was that we would be told of media mentions of Tower Hamlets. I'm yet to receive any. I can't believe that Tower Hamlets has not been mentioned in the media. Well, I've seen it mentioned, but I'm not getting anything from the internal processes, so just a reminder on that. I know Steve said it would be complicated, but, you know, that's why we're clever people. Well, he's a clever person. You get emails. It stopped recently, but members always got an email that said, gave a brief link to everything. We haven't had that for at least around six months, maybe more. We used to get them all the time. This council absolutely knows how to do that. Well, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I mean, I've chaired some large organizations that are in the public face, and that's exactly the kind of thing where I had a different level of authority as a chair. I could insist on getting because you need to know. It's not something we'll necessarily raise, but as far as there are implications on standards, code of conduct, it would be helpful for us to know because otherwise how can we raise something that's occurring elsewhere. And the one example I'd given previously was this allegation of corruption on licensing. You know, deeply embarrassing for the members of the public who I know, who know what my role is, to be asked about that and said, don't know anything about it. Oh, it's in private eye. I didn't know. So I think there's general agreement on that. So it's Matthew and Linda to remind the chief exec. Yeah, we can pick that up. I mean, the press release email does still happen. I mean, we had problems with the member email as well. For some reason, some addresses seem to drop out of the system. So whether there's something that happened more widely and we didn't realize, I don't know. [inaudible] Yeah, yeah, yeah. [inaudible] Yes, I remember it going electronic, yeah. We'll have to, we can take that back and find out. And my final AOB is asking for information. But I suspect you'd have told us if you knew, when's the best value inspection going to report? I think that's above my pay grade. I don't know is the answer to that. I'm not sure if anyone does. I mean, it's reported to the government and we're told that they government have it. But beyond that. And the government has changed. Well, I'll ask Angela Rayner directly. And if she tells me, I think I'll tell you. Any other business from anyone? Well, thank you for attending. Date of next meeting, 16th of January. Oh, I should have said I've not been notified of any other urgent business. No, there's no other urgent business that I've been notified of either. Do we have to sign a get well card for Joel or you just shout at him? If he's off for more than just today, then I'll get a card circulated. Along with the request to write the minutes. Thank you all, good night. [BLANK_AUDIO]