Transcript

Okay, I'm Councillor Rex Osborne, I'm chair of this committee, the General Purposes Committee. And welcome to everybody who's present and observing us remotely. My plan this evening is I'm not going to go around and get everybody to introduce themselves. What I'd like is every time somebody speaks for the first time in the committee meeting, if they then introduce themselves. I'm looking for ways of saving time in the process of the meeting. I have apologies this evening from Councillor Hedges, unavoidably detained at work. I understand that Councillor Ambash, and I'd like it confirmed if possible, technically is observing in the ether, but perhaps not. Not at the moment, but he is trying to do so, I think. And we are expecting other people to join us remotely. For example, from CFGS, the consultants, Mr. Parry and Mr. Mullen. And the author of the report, which is the subject of the second item on the agenda, Andrew Maughan will be joining us remotely this evening as well. So, we will have access to them and be able to ask them questions and deliberate with them. I have a couple of things that I'd like to say before we start to discuss matters in earnest. One is that the outgoing chief executive, Mr. Jackson, would have liked to have been here. But it has never been possible for him to attend this meeting. It has always been on a date that he couldn't possibly make. So, he's not here this evening. And while we're on the subject of individual officers of the council, I'd remind members of the committee that we are bound by rule 21D of the standing orders, which means that we have to be careful what we say about individual officers in any of the discussions that are taking place tonight, especially if we're discussing a paper which names individual officers. So, we must take care. And where necessary, I will call on the officers to give us advice on what we can and cannot do on those matters. But the spirit of the discussion is that it's perfectly all right in a general way to have a proper discussion on, for example, what might have happened in something under the remit of the council, as long as things are kept in a general and careful and measured tone as we go forward this evening. So, the first thing I'd like to ask more formally this evening is we've got the minutes of the last meeting held on the 15th of July. Are the minutes agreed as a correct record? Agreed. Okay. No. I agree with them as a correct record. I'm just raising two matters which are better raised here than anywhere else, and it's an attempt to be helpful. So, and I did indeed do this last time around, so it's relevant to the minutes on the last occasion. The first is that about this time last year, you'll recall, and those members who were on will recall, that there was a certain amount of discussion about the delay in the publication of the annual record of members' allowances and expenses, which we were concerned had been delayed so far as to have put the council in breach of the law. It was raised at that time that they would be published more expediently, and indeed it appears they have been because they are online on the council's website. But that in turn raises the point that it was the previous practice, it was the practice of the previous administration to bring that annual report to a meeting of general purposes every July. It was a routine matter for that report to be brought to the committee. It has been published online and not brought to the committee. So my first question is, has a policy decision been taken not to bring that report to this committee any longer?

Okay, that's your first item. Can I just, before we finish dealing with your first item, can I just ask, as I said I would, that you would say who you are and- Sorry, for anyone who needs help, my name is Councillor Peter Graham. I'm the opposition speaker for this committee and a walk answer for ones that are common. Okay, so there's a question on policy of publishing allowances. I'm not certain that anybody would have an answer to that this evening. Are you happy to get a written reply on that? Well, Mr. Choudry may be able to offer a response, but I think the point is that if this committee is no longer going to see that report, that should be a decision that we take, it shouldn't just, I mean, I'm not suggesting any malice. I say it has been published, so that this is an improvement on last year, but it's just we haven't got it. Councillor Graham, I've got the message, I'm not accusing you of anything. So I'm just saying I'm not sure that it's possible for anyone to answer it this evening. Is there, okay, yes, sorry. Thank you, Chair, my name's Aptus Choudry, I'm the Council's monitoring officer. Council Graham, with regards to policy, I'm not aware of any change in policy. The practice had been to bring forward the allowances paper as part of a report on future allowances, current and future allowances, if there's to be any changes. At the minute, there isn't a paper to bring forward. In that paper, if a paper is to be brought forward, it will be brought forward and the allowances paid out will be referenced as part of that paper, as has been the case in the previous years. All right. Your second point, Councillor Graham. I will follow up other issues with that, with outside of this. That's jolly good, yeah. Second point. >> The second point, and again, I'm not trying to create any trouble with this, but I did raise at the last meeting was that the previous chair had undertaken to get an explanation from Councillor Apps in relation to the decisions that were taken last May. The very last meeting, and indeed, both you and Councillor Apps said that that explanation would be sought, but that the message hadn't been conveyed at that point, which I'm perfectly prepared to accept. However, I still haven't, and I don't think the committee has had, had that explanation. And so I was wondering if it was going to be forthcoming. Okay, Councillor Apps, you may be able to answer that. Yeah, I'm Councillor Apps, I'm a member of Shaftesbury in Queenstown. I'm slightly surprised by that, my undertaking was to share it with the opposition group and I shared it with your new whip on the 5th of August. Well, the- >> Hold on a second, you had to ask for the chair, but do you want me to speak on this? I would like to come back on that because- >> Okay, very quickly. Well, so our group whip did indeed share a response that had been brought to him. And he responded back, as I understand it, saying, first of all, pointing out that it didn't actually answer the question. Which was why the reason for a different allocation from the most proportional allocation having been adopted. But I believe he also responded back to note that it needed to be shared with the committee and not with him. That's what he told me, and certainly he conveyed back that it did not actually provide the reason which was being sought. Councillor Graham, this toing and froing isn't really going to get us anywhere, I don't think. And I take your point that you're not trying to cause any trouble or anything like that. So I'm going to suggest that you take this up outside the meeting, rather than take up time of the committee this evening. That's fine, just for the benefit of those viewing this action, and slightly bewildered by what on earth we're going on about. The point is that the committee is under a legal duty, as indeed are all committees of this council, to provide the reasons for the decision at the point of decision. I'm sure that's right, Councillor Graham, but I don't think we can, we're clearly not able to resolve it here this evening. So it needs to be taken up outside of the committee. Okay, so let me go back to the minutes of the meeting. They otherwise agreed as a formal record, an accurate record of the previous meeting, agreed? Very good. And then do I have any declarations of interest, including any pecuniary declarations from anybody? No, none? We bought our own suits. If I can move on then to the first item on the agenda, which is headed up, Democracy Review. And I think I'm going to get an introduction from, is it from- >> John Evans. From John, yes, I thought it was, yeah, John. Thank you, thank you, Chair, and thank you, Committee. So the first item on your agenda here is an update on the next stage of the Democracy Review. Members will recall the LGA's corporate peer challenge in 2023. It made some clear recommendations about reviewing its governance model and processes to ensure efficient decision making. Members will recall we commissioned the CFGS, Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, who are sort of recognized independent experts in this area. To undertake a first review, and that review letter was brought to this committee in July. And we referenced about that we would be beginning the next stage of the work to actually implement the proposals that came from the original review. And we brought CFGS back on board to do that. This committee asked that a paper came to this committee with the CFGS in attendance to discuss about how that review is going to be taken forward. So this paper sets that out, sets out the journey that the CFGS will take. We're proposing and we want to make sure that cross party work is a key part of the work to take these proposals forward. And this paper sets out a task and finish group based on the membership of the general purposes meeting. And we will keep that work off in the coming weeks with a name to get the first set of proposals agreed through the May Annual Council next year. So I'll pause there and just to introduce, we've got Ian Parry, who many of you will know from your interactions with the CFGS in the previous work, and his colleague Anthony Mullen as well. So I will happily take any questions and also Ian and Anthony as well. Can I suggest that Mr Parry and Mr Mullen at least say hello, if not some words of introduction about the papers? Thank you very much indeed, Chair, and good evening members of the committee. Yes, this is not necessarily the implementation, it's the next phase in terms of how the implementation should develop. So it's as before, in a sense, we want to be as, and the Council wants to be, should I say, as inclusive as possible. And if anyone feels that they've been overlooked or hasn't had their say or wants something, wants to input in any way, we very much welcome that. So we need to set up some sessions, some of those will be one-to-one, some of those will be kind of group, focus group type sessions, where we look at what changes might be considered and why they might be considered. And my colleague, who's joined me, Anthony, is our research expert in the team. And we want to, if you like, provide some evidence as well for the committee to look at and for the focus groups, the sessions that we hold, so that we can see a kind of benchmark, if you like, of good practice based on national guidance, based on research and what's happening in other councils. And just general good practice, so we can perhaps help to compare ourselves with, if you like, best in class or what's happening elsewhere. And I hope that that might help to steer us and steer members into looking at what are the best and most realistic options for improvement. Clearly, we detected the will of the council, the majority of councillors, to improve, to make changes. There are great opportunities, we thought, in improving, giving greater input from members, greater authority for members, great opportunities for members to be involved, to make things more accountable and stronger, to be more open, transparent, democratic, agile. All the good things that you'd expect in scrutiny and in good governance. I'm very mindful of what the LGA report said and the fact, clear fact that the system has been around now for 20-odd years. And whilst you can make almost any system work, is it fit for the future? Is the question, can it be improved? Is there a better model out there that would give you more agile decision making, more transparency, more clarity about how decisions are made within the council and greater opportunities for members to be involved, both in the accountability side of it, but also in the strengthening of policy and decision making. So that's the kind of journey that we hope we're going to take with you over the next few months. We very much want this to be inclusive and joint working with members and hope that we can reach consensus at the end of this. We're not looking to impose anything. That's not our job. That's not what we're here for. We have no rights to do that anyway. But we do want to, as much as possible, see if we can build a level of agreement about what the opportunities for change might be. Thank you, Chairman. OK, I'm going to invite the committee then. First of all, I should say that this is a paper to note, but it has some substantial elements in it which will give rise to, for example, a working group or task and finish group after this meeting and so on. So we are noting something that will have results. But if I invite members to ask questions of Mr. Parry or Mr. Mullen or Mr. Evans or anybody else, for that matter, and but also don't feel restricted questions. I mean, you can make points as well in this committee. I've got Councillor Graham first. Thank you. And I want to start by welcoming the tone of this paper and the nature of Mr. Parry's introduction there. I think that we were at unnecessary odds in July in our approach to this process. I think that from the opposition's point of view, we are keen to participate in cross-party working. We will enter into that in good faith. And we wish to try and make this work. We recognize that we're probably not going to see eye to eye on everything, but that's fine. The point is to find those areas where we can agree and we will certainly attempt to do so and be flexible in our engagement with that. So we welcome this process. And for that reason, I will try not to rake over the bad blood that may have existed previous to this. Can I just start by asking for an undertaking, given that the task and finish group be based on this committee's membership, an undertaking that every member of this committee who wishes to be on the task and finish group will be? I think we can give that undertaking no problem whatsoever. Yeah, that is that is very helpful to have. But perhaps Mr. Parry could help on this next point, which is obviously a task and finish group, at least under CFGS guidance, has to have a parent committee. Given that this task and finish group is based on the general purposes membership, going to be chaired by the general purposes committee, would it be Mr. Parry's view that it should be viewed as a task and finish group of the general purposes committee? Can you? I mean, I can. I'm happy for Mr. Parry to answer that question. I think it can also be answered from the chief whip side as well, if necessary. Shall I take a few more? I mean, point noted, take a few more comments and we'll circle back to answering some of your questions. Is that OK? OK, because I want to bring in you. I guarantee we will get back to it. Can I just take some comments or questions from Councillor Ireland, please? Thank you very much for the report. I'm very interested in hearing a bit more about public engagement, because I'd like to know more about how you get the widest range of residents involved in this, particularly residents we don't often hear from and who are more reliant on council services than the ones we do hear from. Do you understand what I mean? Thank you. OK. All right. Councillor Corner. Thank you, chair. And I'd like to join the colleagues who've spoken already in welcoming this report and the introduction there. I note, just on one of the pages of the report, there's like a diagram of various touch points that will take place under this project. That's proposed to include preparation sessions attended by the Tyson Finish Group, a couple of workshops and a workshop for officers, which would not, my understanding, is be attended by members of the Tyson Finish Group, which we now know will be members of this committee. Could Mr. Parry just give an overview of what his recommendation would be for how those different activities report to the Tyson Finish Group? And can we, as a committee, come to an agreement that the outputs from all of those activities will be seen by the Tyson Finish Group and preferably the formal general purposes committee? Councillor Apps, please. Thank you. So Councillor Apps again from Shaftesbury and Queenstown Ward. Yeah, just very interested in this work. I'm really looking forward to the engagement. I'm glad that we're looking to engage with officers as well as having the workshops based on the GP committee. I think we'll get enough say in this that it can then go on to the cabinet and to the full council, which is indeed what we agreed last time. So I think that will be the route it will take. But I'd be very keen to hear more about how we might engage members with decisions earlier on in the process. At the moment, we've got a very much, what do you call it, an 11th hour sort of scrutiny process, which really doesn't give members much say. So I'd be interested to hear Mr. Parry's views on those. OK, I'm going to go over to Mr. Parry, but just on Councillor Graham's seeking some guarantees. I mean, I think one of the issues, this is a question from me as chair. One of the issues is the technical term parent committee and what the implications of that might be. And I'm hoping that Mr. Parry will clear that up when I go to him in a second. But my understanding is that the guarantee of the membership of this committee being the basis of the working group is fixed, even if it's parented. So the establishing committee is this committee, even though it's parented by, say, the executive committee and reports to the executive committee. But clarity on that would be fantastic. Thank you. So if I can hand over to Mr. Parry, if he could respond to some of the comments and questions that have come from the committee so far. Of course, thanks. And first of all, the way we see it is that we need a reference of reference point of councillors members where we can feed back to say this is that this is how far we've got. This is how we see it. What do you think? Can we reflect? Can we discuss before we move on? So it's that reference point, I think, is important. So therefore, we see the task and finish not being the group that undertake the work, but the group that hear the findings in that sense. So we would like to feed back findings at each stage when we've completed the stage to come together as the task and finish group, rather as a committee, as a single item, if you like, and discuss what the findings are and what we think might be the reasonable route forward. That's that's I think there was two undertakings there. One is, you know, the reference point about the point about, you know, having a session with with with officers without members. It's just to take the wildest sounding. So our job is to is to do the inquiry, do the evidence gathering, make sense of it and bring it back to you. As a as the task of finish group would say, we think it our opinion, it looks like this and this is what the evidence is telling us. And this is what we suggest might be the next steps in that. So it's just it's just building that consensus as we go along, really. The other point, chair, about engaging the public, which I think is one of the most interesting parts of this review. And I think I think we need to be fairly open minded about it because it's probably the most difficult bit as well. And how do we meaningfully reach reach residents, give them greater inclusion and access than perhaps they have now or feel they might have now. Allow them opportunities to participate reasonably where they can. And not forgetting, you know, all the good points about about how members are represent residents are represented, how they have full access to members themselves at the moment. This is about giving it a wider voice, if you like, a particular to those residents that perhaps don't have the access or resources to be heard. They're the most difficult people to cater for often. But as we've seen in other places where people have not been listened to properly, some tragic things can happen and therefore to give that access, to give that voice is important. So this might be an opportunity for innovation for Wandsworth for some level, perhaps of of trialing and testing what might work, what might be appropriate. But we just like to explore that. We're going to bring on board a couple of colleagues as well who are experts in this field to help us to explore those opportunities. I think the other point was really about working more upstream as members in scrutiny. And what we found in the initial review that we did was that it was very up close to the decision making in terms of scrutiny, which gave little opportunity for it to have any value adding function. It was very much a binary approval or not approved kind of approach rather than one which is more constructive and one that was more helpful towards the council. So we wondered whether a more select committee style of scrutiny would be more appropriate, but just wanted to explore that with council, with members and see how that might play out. What would be the pros and cons of that? How would that work? So it's that kind of that kind of approach in terms of setting up straw men, straw models and discussing them based on evidence, based on findings, based on discussions that we have with you and other members and officers with the council. I think that's covered the questions you had. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Parry. Can I go to Councillor Grimston saying who and what you are? Well, for the purposes of this meeting, I'm Councillor Malcolm Grimston, the independent counselor for West Hill Ward in Putney Southfield's area. And like colleagues, I welcome the initiative. I think it's a good initiative on behalf of the new administration, which I which I woke up. I think while I'm a little bit clearer, it came out of the discussions both from Mr. Parry and from Councillor Apps, is that there are some ideas there of what we think needs to be put right. And the thing that's been particularly mentioned is the is the getting our experience of our wards into the system earlier on with the hope that we're not being as reactive, I think, as we've been as a council for some years. But I wonder whether it might be helpful to just have a kind of maybe one pager source document based on the LGA peer challenge. Just setting out clearly what it is that we think we would be helpful for us to address as a council. So a list of where we don't think things are working effectively in the way we have at the moment. Perhaps in there, a sense of what improvement would look like and something in there about how we'll know if it's got better. What are we actually going to be measuring in terms of performance management? What are we actually going to be looking for in the outcomes of the council to demonstrate that we're moving in the right direction? And I think some of those questions legitimately will be those for the task and finish group when it gets going. But I think some predate that. I think some of those issues are kind of setting the agenda for the task and finish group. So I wonder whether it might be possible to have that source document that we can all agree with as a starting point before we get deeply into the task and finish group operations. Okay, that's an interesting contribution and I'm keen that the detail of that is minuted from this meeting. Councillor Henderson. Thank you Chair, Councillor Graham, Henderson, Rowhamson. First of all, I certainly welcome this, it is much, much needed. I think the old chair quite correct and I think even Mr. Parry recognized that current system is to be polite, unique. We do actually need to change this great opportunity to do so. And particularly to create a system which certainly actually values members, gives them the opportunity of a genuine scrutiny. And as part of that, to be less adversarial. And very much in relation to that, Mr. Parry, I think you've already touched upon one area which you do see as potentially quite difficult, that is public engagement. But in order to build consensus and hopefully to ensure good working practices. I'm just wondering what you consider to be perhaps some of the easier things that we can actually do. Hopefully agree on, if you'd like, low hanging fruit. So we can actually build momentum in terms of taking this review forward. Thank you. Before I go back to Mr. Parry, I'm going to take Councillor Graham. And can I say to Councillor Graham, I'm hoping to move into a more conclusive mood on this discussion if we may. Okay, I will note that I haven't as yet had a view from Mr. Parry on my point about parent committees. And I just want to clarify the context here because this came up in the context of the excellent CFGS document. The review and redrafting of Constitution's guidance for English authorities which need paid for by the government. And so it's a strongly authoritative document. I pointed out at the last meeting of this committee that it said that task and finish groups should have a committee of the council as parent committee. The monitoring officer at that time argued that because the executive was a committee of the council, it would be appropriate for the executive to be the parent committee of the task and finish group. And I just want to note the same document from CFGS, this review document says, local authority executives are not required to be politically balanced. They are not committees of the council, and are not subject to the same rules and laws of ordinary council committees. So could Mr. Parry confirm, even if he doesn't want to touch on which committee should be the parent committee, that it is CFGS's clear view that the executive should not be? Can I take Councillor Corner first, and then go to Mr. Parry. Thank you, Chair. I don't think time scales for the completion of this work are actually outlined in this report. Could Mr. Parry, while he's here, just give us an indication, perhaps from his experience with doing similar work with other councils, or how long this might take to both produce the final recommendations, and then also to embed them into business as usual, and evaluate the changes. Councillor Aps. I wonder what Mr. Parry thinks are going to be the most challenging aspects of taking this work forward. I'd be interested in his views on that. Okay, that's another round of comments and questions, Mr. Parry. I wonder if you could respond to those. On Councillor Aps' point, I couldn't possibly comment. I don't know yet, but the question about task and finish groups. If Wandsworth was operating in a cabinet or executive stroke scrutiny model as it's normally applied, what would normally happen is the scrutiny committee, which you do have in your constitution but tend not to call them that, would be the parent committee. In this case, you've got a general purposes committee as the parent committee of a task and finish group. And that's how I would see it. I'm not the, your monitoring officer may have a different view, but the way I saw this working was that this committee would operate as a task and finish group outside its normal remit of meeting as a committee. So the task and finish group would meet as a task and finish group and the committee would meet as a committee as appropriate. And I think that fits. I can't see a problem with that. But I'll pause just in case there is a response, Chair. Yeah, Mr. Chair is the only other person referenced there, but has anybody else got a view? I'm happy to take out the, oh, Councillor Court. Only to say it does seem that based on that recommendation, it seems like we can just reach a consensus and agreement here as a committee that the task and finish group is the membership of this committee and that the parent committee is the general purposes committee, and that seems to me uncontroversial. Okay. >> I see, Chair. That's how you see it. Yes, thank you, Mr. Perry, that's good, yeah. And then time scale, I think that's a good point. I think it does reference in your committee's report that we're aiming to get this back to you or the whole thing completed in time for annual council next year. So that if there are changes to your constitution, that could be implemented then, ready for the new municipal year. There might be some things which go on beyond that which don't necessarily require constitutional change, but might take a little bit more time in terms of embedding them, such as the implementation through perhaps some member development work and that sort of thing that might extend it. But generally speaking, I think the focus is try and get this completed by the end of this municipal year. Okay, did you want to add anything, Mr. Choudry? You were referenced a couple of times there. No, Chair, the discussion has moved on from there. Very good, okay, I think you have an answer there about the parenting of the task and finish group. If not, then clearly we have something that we've got to reflect on there from Mr. Parry. I do have an answer, and I'm very grateful for that answer, and that is indeed in line with what I hoped would be the case. I was just going to suggest that, and we don't necessarily have to discuss it right now, but I just wanted to suggest that in that case, we slightly tweaked the recommendation and replaced the words the next steps in the recommendations with the words establish a task and finish group. Because if we are the parent committee, we ought to resolve to establish it. So I think if we replace the words the next steps with establish a task and finish group, that will be in keeping both with the paper and the consensus that we now appear to have about who's in charge of this task and finish group. Chancellor Apps? I think it's pretty clear from the report that the next steps are establishing a task and finish group, so we don't need to, but thanks for the suggestion. Look, other committees where they're establishing task and finish groups are resolving to do so, so it would be consistent. But if we're going to be, if we've got an understanding with the parent committee, we don't necessarily need to do that. I just think it would be neater to do so. Yes, Council Graham, please don't jump in all the time like that. I think we've got, as Councilor Corners says and Councilor Apps, I think we do have a consensus, which is that this committee will be the parent committee, probably. And that the next steps will include setting up a task and finish group, and that was always the case. So I don't think there's any danger that next steps will exclude the task and finish group. You just caveated your statement of it with the word probably. If we remove the word probably, I'm happy with what the position we've reached. Okay, I'm so English sometimes, I speak in tentative all the time. I had no intention of doing so, so this will be the task and finish group, yeah. Okay, can I move then from there to the noting of the report and move on to the next item. Is everyone happy with that? Yep, okay, very good. [BLANKAUDIO] Do you require us to leave now? Thank you, Mr. Perry. There is no requirement, if you're interested you may hang on, but there is no demand on you to do so. Same with Mr. Mullen. Thank you very much for your assistance this evening. Thank you, Chair, thank you members. Also, while I've got the microphone on, I should say I think we now have Councillor Ambash listening in as well. So, welcome to Councillor Ambash to this meeting. He's somewhat indisposed this evening, but he has come on, joined us from the ether. So, if we move on to item two then, which is the discussion about the vote in Putney during the general election. I'm not proposing to have the paper introduced. I'm looking for speed this evening, if possible. And I want, if possible, therefore, to go straight to the discussion of the report from Mr. Morn. To thank Mr. Morn for the report and say that I think all parties have welcomed it. And find it a useful report and a useful document for us to consider and base decisions on. As you will know if you saw the press release about the report earlier this week, I am commending to the committee that we accept all the recommendations in the report. So, it's an excellent report. It's got good recommendations, which I'm hoping that we will consider positively. And I'm going to invite people to make comments about the report. I'm going to invite people to ask questions of Mr. Morn. And if I can give my personal thanks to Mr. Morn for the excellence and quality of this report that has helped us out a lot as a council. Councilor Graham. Thank you, and I concur with your comments. And I also wanted, because members of the public won't be aware that we had a private informal meeting some time ago in which we put various things. Well, onto the table amongst ourselves, but didn't put them out there. One of the things this report says, and which we raised at that meeting, and I just wanted to highlight it. It says that there is no doubt that Mr. Smith is clearly extremely experienced and highly competent. And as opposition councilors, and I'm sure we would join with the administration ones in saying that, although there have been failings, they in no way detract from Mr. Smith. And we are reassured that he has been taking all of the steps necessary to address them. And we want to put on record our personal confidence in him despite the problems that have been had. I also think we ought to put on record our gratitude to Mr. Morn who has undertaken this review at no cost when he was under no obligation to do so. And that is an act of public service for which we should definitely express our thanks. I, like you, agree with all of his recommendations. Colleagues of mine won't pick out some of the points within his report. But we basically agree with everything he's had to say here. What I did want to ask him was that there are obviously some areas outside the scope of the terms he was given, what he was given to look into. One of those would be electoral commission advice, and indeed, this is something that I raised at that previous informal meeting. The electoral commission basically went from a position in which people were required to do their sums on paper and they could use a spreadsheet as a backup to just saying, use a spreadsheet if you like. And giving no further instruction on what those spreadsheets should look like, what best practice was for them, whether people should independently verify them, what sort of structure should be used. It's just allowed people to switch to spreadsheets. And we now have a situation in which, just within the SSA, not only was there a spreadsheet error here, under a different electoral services team, there was a spreadsheet error in Richmond Park, which was indeed only discovered because they went back and looked after the mistake had been found here. I suspect that up and down the country, if actually spreadsheets were investigated, there would be more errors still, which simply aren't being seen because they are only accessible to one or two people. So I'd like to ask Mr. Moore whether he thinks that the electoral commission guidance on these matters is inadequate and that this council and possibly others should be pushing them to provide much better and tighter guidance, or just telling councils to go back to doing it on paper and using spreadsheets as a backup. Thank you, Councillor Graham. I'll take some more comments. Councillor Lawless. Thank you. I had a question for Mr. Smith, and I was going to ask on recommendation point six, it says that during the count, officers should ensure they share figures with candidates and agents at various stages. And Mr. Smith will know me as an agent for one of our MPs during some elections. And I would really like figures, because I'm always chasing you in a night anyway for them. Do you know what that might look like and maybe what that could be and how it might help the process? Okay, Councillor Corner, yeah. Thank you, Chair. My focus is not so much going to be on the minutiae of what columns of a spreadsheet were or were not added up correctly at three o'clock in the morning, but more on the culture of the council and how these events were responded to. Mr. Maughan says on page 24 of his report, or rather page 14 of the report, page 24 of the meeting pack, that a press release should have accompanied the original cons as press interest was, in his view, inevitable. While officer's view was that they were overtaken by events, which was presumably an explanation for why this didn't happen. There was never any press release from the council acknowledging what happened during the election count. And there wasn't a press release on the subject as a whole until last week when the council issued a press release to say that an independent review had been commissioned and completed. Is Mr. Maughan's view that it would be prudent for the council to undertake a review of the operations within the press office and communications department in terms of responding to these events? Because it seems to me that, and while I appreciate many of the officers won't be public relations professionals, that a public relations team would almost always advise in this event or an event like this that information should be published as soon as possible so that you get all the information out there and reduce the risk of reputational damage to the council. Councillor Grimston. >> Point of order, I'm very welcoming of some of your innovations as chair counsel Osborne. But it's a time on a practice in public meetings if you wish to avoid follow up questions to ask for groups of questions in three or four to prevent those people then coming back. It is not the custom or practice of this committee. Could we not just have questions, answers, potential follow ups and then move on to the next question? As is the norm and has been our norm in every other committee's norm. Well actually, I'm in the chair, I'm going to decide how I'm going to do it. And what I'd like to do is to try and avoid a constant toing and froing between two people in a committee. I quite like to get a group of comments. And by the way, I have said one of my innovations is that I don't particularly want people to ask questions. I am very happy for people to make comments rather than ask questions, so that they can take part in a debate. And I'm certainly going to go to Mr. Morn for a response to all these things. But I would like to take a round of comments and questions first. Thank you, Chair. Just sort of following on from what Council Corners just talked about. I think we all know that whenever anything goes wrong, a crucial issue is how you deal with it in the first few hours. Because if you don't deal with the first few hours and set a narrative out there, somebody else is going to set a narrative out there. And it need not necessarily be either as accurate as the one you put out or as helpful as the one you put out. So I think that, I recognize this wasn't really a council pigeon, it was, in a sense, that it was the three parliamentary constituencies. Nonetheless, I think that at the point where something went on the council website, I do find it extraordinary that at that point nothing was put around to members. And it did, Councillor Graham with his normal eagle-eyed approach to these things, was actually, if I can put it this way without being rude, was given a bit of leeway to perhaps make more of it, than would have been the case had it been dealt with more clearly, more rapidly. And so from a, and to go back, from a reputational point of view for the council, I think there are issues there. And just a little plea as well, there are more than two groups on the council. I recognize that we've had two comments today about how the chip whip talked to the opposition whip in the first paper that we talked about. There's now a reference here that the opposition leader of the opposition should have been contacted. At any point, there may be extra groupings or individuals on the council. And I think I found with this, we shouldn't exaggerate the effect this has had on the public habit. I don't think the public is engaged with this. It certainly hasn't been mentioned to me since the first two or three days afterwards. But nonetheless, we are often in the front line of people in our wards coming to us, asking what's going on. And if we don't know, then we're not in a position to put the council's position to do that. So for me, that actually was probably the main issue that came out of it. And the report is very, very good reading in that I absolutely concur with all the positive comments that have been made about it. If I felt there was a weakness in there, I felt that this could have been driven a bit more clearly. That the main lesson maybe from this is how we manage those first few minutes, first few hours. Or anything, once we've recognized it's going wrong. So that we get on top of the agenda, rather than always having to respond to somebody else's agenda. Councillor Apps. Thank you, I thought I'd be in the next round. Yeah, Mr. Morn quite rightly pointed out the fact that there could be possible other problems with elections. There could be problems with postal votes, there could be problems with bringing the boxes back, there's all sorts of things that can go wrong. And what I want to know is, are we doing a review of those? And in that fact, a continual review, it should be happening at every election before, during, after. And is there a risk register for elections where we're identifying possible risks and then making sure that we've got mitigations to prevent them? Time to come to you again, Mr. Morn, I think. I hope everyone can hear me quite clearly from, as I'm contacting you from home. I think I've got, thank you, firstly, for the positive comments about the report. I'm more than happy to do it for you and to come and try and help, I think. And hopefully, put some fresh eyes on it. I've taken some notes of the questions, there were a few of them there. I think the first one was from Councillor Graham, which was really around the advice from the Electoral Commission. I suspect, Councillor Graham and members generally, I suspect that the Electoral Commission would never tell one not to use spreadsheets. I'm not terribly technical myself, but as far as I can see, spreadsheets are really a series of calculations, a series of, if you like, one could use a calculator. I think what they would tell you, and I think the report says and suggests as well, is you don't rely entirely on them. I think it's not a matter of not using them, it's a matter of entirely relying on them and how you check them and how you use them on the night and how you question their creation and how you validate their functioning before. I suspect that is what the Electoral Commission would say, something along those lines, rather than perhaps not use them and go back to pen and paper. I think best practice is always to have some sort of backup, and it's something I've always used. Probably perhaps I'm a slight technophobe, but I always like to have my own sums in front of me as well as relying on the computer, albeit I have to admit the computer is a heck of a lot faster. And I'm pleased to have that there to check my maths, frankly. So I think it's a bit of both, really, but I don't think the level is not usually their style to be that dictatorial on something like that. I think it was Councillor Cornyn was asking about the press release and what a PR team would do, and Councillor Grimson indicated similarly around the first few minutes, etc. I said in the report, and I think it's important to say again, it's very easy to look at these things sometimes with the benefit of hindsight. One can slip into that and become terribly wise after the event and perhaps look like some sort of PR genius that one really isn't. What I've said in the report, and I would say again now, however, is that it seems to me that when you discover that there were two things at play here. One was perhaps a slight overemphasis on the fact that technically this is a matter, you know, for the agents. Technically, this is something for the candidates and we'll go through that routine of telling them. I think that was a mistake. And in addition, I think it was also, as I said in the paper, I think it was underestimated the amount of interest that would be out there. And it seems to me that one needs to go out very quickly to all interested parties when something like this happens and explain this as the council can. And I use the word council advisedly because effectively the media will just see this as a council, as a bit of council business. They do. They never distinguish really between returning officers and any sort of technical way to go out very fully, very clearly early on, explain what had happened, reassure about other elections, because frankly, a mistake like this doesn't tell you anything about what's happened elsewhere. It tells you simply that a mistake was made on this evening, on this one election, on this one poll. Say that, but also say, which was clearly my experience of dealing with officers, was clearly that that was their approach, that they were going to openly look at this and clearly look at it and have someone independent come in and ask the difficult questions and say some probably quite uncomfortable things in the report, because that's how you're going to approach it. And if you can get that message out early as an authority, it seems to me a good thing. It seems to me a reassuring thing. And if people are worried and I think most of the worries around, I've seen things in correspondence, was this a recount, et cetera, were misplaced, but they can be dealt with quickly and effectively. In relation to Councillor App's question about other things going wrong, the risk registers, everything I've seen while I've been looking into this suggests that other things did not go wrong. I mentioned in the report that the actual balance of the figures from the first to the second stage, there was a differential of 14. That tells me this was a very accurate count. Ironically, given what happened, but it was an accurate count. There was no indication of anything going wrong. I let others comment on whether or not a risk register was kept, but I strongly suspect one was, because that is a fundamental request of the Electoral Commission in how you operate elections these days. I think I've tried my best to deal with everything I hope I have. Okay, so I've got Councillor Henderson next. Your question wasn't answered. You were asking a question of Mr Smith. Yes, you were. Okay, go on. So, Councillor Lawless first. Andrew Smith, Head of Electoral Services and Elections. Thank you, Councillor Graham, for your kind words. Thank you, Councillor Lawless, for your question. Yeah, I mean, I think in some ways, Mr Maughan is probably best placed to answer what he meant by that recommendation about sharing details. At the bare minimum, he would no doubt be talking about the verification overall of the particular electoral area. So, on a parliamentary basis, parliamentary constituency basis, the verification statement is always available upon request. What yourself, you know, with your agent's hat on, and I know that Councillor Graham has asked for this, and you may want more information than that, for example, a running total of boxes as they're verified. Frankly, that really feels like that would be a matter for the future returning officer to decide. And I guess one of the things I would say is whilst, obviously, I think, you know, people that have seen the council will accept that they are as transparent as we can make them, what we wouldn't want to do is add any additional risk into our processes by over-complicating them. But as I say, I think that is a matter for the next returning officer. But we can obviously have that conversation and talk about the desire which I think all sides would like, because I know it's helpful for yourselves, and if it aids that transparency. But as I say, it's not really my gift to say yes or no to that. But I think it's a conversation that needs to be had, yeah. Apologies for overlooking you, Councillor Lawless. Councillor Henderson. Thank you, Chair. As a Putney Councillor, I would just simply like to register on behalf of not only myself, but quite a number of other people, our extreme disappointment that this situation should have arisen. And of course, the error was actually pointed out by the Putney Labour agent, Fleur Anderson's agent. In terms of the publicity following the discovery, the chief executive certainly has said that the issue wasn't actually handled that particularly well. Although, as Mr. Perry has pointed out, one can always have the benefit of hindsight. What I actually find, I mean, I'm trying to endorse all the recommendations. They're quite necessary in addressing what I think is a much more systemic problem, which I think has existed for quite some time. Sweatsheets have been used for very, very many years indeed. But I think this report is also very useful in clarifying certain roles. I mean, I must admit, as an elected member, I would be very wary about getting involved in questioning election results. I mean, I suspect that if we did do that, then we would be open to criticism. So I think it is actually very useful that Mr. Perry is, sorry Mr. Moreton, sorry Mr. Moreton has actually addressed this issue. And I think hopefully now we can actually establish a system which is considerably more robust and that we can actually move forward together on a constructive basis. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Henderson. Councillor Graham. Yes, I mean, I think EROs have their own professional reasons for not wishing to be too rude about the Electoral Commission in public. I think between the lines, Mr. Moore was basically saying that the Electoral Commission guidance could be better. And I think that that's something for those of us who are not EROs and are Councillors, I think we should be pushing for us to take this up. Because really, this is there but for the grace of God, just about every count in the country. I think in terms of, if we've discovered two areas here across two councils, how many others are there where things are less well run and where they haven't been picked up on? So I think that has to be something in addition to the recommendations. I think it has to be something that this council does, is push the Electoral Commission to come up with clearer guidance. I wanted, however, to ask Mr. Moore another question that follows from that and follows from what Councillor Lawless was talking about with Mr. Smith. Which is that he had a line which the only person who could have spotted this error was Mr. Smith himself. And I think that's very telling. However, even if we just endorse these recommendations, it would still be the case that without information being shared, as Councillor Smith is talking about, the only people who could spot an error in the spreadsheet would be council officers and those administering the count. And the point is that agents and counting agents should be able to independently scrutinize and satisfy themselves of the accuracy of every part of the process. Now, I mentioned this before to some people, but the members of the public listening weren't known. I was in Peterborough for the election, and in Peterborough, first of all in terms of the ballot boxes and verification, I handed over my sheet with the list of ballot box numbers. And the electoral services team there very kindly filled in the verified total for each one by pen and handed it back to me, so I could make sure my spreadsheet was accurate. And then again, we were given the table count figures for each of the tables, so that had there been any error on the spreadsheet that was being run centrally, I would have picked it up based on my spreadsheet. The Labour Party team sitting on the other side of the count menu would have picked it up based on their spreadsheet. And it wouldn't have happened. So could Mr. Moore perhaps comment just about that transparency about providing all of the figures to the counting agents so that they can check themselves, and therefore everything is transparent and everything can be scrutinized, rather than some things being kept within those running accounts and unable to be seen by those whose job it is to check it's being done correctly? Councillor Lawless, did you want to come back in on something? Were you signalling me? You had a question? Go on then. So I was going to ask just for some clarification. So we know when the Labour Party or the Labour agent got in touch with Mr. Smith, can Mr. Smith tell us at what point in this process, and there's a timeline in point nine, the report on page 22, 23, at what point did the Conservative Party get in touch with some questions? And my second question, just for the benefit of people watching, did any votes go missing? Mr. Smith, yeah. OK, thank you. So the timeline question was do you want me to repeat when I heard from the Labour agent? I think Councillor Graham and the Conservative agent, after we told the agents about it, got in touch within a day or so. I don't recall exactly, but pretty much once, obviously, it was out anyway, and we contacted the agents, they did get in touch after that, yeah. What was the other point? Sorry, I forgot. No votes. As Mr. Maughan's already explained, everything was properly counted and allocated. It was just a formula error and failed to pick up on the declaration all the properly counted votes. I'm going to go back to Mr. Maughan, but I'd like to ask a question of Councillor Graham first. It's a question which I'd like an answer from Mr. Maughan on as well. Councillor Graham is eloquent on the subject of the Electoral Commission, and I'm looking at a way in which I can ensure that this committee will reinforce the recommendations of Mr. Maughan's report and make sure that a marker is put down about those recommendations with the Electoral Commission. I'm thinking if we minute what you've said about the Electoral Commission carefully and add that to a letter or something like that to the Electoral Commission, that will deal with, I think, your concern about the Electoral Commission. If you answer yes or no or something like that, and also I'd like advice from Mr. Maughan whether that's a way of pursuing the Electoral Commission item. I think the idea of a letter is an excellent suggestion. I concur with that. We thought about bringing amendments to try and push this point, but we decided that on the grounds that amendments can sometimes be less than helpful to achieving consensus, we wouldn't. So I'm grateful for that. I just want to also briefly come back on Councillor Lawless's point about missing, because I think there's a slight semantics here. There were votes missing from the totals. So votes were missing. They were missing from the totals. They were not physically missing in the venue. That's a semantic debate. Okay. Go on, Councillor Lawless. Yes, semantic debate. Thank you. Cheers. So it's interesting that Councillor Graham says that, because a Conservative Party press release went out saying that votes had gone missing. And as a result of their press release, national news outlets ran stories that said that votes had been lost. And that is like from the Donald Trump playbook. And I think what's transpired here by this timeline is clear that, instead of asking for the details and working out properly, they just fired off some press releases. So one of those press releases also contained quotes from opposition councillors, which helped fuel the story. And I think one point of reflection, which I hope Councillor Graham will come towards, is that maybe instead of firing the gun, we should have taken a step back, understood some of the details behind it, and then we wouldn't get into scare tactics with people. Well, Councillor Osborne, I have to respond to that if you allow me to, given I've just been accused of several things. Let me think about that. I want to go to Mr Maughan first about the Electoral Commission. Yes, thank you, Chair. I think there's two main things there on the Electoral Commission. I have myself written to the Electoral Commission in the past urging them to do certain things. So I think it's an absolutely open door for the committee if they feel appropriate to write to them and suggest that, you know, given their experience, given the experience in Wandsworth with the election, that you suggest that they look again at the guidance. I'm sure they would absolutely welcome that. As I said, I think my biggest beef with all of this, really, frankly, is around the complexity of the underlying legislation. That means that different elections are dealt with in slightly different ways. And it means that the Electoral Commission themselves have to issue numerous different variations on a theme. And as I said, my experience is they tend not to be absolutely definitive as you must do it this way. So you have you have a situation and it's for you as politicians to comment on this, that you have numerous hundreds of authorities around the country running elections in slightly different ways. And I think that that is an interesting question that could at some point be raised with them as to whether or not they think this is sensible or something that should be ongoing. I think the other point was really around transparency. And I think it's worth, if I may, just I think the main point I'm making in the report is, yes, is about sharing figures more. No, it's not a matter of the ones with not being open, but actually being more proactive in telling agents that certain stages are finished. That this is the numbers that we've got and that this is how accurate it's been. I think I think that's a transparency issue as much as anything. I think the sort of use the old phrase armchair auditor sort of thing, although none of you, of course, in those rooms are in an armchair. You're running around as exhausted as we are. But having other people have an idea of figures is not a bad thing. But the main point here and the most significant thing here, and I think the comparison to how we dealt with it in Camden is absolutely stark, is around the resource allocation, is around the numbers of individuals who are being asked to produce a result. And it seemed to me that in the Putney election, the Putney constituency, one individual was given that job. And that would not be something I would have done at Camden, nor something I have done over the last 20 years. I think that is the most significant issue around resources and around producing the result. Sharing with agents and sharing with candidates, I think is important. But I think the resource allocation to elections going forward is more important. Thank you. Okay. I'm hoping to move into a more conclusive mood again on this subject. Okay. But just a brief comeback from- Thank you. I think it's merited in the circumstances. What I did was write an email asking why on earth councillors hadn't been informed, including Councillor Lawless hadn't been informed, and why there was no press release from the council. Now, if Councillor Lawless is worried about the impact that others putting out press releases on something that the council hasn't told the world about may have and how they've been misinterpreted, it just reinforces the point that the council leader could have insisted on a press release, didn't, and actually the lack of a press release from the council, or even in the days afterwards, was one of the key reasons that people were concerned. Likewise, the fact that the council was not responding on social media even left it to the electoral commission to do so on their behalf. Heard. This point has been made. Thank you, Councillor Graham. Can I move to the end of this debate then? One technical question I have, which I did raise with the monitoring officer beforehand. Now, very quickly, a technical question. I raised it both in the July meeting and also in the premium. I still haven't an answer on it. The report is clear that the declaration itself cannot be changed, yet what actually happened was that the way the results were changed online was that a new document declaring itself as the official declaration of the count was put up. The previous official declaration, which had been signed by the chief executive, was removed from the website, and that is no longer in circulation. Now, it seems to me, both in the report and in my subsequent examination of this issue, that actually that second document should in no way have replaced the first and that it shouldn't have been called what it was. Could we have confirmation that that was a legal mistake and that the original document will be put back up along with a note to say what the correct results should have been? Mr. Choudry first, I think, on this. Thank you, Councillor Graham. Following our discussion yesterday, I've looked carefully at the material that's produced on the website. There's three pieces of information. There is a landing page which describes what the error was and immediately below details the results that were as declared on the night. At the bottom of that page, there are three PDF documents that are provided, including a PDF document that shows the declaration for the Putney count, which is the corrected totals. And then at the top of the page, there is also a live link that takes the observer to a breakdown of the figures relying on the corrected totals. What I undertake to do, Councillor Graham, is that that PDF that appears at the bottom of that page should be the document relied upon for the declaration on the evening. That should be the document that should be replaced. But both sets of information are actually on the website, so I will ensure that that is replaced. Okay, okay, okay. I do want to respond to this because it's an important point. Councillor Graham, you're going to get changing clarification. You've got to allow... No, no, it goes beyond that, Councillor Osborne. Councillor Apps first, and then I'll come back to you. It can be much easier to deal with issues and then move on. It doesn't need to take that long. Thank you. I want to say from our point of view, it's obviously been a disappointing episode, but if with the work that's been put in, and thanks to Mr Maughan for his report, and thanks to the officers who've turned their attention to trying to resolve these issues, that we can look forward to safer and more secure elections in future, and that we'll have a system which will be robust and resilient and will actually hopefully identify issues before they happen. So before we move on, I just wanted to put that on record. Thank you. Now, Councillor Graham, you're going to get a change to the website and a clarification. I can't see what else you might want there. Well, it is an important point because the way in which the results were initially changed online, which not only were not flagged and not explained, were actually through an unlawful statement. And that is not something... I'm not sure that's something that Mr Maughan was actually informed about, but that is in itself worrying that not only did it go unheralded, not only was it no one in terms of the council members informed, but the very means, the document by which it was used to do it, was unlawful, replaced the statement that was the lawful statement, and indeed has been online until now, despite me raising this in July. So that is a concern. Okay, but my understanding from Mr Chaudhry just now is that that would not be correct. Anyway, I'm not sure that we can get into a to and fro on whether it's connected. It will be changed and it will be clarified, and I think you've got a guarantee on that and we need to move forward. Can I make a statement? I think there might be some sympathy from it on your side, and I do think it's an important point. Throughout this document that there is some reflection on the traditional role of the Wandsworth chief executive as the acting returning officer and the way in which that role has been interpreted, and it's not a criticism as such because that has been the convention here. However, we are about to appoint a new chief executive, and I think what part of this is leading to from Mr Maughan is the view that actually that convention whereby the ARO is very much -- not that they're hands off, but that where they're being hands off, actually they should be hands off because they have assured themselves that things are being done right. They've not just said are things okay, had the response yes, and moved on. And I think without trying to -- I suggest that our ARO as chief executive should be interfering with the process or getting in the way or trying to manage the process as such. I think there is a need highlighted by this report for a slightly more active role for our ARO in which they assure themselves that things are being done correctly rather than taking that on trust. And I think I hope that that's something that we can agree on as counselors and something that we will convey to our new chief executive when appointed. All right. Yes, Councillor Lawless, actually, I think first. I was just going to say I think we've discussed this a lot. Yeah, I think we have, yeah. Make the same point, yeah. Mr Maughan's report will be compulsory reading required text for the new chief executive. Is everyone agreed on that? Yes, okay. Mr Maughan, do you have any comments on that last point? I think I said it already in the report. I think for me elections have changed. They are changing. Whilst the counts remain stubbornly traditional as a result of the legislative -- I mentioned the moving of huge pieces -- huge numbers of pieces of paper in the middle of the night and one wonders about the reform of that. Certainly the buildup to the count and the demands on election staff have become greater and greater. And I do ultimately think it is the returning officer's obligation to satisfy themselves completely, that the resources have been allocated, that there is sufficient there and that an election will be delivered. And that's irrespective of the brilliance otherwise of the election manager. Those two things need to almost be separated in one's mind, I think. Because A, election managers sometimes become ill, but B, we're all human. So I think it's a key factor. And the final point I'd make is ultimately, of course, if a petition comes challenging an election, it comes against the returning officer. Okay, thank you very much for that, Mr Maughan. I'm going to move then to the final point on this paper, which is, first of all, we're asked to note the independent review. Does everyone agree that we note the independent review? Thank you. And we're also asked to accept the recommendations as set out in paragraph 10. Does everyone accept the recommendations in paragraph 10? In that case, I move on from the paper. Is there anything I've forgotten? No? Okay. Thank you very much, everybody. Meeting closed. [BLANKAUDIO]