Transcript

Welwch i bawb sydd yma heddiw ac i'r ymgysylltiedig, i'r ymgysylltiedig o'r Cymryd Cymru. Fy enw i yw'r cyngor Rex Osborne, rydw i ymgyrch ymgyrch y Cymryd Cymru. As I take contributions from the councillors tonight, I will ask them to state their names and wards they represent before they speak for the first time. And allow me to give you apologies from councillor Lawless this evening. We've received no other apologies. There are a number of officers present, and as with the councillors, I will ask them to state their names and positions when we come to them to speak. And I will otherwise proceed through the agenda this evening. And the first item on the agenda is declarations of interests. If people could tell us if they have an interest of any kind to declare this evening, would they please like to do so? Very good. Secondly, can I ask that the minutes of the previous meeting are agreed? One correction from me. We talked about, and I wanted it minuted at the last meeting, that we should have a mention of the democracy review process and the first set of meetings, workshops as part of that process. We believed at the last meeting that the meeting would be on 4 December, and actually we've brought it forward, we're impatient for progress, the meeting will be on 2 December. So the minutes are a tiny bit inaccurate, so there's a correction there. And seeing as I'd gone to all the trouble of saying I wanted it minuted, I thought I'd better tell you. Anything else arising from the minutes? Any corrections or anything like that? I did make the point that I felt I'd been misgendered in the minutes. It doesn't seem to have been referred to, and I would ask that it should be referred to. Okay, thank you. I'll make sure that that's sorted. Minutes of the previous meeting. I'll make sure that's sorted. Thank you. Anybody else? No? Okay. Minutes agreed, I take it. Everyone agreed? Good. We come to our first item on the agenda, which is the paper number 24-341 on polling districts and places, and can I ask Mr Andrew Smith, who's the head of our electoral services, to present that paper, please? Thank you. So just to be clear, Andrew Smith, head of electoral services and elections. So this committee is responsible for the designation of polling districts and polling places, and we are required every five years to undertake a statutory review, and we are now in that window. Many of you will know that we tend to do interim reports after scheduled polls as well, but every five years we have to do the statutory report, which is the one that you have in front of you. Obviously, given that we have had two major polls and a by-election in the last year, we've been able to sort of work out from that generally what was working, and given in terms of feedback that we've received, everything seems to be largely okay. Our recommendation is that we continue, essentially, with the current polling scheme and polling districts. The process requires that this goes to consultation. It went out for consultation at the end of August. We've not received any... I was going to say, were you shocked? One of the two major polls this year is now officially designated because the previous designated venue was actually knocked down, so we obviously used the alternative, which is a stone's throw from the old community centre, and then the other one is to cement now the location of the temporary venue and the polling place that we use in Nine Elms, which we used again throughout 2024 and went largely well, from what I've heard at least anyway. The other thing is to obviously note that we would continue, as we always do, to keep this under review and can always bring further interim reports within the next five years before the next statutory review is required. Thank you, Mr Smith. Any comments or questions to Mr Smith? Can I go to Councillor Hedges first, please? Thank you, chair. Councillor Hedges of Ballin Ward. Mr Smith just wanted to say thank you very much for all of your hard work and also this is more of a comment just to say I completely agree with the Ballin Ward changes in terms of BHA and BHF because it has caused quite a lot of confusion having a BHAT and a BHAB, so thank you very much. Changes welcome. Thank you, Councillor Hedges. Any other comments or questions? Councillor Ambash first. Councillor Jeremy Ambash from West Putney Ward. Thank you very much, Mr Smith, for the very clear paper. In the paper, it talks about disabled access. I have a bit of an interest at the moment, but hopefully only temporarily. It's a great aspiration. I hope we have achieved it everywhere, but have there been any challenges in areas where we haven't got the most disabled access available and where we need to make any further improvements, or are we absolutely confident that every polling station is suitable for disabled people with different kinds of disabilities? Thank you for your question, Councillor Ambash. It's impossible to say absolutely 100% perfect every time. We have to deal with the buildings that are in front of us and obviously have regard to all the voters within a polling district. Access for disabled voters, physical access, but also actually the ability for everybody to vote independently inside the polling station is something that's incredibly important to us. Part of this review is that we do an access checklist. When we book the polling stations for any changes, we review it via our polling station inspectors on the day for any issues that come up. We have a whole series of ramps that go out via our fantastic operational services team that make sure they're always in place on the day. We have temporary ones that we can move out during the day if issues arise, if they're needed, if we get feedback that there are any issues, particularly around level access. They're not perfect because the buildings are what they are. Some of them are very, very old. Again, what I would say is that I have not received anything back to me to say that somebody had an issue accessing a polling station over the last year, certainly. Can I come back to you, Councillor Ambash, on it? I was going to take Councillor Graham next. I think it's helpful for councillors to be able to make supplementaries at the time. All right, yes. Supplementary question, Councillor Ambash. Just wondered on the feedback from all the polling clerks, whether we have anything on the feedback form that says any issues in relation to disabled access, because not everyone will necessarily think of it, and they're important for us to pick it up through every election. Sure. Absolutely. We do ask for the feedback with regard to access via our polling station inspectors, who are, as I say, required to visit several times during the course of polling and complete an access checklist, which we then get. I don't think that our survey to polling clerks asks about that, but it is picked up via our polling station inspectors and is an integral part. They actually have a whole A4 sheet dedicated purely to access, things like lighting, all this kind of stuff, where, again, we get temporary lighting put in advance because of visual issues. So, yes, we absolutely are on top of this stuff. But, yes, if we can look to potentially broadening that to the 500-plus poll staff, they may have feedback over and above that that the poll inspectors look at, potentially. Okay. Thank you for your gracious deferment, Councillor Graham. No problem at all. So, I echo Councillor Hedges in thanking officers for all the work that's gone into this paper, and there are no issues as far as we're concerned with the changes proposed. The only thing I was going to say is that, obviously, there's a comment that runs up, sort of, these stations have been used and they work and they're fine and, therefore, there's no need to change. So, taking, for example, Lavender Ward on page 14 of the pack, obviously, there is one that has been changed, but the LVB polling station, as you can see, is at 2A Mallinson Road, and then you look down at the map and discover that Mallinson Road isn't actually in Lavender Ward at all. Now, I'm not saying, I'm pretty certain that you've looked at other venues and there aren't any good ones available, and that's why it's there. And I'm not saying I don't accept that, because I do accept it. I'm sure that there isn't an easy, practicable alternative that has come to officers' attention. However, it's just, in terms of going forward, I just think that, particularly where we find a polling station at the perimeter of a polling district, or even over the boundary, that there should be an ongoing effort just to see if places come up that could be used. And it's not a criticism of what's gone into this report, it's more a plea for the future not to sort of put the blinkers on in case something becomes available, because, obviously, venues change and premises do come up that may not have been available as this has been put together. Thank you, Councillor Graham. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right to identify that, and please be reassured that it is something that we continually will look at. In that particular one, there is a perfectly placed church that would work well. Unfortunately, they are not interested in hosting. So that particular one, it's one of those classic situations where the people on Mallinson Road don't actually vote at Mallinson Road, which always makes us look like, you know, frankly, can make us look slightly stupid. Obviously, I would want to do everything I can to avoid that anyway, but that one has now does seem to have bedded in and people are used to it, but yeah, absolutely. We do have a few, as you may have seen, that are on the fringes of polling districts and wards, and we're continually looking to try and, you know, ensure that we are using the most suitable venue all the time and not just rolling on from what we've done before. Having said that, obviously, continuity is really important in terms of turnout, that people know and are used to going to the same place, but not at the expense of us using something that would generally be more convenient for more people within the particular district. So yeah, you're right to identify that, and we will continue to look at those ones closely. Thank you. Councillor Ireland. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs Smith. I just have a question about the cost of hiring to the Council of Hiring Venues for polling stations. Am I right in thinking that the Government does reimburse all those costs? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ireland. Yeah, absolutely. So for whoever the election is being run, so at the GLA election, the GLA pick up the tab for all the costs of the polling stations, for the parliamentary, it's the consolidated fund, but for the local elections, you know, the council would have to pick up those costs. So the council's not reimbursed? Not for its own elections, no. Okay, thank you. No. Okay, is everyone happy with—oh, sorry—Councillor Apps. Thank you. As Councillor Sarah Apps chefs for in Queenstown ward, I've noticed that we use quite a number of church buildings for polling stations, which is welcome where they're accessible. Have we considered using any from other faiths, any other buildings that we have in the borough? Yeah, absolutely. We're not wedded to churches in particular. I think historically, way before my time, the council decided not to use schools, and I think that's all welcome because all the problems inherit with that. So we tend to try to use community centres where they're available, but largely, yes, there are an awful lot of churches, church halls, but we will use anything that's available and seems suitable, so that can include other faiths, absolutely. Not that any have been proposed to me, but yeah, we would absolutely be very happy to use those. I think the Penfold Centre is used as a mosque, certainly on a Friday, because someone in my office goes there, but yeah, so, you know, actual mosques or other faith places, 100% we could, yeah. Thank you, Mr Smith. Is everybody on the committee happy with the recommendations and proposals in this paper? Yeah. Okay, agreed? Agreed. Thank you very much, everybody. So if we could, and thank you, Mr Smith, if we could move on to the next paper this evening, which is paper number 24342, and I'm going to ask Mark Glayster, Mr Glayster, Assistant Director of Procurement, to introduce the paper for the committee, please. Mr Glayster. Thank you, Councillor. My name's Mark Glayster, I'm the Assistant Director of Procurement, and I head up procurement operations for Wandsworth. Thank you for taking my paper. Apology in the first instance. On page 58, I've got a typo, I've listed down the increase in the thresholds at 10k when it actually should be 20k, and also my numbers went astray on my recommendations on page 32, but I'll correct those before it goes to committee. So if I could start off with the case for change. Our internal procurement regulations within the borough haven't been updated for several years now, actually. They're well overdue for an update, and of course we've got the new Procurement Act coming in in February, so it's important that they are amended to reflect those changes. Our thresholds for seeking quotes, tenders and delegated authority for officers, etc. haven't been updated for over 12 years. I think it was June 2013, actually, the last time they were updated, so I'm just coming up to 12 years. The findings and the recommendations within the report stem from the work of the commissioning and the procurement work stream within the change programme. There's also the recent peer review findings, which I thought were really, really interesting, and our own ambition is actually to be more agile and able to adapt and ensure we have a more joined-up approach to commissioning and procurement, and ensure, really, that we have much more scrutiny at the front end than at the back end, when it's kind of an SO83 and essentially we're making contract award. I think, really, we need to have much more involvement with, you know, across the organisation in terms of commissioners right at the front end, and actually to that end we've had our first cross-borrow commissioning meeting just recently, which is really useful. The objectives of these changes, really, is to increase that early visibility. If I run through each of the recommendations for you now. The recommendation in 2.1 is to improve the introduction of a procurement scoping report sensitivity analysis. We already kind of do that in any case. We'll look at the forward plan, which comes to the Finance Committee, usually in February of the year, this year becoming to January, and that really lists out the contracts. We're looking 80 months ahead, so a year and a half ahead, plenty of notice, all the things that officers feel are sensitive and will be, you know, of interest to members in terms of scrutiny, and those things we think are more routine and they'll be looked at by the procurement board. There's no kind of, there's nothing behind that, that's just our kind of gut feeling when we're looking at what we've got coming up. So what we've proposed in this paper actually is like a sensitivity matrix, so we'll consider a number of items, and if you kind of score 20, that automatically goes onto the sensitive list. As I said, when that list comes through to the various Finance Committee in the first instance, we're also proposing that that should be going to all of the other OSCs. So for Councillor Henderson, for example, anything to do with adult social care or sort of children and adult social care, there would actually be a report that goes to Councillor Henderson's committee so they can see exactly what's coming up. So there'd be the Finance report, and then there'd be individual reports to those various OSCs. This is kind of like the key decision. I know there's been discussions around trying to introduce a key decision around, say, the £500k mark. I think that kind of works with some smaller boroughs, but actually our spend is quite high, and the volume of activity we've got coming through is so large. We have around 500 procurements go through our team every year, so actually to set something like a 500k decision threshold, you would just fill up all of the OSC straight away. So actually it's about trying to really focus on those sensitive things that we've got coming up, you know, waste leisure centres, libraries, things like that. The next recommendation is to approve amendments to the council's constitution in terms of the thresholds for seeking quotes and tenders, where currently it's £1,500. That's been the same level since I've been in Wands for 14 years. That's the lowest of any council, London or otherwise. So we're looking to increase that. It will create more speed for us. I get an awful lot of relatively low value requests through, whether stones will be loose or something like that in a building, so it's a public safety issue. Our current rules require they go out to get quotes, so they'll come to me, I'll give them a waiver. So in this instance, we're asking to move from £1,500 to £20,000. Officers would still be required to keep a rationale as to why they chose not to seek quotes, and then they'd be subject to audit as they would be in any case. The next recommendation is to approve amendments to the constitution around officers' delegation limits for the award of contracts. Currently, an executive director can agree to enter into contract if it's below the service threshold. The service threshold is the financial level at £213,000 when the formal procurement law kicks in, and that's why we've always set it at that level. However, what we're proposing here is actually we increase that threshold to £3 million for officers. That's not to say there wouldn't be any engagement with lead cabinet members on those sorts of decisions or members of the OSC, just that they don't necessarily need to get sign-off from members. They'd still be published up in our officer delegation pages. They would still go on the forward plan, so members of the public can still scrutinise their decisions. To note that we've introduced a classification for our contracts into platinum, gold, silver and bronze. We've had an issue for many years in terms of the level of contract management that's been done across the organisation, and you can't really expect every single one of our contracts to be managed in exactly the same way. Therefore, we've brought in a classification of platinum contracts, gold contracts, silver contracts and bronze, with a sliding scale in terms of how much time they spend on those. Within procurement, on our new software system, Atomis, we will be monitoring the platinum and gold contracts. Not necessarily that they're delivering, but actually just the fact that contract management is taking place, and then there'll be a monthly report going up to the director's board. To note the introduction of our new strategic commissioning board in Togate 0. This kind of came back from some feedback where some members were saying actually the first they knew about procurement is when they see the SO83. So actually again, it's about moving the scrutiny up to the front end. So we have a joint group of officers, directors and assistant directors from environment, from housing, from children, from resources and from adult social care, who meet and they review the work plan and actually see if there's any synergies coming up within existing contracts that we're letting. Obviously, ones would be things like in housing, where children's services are trying to create move-on places for children leaving care and things like that. To understand what's going on in the housing sector with the housing team would be really useful for that team. Where am I? To approve the general amendments to the constitution, I won't run through all of those, but I've included a track change version of the procurement regulations as they stand at the moment, with a range of changes in there. I think the most material one really is to make that change from seeking quotes of £1,500 to £20,000. Happy to take any questions. Okay, so if anybody has any comments or questions about the paper, my plan is to take a round of comments and questions in a general discussion. The opposition members have been kind enough to share some amendments with us. I have a copy here. What I would like to do is to invite the opposition to speak for the items in their amendments in their discussion as we go round and see if we can get a bit of a debate about the items there. The concomitant element of that would be, of course, that the Administration would want to put a counter-argument from time to time, perhaps. I'm going to invite you to fold that into the discussion as we go round this evening, and then I'll put the amendments to a vote probably in parts at the end. Is everybody happy with that general process? I'm happy for us to try and cover the subject matter of the amendments during the general discussion, but when we get to the amendments it may be that they have not been discussed adequately to be understood, so I'm not saying that we don't wish to discuss them when we get to them. We will hopefully avert the need to discuss them, because they have been adequately covered beforehand, but I can't guarantee a priori that we're going to be able to do that, which is what you're asking me to do. Perhaps, did you have a point to make on the style of this evening? Yeah, I think you've set out a good way of dealing with the business, thank you Chair, and I'd suggest that the opposition just make sure that they do adequately cover their own amendments, so thank you. We're not going to have a discussion. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Councillor Graham, do you have a point to make to me about this? As long as we can keep the general discussion going for long enough to cover all of the points in our amendments, then that's perfectly happy, but in case you try to move to the decision end of the evening before they've been covered, we may still want to say a few words when we get there, as is our right in fact. Absolutely, as is your right, except I'm in the hands of the committee, of course, if I have to move to a vote, but okay, apart from that, yes, it's your right. So, questions and comments to Mr Glaster about paper 243342, which is on page 31 of your pack. Councillor Henderson. Thank you Chair, Councillor Graham Henderson, Roe Hamson Ward. I am also the cabinet member with the lead cabinet member on procurement, so what I intend to do at the very beginning is to give a fairly sort of general introduction in terms of why the administration are proposing these changes. That does not mean that I may not have any further detailed comments as the discussion emerges, but I think it would be useful to Members and indeed any Members of the public listening to understand the reasons why we are actually proposing that. I mean, Mr Glaster has set out the very sound reasons of the need to certainly update our procedures, which are certainly very much out of date and not really very consistent with the approaches of other local authorities. So, we need really to ensure that the processes are streamlined, that they are relevant to the current position we find ourselves in, but in particular that we don't have to wade ourselves through rather brimthine processes, but to ensure that decisions can actually be made much more quickly. Having said that, it is vitally important that we maintain a very high level of scrutiny, and ever since I was first elected six years ago, I've always found the scrutiny process on scrutiny committees to be rather defective and frankly doesn't actually cover very much at all. Certainly on procurements in the adult social care health committee, etc., we get quite a lot of procurements coming through to us. They are actually presented almost at the eleventh hour under the current system, and although Members can obviously comment on particular details, reality is that I don't think anyone has actually been changed fundamentally. Of course, after that, it then goes to the Cabinet Member to sign off as an SO83A. This is a rather arcane procedure, which I've never actually found very many Members to be particularly happy with. But that is actually scrutiny for the sake of calling it scrutiny. It's scrutiny at one minute to midnight, and frankly the Cabinet Member is in most cases simply presented with the option of either approving the procurement or effectively delaying sometimes quite seriously any new contract given, even to the point of running out of time in terms of existing contracts. So the current system does need to be fundamentally changed, but I would actually say this quite genuinely and sincerely to the opposition. This isn't actually based upon politics at all. This is about ensuring that the council can, for the foreseeable future and for a long time forward, to actually operate in a much more efficient and effective manner in terms of its procurement processes, whilst at the same time ensuring a high level of Member scrutiny. I think the critical issue there for Members is the fact that the intention and the process will actually involve Members at a much earlier stage when they can actually comment in substantive detail upon certainly some of the more difficult or high-profile procurements which actually come across the scrutiny committees. With that, Chair, I will finish, but as I said, I may wish to comment further at a later date. Thanks. Councillor Hedges. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to thank Councillor Grahame for putting together the amendments, which I fully agree with. And also, Mr Glayster, thank you very much for putting the paper together. I note on page 44, you highlight a number of other London Borough Councils and mention their high value delegation levels. Just curious as to why you haven't included Lambeth and Merton, as they are very closely joined to us, in fact adjacent, and from what I can see from their websites, Lambeth is actually £100,000 and Merton is £2 million. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. I was looking at examples of a similar level to our own. There are some councils out there, actually, that have incredibly low levels of delegated authority to enter into contract. So, you know, if you wished, I could get you everybody's, but actually I was trying to focus on other councils that have got similarly relatively high levels for scrutiny. Councillor Ireland. Thank you, Chair, and thank you. Looking at page 35, paragraph 13, I'm thinking about member involvement at an early stage at the outset. Can you tell us a little bit more about how members will be involved at the outset? Thank you. Part of that is the forward plans. You know, I've been here a long time. I've sat here, or sat not here, I've sat at finance committees and those papers go through in terms of the forward plan. I get the impression often that it's just another report that's being looked at, so I think actually one of the important things is about getting to the individual OSC that paper deals with, not necessarily just going through finance. So, I think that's one of the key initial points, and I think another thing, actually, that we do need to address is that there's an awful lot of engagement that goes on with OSC chairs and executive directors and directors in any case as part of the planning. All of the conversations I've had, for example, with Councillor Henson, I know he meets a lot with Jeremy D'Souza. It's exactly the same with Annapurwchi in children's services meeting there, the same with housing, Councillor Dickham. So, that, I think, is where we have that opportunity to do that scrutiny, and it's just trying to make the forward plans by going to all of the OSCs, not just once a year, but they'll be going biannually. So, there's a mid-year report, I understand, that comes through on finance, and one of the appendices for that will be another forward plan. So, actually, we're only then actually looking forward to six months at a time. So, I think you see a much more visibility, it becomes much more real, because there's not such a long lead in time, so you can actually see what's coming up in influence. Councillor Graham, please. Thank you. I want to start by agreeing with Councillor Henderson. I don't think anything in this paper is party political or intended to be partisan, and indeed, at the last Finance Committee, I welcomed the sort of platinum gold silver bronze way of looking at procurement, and I think that will strengthen procurement. Likewise, I have long been a critic of SAO 83A. I have no problem with reforming that part or using a different mechanism. So, I just want to be clear that our concerns are not political ones, and although we do have some significant concerns tonight, they're largely about the mechanism by which this is being done and what's guaranteed as opposed to what might happen, because I accept that the intentions are honourable and good. Officers have come up with a system that they think will strengthen procurement, and I'm sure that's an intention, and I think also it will be the case in practice. Likewise, I'm sure that is the intention of the administration. The issue for us is we are looking at changes to the constitution, and so the constitution isn't just about what's intended. It's about trying to make sure that somewhere it's written down and guaranteed, so that if it does go wrong and if those intentions aren't honoured at any stage, it could be 20 years down the line when none of us are here, that there is something to say that actually it shouldn't have happened that way or it should happen in a certain way. The problem with just getting rid of the SO83A notice without specifying what its replacement will be, it's clear there will be an alternative decision notice, but it's not specified what it is, and indeed it says that it might not involve any notification to Members, is that it would be constitutional, even though I'm sure at the moment they wouldn't in practice, it would be constitutional for Officers to bring forward and sign up to a £3 million contract without the Cabinet Member for that area knowing anything about it. Without any Members being involved, now that is not the intention, but it's not our job just to look at what people want to happen, we need to look at what the rules that we are trying to put into place force to happen as opposed to what we leave open. And my concerns about this are all about the fact that these changes are left up in the air, indeed the constitutional changes themselves aren't even in the paper, which is a problem when the full Council is supposed to approve them. So, if I could turn to one point, because we've got several up, let me try to deal with one issue. So, on page 38, which was referred to earlier, the key decision threshold, we are talking about two different things here, because these would still be key decisions, wouldn't they? Because under article 13 of the Council's constitution, regardless of whether it's delegated to Officers or not, it would still be a key decision, and it would still require the publicity in local government regulations, including it being on the Council's forward plan, which is different to an OSC forward plan. That would still need to be in place, is that correct? It would be on the published forward plan, that the forward plan would be published for procurement. But what I'm saying is that the Council, as opposed to forward plans for OSCs, where they're looking at their agendas for the year, that the Council's formal forward plan for decisions, those decisions would still have to be listed. So, they would still be key decisions, even though you've not set a threshold. Blais, there are these yes or no type questions. I'm just trying to move things along. If you want a more detailed answer, then do give one. I'm not an expert in the detail of what's written in the constitution or not. My focus is on the procurement regulations. That's the thing I know within the constitution. I don't know the ins and outs of the constitution when it comes to what it says about key decisions, but there would still be—we're coming up to a word of a contract that would still need to be published, exactly the same as it is now. It goes on the forward plan that we're going to be making a decision. I believe it sits on the forward plan for four weeks and then the decision is made. The only difference is that it would be made by officers if it's up to £3 million and not signed off by Members. Technically, the SO83 process is not a Member sign-off process in any case, the way that it's worded. Is this a sort of supplementary question? Just one or two of those, Councillor Graham. What I'm just going to say is that it's partly the fact— It's just that Councillor Corner and Councillor Hedges are still to come in, so carry on. I'm happy for Councillor Graham. There you go. I thought you probably were. Partly, the very fact that the Cabinet member needs to be involved in it—I agree technically it's not worded in quite that way—but the fact that the Cabinet member does need to be involved means that it would be unwise for officers to get to the stage of dropping the written notice on them without having consulted them. My point is that if you take out any need to consult, you take out any need to sign off, regardless of whether or not by the time you get to the sign-off, it's a formality, you actually endanger potentially in future, with other people than us on the officer and Member side, that happening, because we are talking about the future. Can I ask the Monitoring Officer, because if we look at page 32 and we look at paragraph 2, on 2.2 we've got to approve amendments to the Council's constitution, and again on 2.3, and again on 2.7, and yet those amendments aren't actually in the document, are they? In fact, if I've read it correctly, even though we have all of these track changes to Appendix E, this isn't the final version, because it doesn't include the £3 million limit. So what we're looking at is track changes on some minor material stuff, but the major stuff isn't actually here. Is that correct? And the changes that are referred to in paragraph 2 aren't actually in front of us tonight. Thank you, Councillor Grahame. I'll let the Monitoring Officer marshal his response. Can I take Councillor Corner and Councillor Hedges first, please? Yes, thank you, Chair. Councillor Corner, Nine Elms Ward. Thank you for the report. I can share the comments that have already been made in that regard. In terms of the thresholds and how they are at other councils, could you just give a flavour as to why you feel other councils have different thresholds, because it seems that from the research that's been done by members of the committee they often vary quite drastically. Could you provide a flavour for why that is and what approaches the different councils employ to make those decisions? Thank you. Thank you for the question. A lot of the time it's actually, Wandsworth are quite unusual in terms of a highly, highly centralised procurement function, highly centralised. I mix quite regularly with the other heads of procurement and lots of other councils. A lot of them are very, very devolved, and I think where you have a very, very devolved procurement function with no central oversight, I think in those situations you would probably tend to have lower levels of delegation, whereas we are relatively unique amongst London boroughs in terms of being so highly centralised. I think because we're so highly centralised, I feel quite comfortable with these levels. We still have the oversight. Okay, I'm going to come back to the monitoring officer and then I'll do Councillor Hedges and Councillor Jeffries. Did you want a quick supplementary, Councillor Corner? Yeah, go on. Thank you for that. I think I understand that. When you say low levels of centralised versus decentralised, does that refer to a decentralised approach would be where there's more delegated authority for officers and less member involvement, is that correct? So it seems that these recommendations here do result in a more decentralised approach, albeit perhaps not to the extent that other local authorities have. I think you'd have lower levels of delegation in a non-centralised procurement function than we have here. Thank you. Mr Chowdry, and then we'll come back to the councillors again. Thank you, councillor. So Appendix E, which you have, Councillor Graham, as part of the papers. So forgive me, I'm looking at them as separate documents rather than specific page numbers, but I can give you that in a moment. Okay, so that sets out the substance of the changes that will ensue to the constitution, and they reflect the cumulative work of the other appendices within that, and so those will be the requisite changes that will follow in due course. I simply don't understand it, because I thought the recommendation was to go to a £3 million limit, whereas these chat changes show that the limit would be £213,447, not £3 million. Okay, just hang fire there a bit, Councillor Graham. Let me let Mr Glaister answer that for a moment. Okay, Mr Glaister first. The Appendix E doesn't cover contracts award. That is purely around our approach to seeking quotes and tenders. There are exemptions in there for executive directors, for example, with endangerment to life. This doesn't currently cover that. I believe, I could be wrong, I believe that the £213k level for SO83s was set back in 2013 on the back of a committee paper that came through when the committees moved down from six to four, I think it was, and part of the ability to move down to that, they had to try and then streamline contracts award, I believe. I'm not certain, I believe that's where the decision was made. For clarity, it's not currently 2013, it's the version of the council's constitution. Councillor Graham, why don't you marshal your papers and update some of your colleagues? I have the facts on this point. So, on 1 October 2016, the current schedule would... So, you don't have the floor, Councillor Graham. I'm about to give the floor to Councillor Hedges and I will come back to you, don't worry. Thank you, Chair. Mr Glaster, just a question for you about the limits again. How comfortable are you in terms of extending these limits to such a level? Obviously, with the change management programme in mind, there will be a lot more contracts being awarded. Thinking back to, I don't know if this is the best example, Guildford Council. It was run by the Lib Dems and they had contract over spend of £13 million. What are you doing to mitigate that, to make sure that we're not being irresponsible with these levels that are being increased and the ambitious contracts that are likely to be awarded under the administration? Thank you. Thank you for the question. I think it comes back again to the centralisation. We have dedicated procurement teams that work incredibly closely with their commissioners. So, I have a team that specialises in adults and children's social care, works incredibly closely with the commissioners there. We also work in partnership with our financial controllers, with the people actually who look after our finance payment systems. So, for example, if somebody wants to set up a new contractor, that has to come through the procurement team. We have to sign that off before somebody can even raise the purchase order. So, with those type of things all taken into account, we have so many other gatekeepers in the organisation that are not too concerned about that. £1,500 is far too low. £20,000 is about the right level when you consider what things cost. I see all the procurement activity. There's not many people running around out there spending £20,000 on this and £15,000 on that. Most of our contracts are quite significant. Diolch. I'm off the top of my head. We did a bit of analysis on this previously using the kind of Pareto 8020 and actually 20% of our contracts are significant, 80% aren't. But even those, when I'm talking about that, they're not so different. They are significant. You're still talking about £100,000, £150,000 a year. That's primarily with the voluntary sector, construction. We have a huge amount of construction come through for window renewals. We have redecorations, things like that. We don't really have many small contracts. Did you want to come back with some stuff from your papers, Councillor Graham? I'm willing to be corrected if I've got it wrong, but my understanding is that the version of the procurement regulations we have now, which is the one on the council's website as part of our current constitution was put through on 1 October 2016, at that time the limit was £164,000. I think what it is is that there's a, my understanding is that the service level is sort of set out nationally and so that's been rising in the background and effectively what we probably should have done has been revising that figure every year as it was revived nationally and just haven't. So what we see in front of us is basically bringing some of the changes in the paper through, the minor ones, and then updating that figure simply to represent what the national service level is. However, what it doesn't do is institute the £3 million limit. On my reading, that would need to happen to these procurement regulations or to redame standing orders. Likewise, or certainly instead of that, it would have to be in the schedule of delegations, but perhaps Mr Chowdry could say if I've got that correct. Okay, Councillor Apps first. Thank you. I've got a couple of questions. Thank you for the paper. Firstly, I'm very passionate to make sure that members have that much longer sight of what's coming down the road so that there can be some really good contributions and perhaps some good ideas coming through from members about how new contracts can be shaped. I'm aware that on page 38, 2.8, that I think Councillor Ireland referred to earlier, I think it's clear that you're thinking about that and you're thinking about how to make that work. My question would be how can we make sure that's completely comprehensive for members, they can understand what that contract's aiming to do, will it be kind of in the round enough? And as part of that and also separate to that, what training are we thinking about for officers now that their responsibility is going to change, there's going to be a new process in place, what training are we going to have for officers and members to make sure that they fully understand how to make the most out of these improvements? Thank you, Councillor, for your question. We work to an 18-month lead-in time for virtually all of our contracts, but we'll look at things, I mean, we wouldn't have an 18-month lead-in unless you send to contracts or libraries or we started looking at our HR system that doesn't expire until December 2027. We've actually, we're about three months into doing a review of that, so there are occasions when we'll start very, very early. I think what we probably should do is in our forward plans, at the moment they are quite sterile, you know, it'll give you the name of the contract, not much detail after that, so actually I think we should include more information in those sort of bi-annual plans that come forward that give members a better feel for actually what the contract entails, and I think that's better actually when you publish that as well, because members of the public, if they look at our forward plans, it won't really mean much to them if we just list it by the contract title. Thank you, Mr. Glaston. I'm going to come to Mr. Chowdry as well now. I think there was a point for you to respond to. Sure, I think. Hopefully I've remembered it correctly, Councillor Graham, in order to be able to answer the question. So what you have is with Appendix E that is attached to the paper. It's called the Shared Procurement Service document, Procurement Standing Orders, but in fact it is in substance the council's procurement regulations that's contained within the constitution. Proposed changes within that document are those which will be in due course, if these recommendations are approved, will be reflected in the changes to the constitution. In relation to the other matters, for example, the officer delegation limit being increased, that will be changes as necessary throughout the constitution where it's necessary to do so. There we go, for clarity. So first of all, to take the second part first, there are other changes to the constitution that would be necessary that we do not have in front of us, that's correct, yes? That's the second part. If there are, Councillor Graham, there will be very minor, in that if there is a specific reference that is at odds with these changes, that will be the only change. Okay, so coming to the first part then, the £3 million figure, this document, what we have at Appendix E, will need to be changed in order to incorporate it, is that correct? Do you want to think about that for a minute? I'll take Councillor Corner. Thank you, Chair. I have a question just around the working of the sensitivity matrix on page 39. I appreciate this kind of way of working in terms of measuring and managing risk. It does seem to me though that almost every one of the criteria are qualitative rather than quantitative. How are the qualitative criteria defined and measured? Who makes those judgements and what oversight do members have that that is being done in a way that's agreeable to members? Thank you. I'm not really sure how to answer that to be perfectly honest with you. I would think things like that would come through on the strategic outcome, where in terms of the quality you're looking to add, that's around the scope of the service provision. So I would see that coming in under the strategic outcome. I'm not quite sure how we would include something like the quality. Could you be a bit more specific what you mean by the quality? So cost estimate is clearly quantitative. You can just put a number on how much the contract is worth. For the other criteria, it's more of a judgment, isn't it? For example, political profile or reputational implications, impact on the organisation. Do you have descriptors of where certain contracts might fall in certain categories? I know you have provided examples, but I don't think they go into that level of detail. I think that you'll be picking that up, I would suggest, within the stakeholder service user engagement areas, because some of that will be potentially around co-production with individuals and that would clearly focus on the qualitative side. Mr Chowdry, Councillor Grahame's first point, or point one. Yes. In short, yes. If there is specific reference to that figure as being 214 in the constitution needing to be increased to 3 million, that will be changed elsewhere. Councillor Ambash? It's all right, I'll come to you in a minute. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr Glaser, for the paper. I very much agree that member involvement at an earlier stage will be much more productive for members, but also, hopefully, for the procurement process. And I also agree that we need to change the levels of delegation, because we've got a system that hasn't been changed for over a decade. And it's overloaded, and particularly because we are in a four cycle, four a year OSCs, it's different from when there were six or eight in times gone by. I wanted to ask a question a bit about how the procurement board policy is developing, particularly because I'm very keen that we actually stimulate the market and we don't just respond to the market. Particularly in encouraging Wandsworth-based organisations, not-for-profit organisations and charities to be able to compete in the tendering process. So, are we able to prioritise those organisations, and particularly Wandsworth ones, so that we get more providers that are able to deal with our contracts? We keep more of the money within Wandsworth, as well as the employment, as well as the service that we get. Is that part of the thinking of the procurement board, or could it be in the future? Thank you, councillor. That's been at the forefront of our minds for about the last two years, actually. We've been working really closely with the EDO on a local procurement strategy. Our hands are tied to a degree once we go above the service threshold or the work threshold, because that's dictated to us in terms of what the programme has to be. However, what we've been doing over the last two years is working with locally-based employers in the construction sector, for example, making them fit to bid, so they can understand how to actually bid for council contracts. We've given them really detailed training. We've started to break them into the housing, closed-loop housing. Naturally, they have a list of contractors they'd like to work with, and they're the ones they'll primarily invite, and then they allow random contractors to come in. We've broken into that now. We've actually started now to invite local contractors, and we're just about to do a large workshop with lots of social care providers in the borough in terms of how they can find opportunities. Some of it is simply a case of pointing them to our webpages, but in exactly the same way, in terms of giving them training in terms of how to bid, the types of things the council will be looking for, how to fill out method statements. Then it's one of the reasons we have category-based teams. I have a specialist team in social care, and I have a specialist team in corporate services that buys IT. I've got another specialist team that works in the environment. That's more than just about, give us the contracts and we go out and do the shopping. This is actually about all the work we do at the front of that in terms of understanding what the market's looking at and what the barriers to entry are for the market. We work much more closely, and we did a restructure in our procurement team about two years ago to facilitate that. We've taken away the bread and butter in terms of the transactional procurement process, and we have a dedicated transactional procurement team that work on that. That actually frees up our category specialists to do much more work in terms of what we call category plans. You'll be looking really into detail in terms of what's driving that market and what we have to do to get the best quality services we can and also the best value for money. I'm going to come back to you, Councillor Graham. I think there are two things. First of all, as we've now established, even though we've got a track changes document in front of us and even though those minor changes, the paper itself says, need to come to us, or rather need to go to full council because they form part of the constitution and therefore they need to be spelled out, the bigger changes, which aren't in front of us and won't be as things stand in the paper going to council, aren't there. Now, that's just a contradiction. If the minor changes have to go to full council, as indeed they do under the articles of the constitution, the major stuff, like a £3 million change, also needs to go there. The difference between £214,000, that needs to go to full council, but you're saying changing it to £3 million afterwards would be fine. That doesn't stack up to me, and it's not just that because, for example, on page 44, so paragraph 1.8, it talks about the new type of decision notice that will need to replace an SO83A, a copy of which can be provided to the appropriate member for information only, but would need to be signed off by procurement, financial control and the executive director. Now, none of that's pinned down in Appendix E, so that's got to be changed somewhere else in the constitution. And it says could be, it doesn't say what the changes are. So where are they? That those changes aren't in front of us, they're not in the Appendix E that we have in front of us, they probably shouldn't be in Appendix E, they should be somewhere else. And the council isn't going to get to see them, even though the council, as our constitution says, must approve changes. So, essentially, I think the paper is missing an appendix which actually says what in the constitution will be changed, and instead it's got a recommendation to delegate what will be material and substantive changes to the director of law and governance, when our constitution doesn't allow that to happen. And I don't think this is deliberate, and it's not a political point, and no one outside this room will care about it, I'm quite sure about that, so no one needs to worry about being some sort of issue to admit that there might be an error here. But it is an error, and I think without adding a list for the report that goes to full council of exactly what the changes to the constitution will be, we are going to be breaching the constitution and delegating something which we're not allowed to delegate to the monitoring officer to then do things that aren't specified by these papers, where he's taking choices all by himself. And it's not that he'll take bad choices necessarily, but those are not his choices to take, this is our constitution, owned by members, we should be taking that decision, the full council should be taking that decision. I'm concerned that it's got to this point, and as I say, not a political point, but it's very much a procedural point of propriety and it can be remedied, sorry, I'm not going to speak grammatically, yes exactly, for the long evening, I'll try not to make it longer. But there's an easy remedy here, which is just literally between now and full council, we've got a couple of weeks, there is time to go away, work out exactly which bits of the constitution need to change, exactly which don't, and then put those changes down as an extra appendix and the council can vote on it, and then everyone is happy and the constitution is satisfied. But without that, this is a real problem. That sounds like a good summary of your position, thank you for that, that makes me think we're moving to a denouement on this. Councillor Apps. Thank you, I think we're all very, very clear what the proposals are here, the full council is going to receive a very clear set of proposals about what is being agreed, and those will be set out clearly in the constitution, we're going to be reviewing the constitution many times over the next few months, there's going to be some big changes that we're going to see, I suggest if we find any points of issues that we can deal with in due course, but there's absolutely, in no regard will full council not have a clear decision to make and be very clear about what is going to be in the papers, and we're not leaving any discretion really to the monitoring officer other than to put it within those papers, so I really do not share Councillor Grahame's concerns in any way, if there are any problems down the line then let's have a look at them. Okay, I think you've got an undertaking of some sort there, Councillor Grahame, can we move to your amendments? I just want to respond to that if I can, because what else is there to say? Well, Councillor Apps says it's all tied down, it's not tied down, Paragraph 1.8 says that a copy can be provided to the appropriate member, does she know who the appropriate member is? Does she know whether it will or not? And how can she know that when the changes aren't here? What she did say, which I think was a slip of the tongue, was that will be provided in the papers to full council. I hope it is, because if they get it, even though we haven't, that will avoid the problem. It says could be, it says here that those three people will need to sign it off, but it's in no way clear which bit of the constitution we'll need to change to make that happen, and it's not in front of us. There is another point. We need some help from you on your amendments, how you want them taken. There is a further point. Can you give us some guidance on that please? Just before we get to the amendments. I can move to all the amendments at once if you want me to, or would you like me to take them in parts? No, because there is another issue that we haven't discussed, that I would like to discuss, that is not directly in the amendments, but is important and relates to the vote of the council. That is that, as we've heard, some of these decisions will be key decisions in terms of the local government regulations. We have delegated in other areas decisions to offices, and in particular to the cost of living programme board, to take decisions that would ordinarily go to the executive, but have been delegated. Is this some sort of proposal? This is a question. To whom? I hope you'll find out in a second. I hope so. Yes, because it's taking a while. Well, I will get to the point. So, the cost of living programme board now has delegated powers to take decisions without coming back to committees, without coming to the executive on spending from the cost of living reserve. However, I have been told by Mr Evans in an email that I received last week that decisions taken at the cost of living board, even though they are delegated, will nevertheless have to be met and addressed and implemented through an S083A, because they are key decisions. And indeed, today, we received, Councillor Critchhardt and I received notification that that is precisely what is happening. Now, if Mr Evans is correct, and if that notification today is correct, that a matter, despite being delegated, still has to be addressed through S083A because it's a key decision, then even if these changes are made and we say there's a £3 million limit, there will still need to be an S083A because it's a key decision. Either what Mr Evans has told me and what the information that we had today was wrong, or what the monitoring officer said was wrong. Listen, Councillor Graham, you don't have the floor any more. We're getting an interesting exposition from you here, but it does not seem to be pertinent to your amendments. It's pertinent in the sense that this may require the standing orders to be amended in order to implement it and have the effect from the paper, and we cannot delegate that to the monitoring officer. Okay, so I'm now going to move to a vote on your— To respond to my concern. No, I'm not going to have challenges across the floor, some obtuse item which we've got no notice of. It's not obtuse. Hang on a second, Councillor Graham. Grimstone. I have to say, these are very significant discussions for the future of the council, indeed quite radical in many areas, and the general thrust of raising the limits I entirely agree with. But the idea that we can't spend more than three quarters of an hour as a committee discussing these, and that whenever serious points are being brought forward, some of which are directly connected to amendments, but no committee meeting is ever just allowed to speak about amendments and nothing else. It's pretty horrendous, I think, that discussion is being shut down when there are a number of questions here that I think are important. I don't know what I think about the answers, because frankly the questions haven't been put and answered properly. And I do think we ought to recognise that when there are things of this importance for the future of the council, and in particular for those of us in opposition on the council, then it's absolutely essential that we're allowed to raise those points and to develop them where necessary. And I'm distressed that that's not happening. No disagreement with any of your points, Councillor Grimstone. I'm just trying to shape the debate a little bit so that we know what it is we're talking about, and I'm fearful that we're going off at a tangent with some correspondence between an officer and a councillor. So all I'm trying to do, Councillor Graham, is get you to focus in on what it is you want us to vote on this evening. Not necessarily to vote straight away, I'm in the hands of the committee on that, but what it is we're supposed to do, because you've given us a set of amendments and you seem to have gone on to something completely different here. It's not different in the sense that we are talking about whether the points in this paper are just—what isn't here is just minor and that everything else can be wrapped up easily. And what I'm saying is that if that position, which I've had in writing from the assistant chief executive, is correct, then even making these changes, it won't have the effect intended. And all I'd like is a response from the monitoring officer, who must be aware of both issues, as to is that correct, and if it isn't correct, how does he square that circle? Okay, quick response from the monitoring officer, please, and then move to your amendments. I have to talk about the amendments, yes. Very good, okay. I think the matter that Councillor Graham is talking about is related to a decision that is a key decision and therefore needs to be taken under the current process, under the SO83 process, and that is what he has been advised of by the assistant chief executive. In terms of the use or further use of SO83, if these amendments are approved by this committee and approved for council, SO83 will still remain if it is necessary. That is a purpose. It's removing what, at the moment it's removing the thresholds predominantly, and if an SO83 still needs to be, is still necessary for the purpose of a decision to be taken, it will continue to be so. If there's to be any changes to that, Councillor Graham, as a consequence of how these changes are implemented and how the democracy review proceeds, and that will be subject to another paper in due course. It's genuinely for clarification. Okay, go on. What is the difference, therefore, between the delegation that we have given to the cost of living programme board and the delegation that these changes would give on the £3 million point? If you can delegate it, but if it's still a key decision and it starts to go through SO83A, then that applies to both equally, and actually, even though this paper says it will end SO83A, it won't, unless separate proposals are brought forward to amend the standing orders. Give it to us again, Councillor Graham. So, basically, we have delegated, you can delegate powers or you can retain them. We have delegated powers to the cost of living board to take a decision independently of the executive. Despite that, because the decision is worth a certain amount of money, which is a lot less than £3 million, it's actually £300,000, it's coming back through SO83A, despite the fact that we delegated it. This says, let's delegate stuff away up to £3 million, but if it's worth £300,000, that means it's still going to come back unless we change the standing orders. If the standing orders require that a key decision is made through SO83A, regardless of whether other parts of the constitution or committee has delegated it, and we have delegated to the cost of living programme board, if it still has to come back for them, it will still have to come back on this. I don't see what the difference is. Okay, thank you. So, I'd quite like to move to a vote on the amendments. Not because I'm trying to keep us within a 45-minute time period or anything of the kind, but somewhere along the line we have to move forward. Could you summarise your amendments for us and we'll move to a vote on your amendments, Councillor Graham? I agree, I don't think we're going to get a clear answer on that, but I would ask the monitoring officer to consider it and to potentially look at the implications that may follow from that for the paper that goes to full council, because I can't see the difference there. I appreciate he's not—I've sprung this point on him, but that's because it was only clear to me from the email I received today that it was a problem. So, I will talk about the amendments, Councillor Osborne, and keep you happy. So, in relation to amendment—the First Amendment, Amendment 1 here, this isn't intended to be controversial, we've not had a chance to discuss it so far. But essentially, if you go onto the council's website, you will see—you click on read the constitution, it'll give you a list of dates, the constitution at a certain date, and you click on it there and it shows you everything that the constitution was on that date, and you click on the most recent date and that tells you what it is now. What it doesn't tell you is what's changed between the two. And so, if you suddenly see that there's a new date that appears, as it does from time to time with none of us knowing, there's a new current version of the constitution and it's impossible to know what the changes were unless it's already been through committee and you happen to have read the papers, in which case you know. We're now not taking changes through committee necessarily, but regardless of that, there are updates. The monitoring officer will know that I not infrequently sent him emails asking what the changes were, and he has to list them for me. All this is saying—and it shouldn't really be controversial, and indeed a lot of other councils do this already—is just when we publish a new date with a new version of the constitution, that there's a little note appended saying the bits that have changed are this bit, this bit, this bit, and possibly this is why, but I'm not even stipulating that. I'm just saying what has changed, so that I no longer need to send him those emails, and any of us that are looking at it, and certainly members of the public, aren't scratching their heads or forced to read 50,000 words and then another 50,000 words to compare the two and hope they spot what's different. So, how do you want to do this, Councillor Graham? I can do them all at once, or I can do them one at a time? No, no, separately, and I'd be interested to hear others' views on this. Do you want to vote on amendment 1 now? I think Councillor Abses has a question or a point to make, so I'd be welcome to debate. I suspect she does, but I'm asking you how you want the vote on the amendment. Well, I'd like for people to give their thoughts, and we hadn't discussed it. On amendment 1? Yeah, on amendment 1, I'd like to give people's thoughts. So, Councillor Graham, I think that's an interesting idea that we received very shortly before the meeting. This isn't the moment to make that kind of decision. That would require thought and discussion with a much larger group of councillors than is here today, and is going to be part of the democracy process. So, for me, this is a question for the wrong meeting at the wrong time, but it is something that I do agree should be looked at in the broad as part of the democracy review. Okay, can we move to a vote on that one, then, Councillor Graham? Hang on, let's have a discussion. I'm trying to encourage one. One point, let's have a discussion. So, I think what Councillor Abses is saying is that it seems like a good idea to her, but that her side don't have any ability to think about something unless they're given it weeks in advance, even if it's a really simple minor point. Okay, okay, okay. But Councillor Ambash wants to come in, so I'll let him. Okay, I'm inclined to move to a vote on amendment 1 first. Hang on a second, Councillor Ambash, unless it's pertinent. No, no, okay. On amendment 1? Yes. Go on. I really don't think we should be discussing in this meeting the drafting of texts on the websites. It really isn't the purpose of this meeting. That's too detailed, but obviously happy to talk about the principles. Okay, can I move to a vote on amendment 1, please? I'm sorry, I think members of the public looking at this will think it absolutely preposterous that we're not allowed to discuss whether they're allowed to know what the changes are and that councillors have to internally email the monitoring officer in a way that they're not able to, just to find out what the changes are. You do not have the floor at present. Thank you very much. I'm going to move to a vote on amendment 1. All those in favour? You might want to ask for a proposal in a seconder. Yes, another item, of course, which I've had a reminder of, which is that I have to ask for a mover and a seconder. I do know the constitution, which is why we raise this point. Unfortunately, it's not so universal as to be in favour. Thank you for your instruction, Councillor Graham. I'm very grateful. And a seconder? Yes. Amendment 2, then, please. Yes, let me just explain what this is. So, yes, this part of the schedule has been unchanged for over a decade. This is not a political point. This was like it when we were in charge. It's not something I'd ever noticed before I looked through the papers this evening and spotted it. It is simply something which is obviously unintentional and that we ought to amend. Because at the moment, what it's basically saying is that if, say, a councillor is married to an employee of Serco, it's a huge organisation that deals with lots of contracts all over the place. And the council happens to be in negotiations with Serco over some contract, which is equally possible that they are not allowed to talk to their wife or husband without written permission from the council. It says that if someone, and I think this is a more likely scenario, that someone in their professional life has dealings with any one of these large organisations in an utterly unrelated way, not related in any possible way to negotiations the council are having, that again, to conduct their job, they need written permission from the council. That's clearly not intended. What it should really be is that they're not allowed to have any possible communication with someone involved in a contract negotiation or procurement if it's related or could be related to that negotiation. But if it's completely separate or it's in their private or professional life, then it just shouldn't be here. No one has actually tried to enforce this on us. I didn't even know it was there to enforce. I didn't know it was there to even write in, and I suspect that the other side didn't either. But it's an error, it's a clear error, and this just corrects it. So I hope, given it's a very simple point to understand, and it's actually placing an unnecessary and unreasonable burden on councillors that might possibly be breaching other parts of the law, by the way, that we should correct it while we're on the way. Are you the mover of the amendment, Councillor Grant? I'd like to know if anybody else is against this, and if so, on what basis they might be against it, and if no-one is from the opposition. Any comment on this amendment from anywhere? No? In that case, could the monitoring officer or one of the officers say whether they think this change would be reasonable? I think we're on a debate about an amendment. I'd rather skip. I'd like to know whether officers' advice on this amendment, whether they think it's reasonable. Councillor Henderson, did you want to say something? Thank you, Chair. It's more of an observation, really, that, as Councillor Graham has pointed out, this has been working in this way for quite some time, and there have been absolutely no problems associated with it. I mean, I think, in relation to all these things, one has to be reasonable and expect people to interpret the procurement rules, et cetera, and the constitution reasonably. I mean, I think it's a pretty arcane point, frankly. I'm sorry, it's not arcane whether a member of council— Sorry, Councillor Grimston. Let's have Councillor Grimston. I'll just say, if it's arcane, then why don't we just accept it? It's so straightforward. I think it's a slightly dodgy argument to say that because we've got a way without problems of something which can be changed so simply just by inserting eight words into the constitution, I can't see any possible argument—well, I can see one possible argument as to why someone might vote against this, and it wouldn't reflect well, I think, on the council with that. I can't see of any other possible reason why something as obvious as this couldn't just be nodded through. It just puts right, as Councillor Graham said, something that all of us who have been on the council for years have missed, and it's clearly a mistake. Can I move to a vote on it then, please? Look, I would like to— Have you not argued in favour of it already? No, no. With respect, Councillor Osborne, officers are here to advise us on things we might do. I have asked if officers could state whether they think this change would be reasonable or not, whether there may have been something I've missed or misunderstood, even though it's so simple. If they are here to advise us, I would like their advice before we vote. Any burning advice on any of it? We would have heard it by now. Is there a reason why you won't allow the question to be put to officers? No, there is no reason, except I want to move the proceedings on this evening. I'm sorry, but surely we should be allowed to put the question as to whether—I have understood in some light it's correct— I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Enough of this. I'm going to move to a vote. All those in favour of amendment 2. All those against. Is that tied? That's not moving. My casting vote also. Okay, let's move to amendment— I will introduce it, but I think we see how this is going to go. Essentially, the administration councillors will set their face against anything we propose for the simple reason that we are proposing it, no matter how sensible. Even if they privately agree with it, they are going to vote it down on principle, a principle that flies in the face, actually, of their obligations as councillors, which is to look at things on their merits. It flies in the face of the Nolan principles, which they've all signed up to. They are not supposed to dismiss things out of hand simply because they don't like the person putting them forward. Is that your argument for the amendment? No, no, I'm just responding. I've got every entitlement to do, given the absurdity of what we've just witnessed. Okay, thank you. Councillor Abbs. If I may say so, this is again something that I would be willing to look at as part of the democracy review and see if it's sensible, but quite frankly, I did not have due notice to find out if there were any unintended consequences from that change, and I'm not prepared to take decisions like this at the last moment without a chance to take full and thorough advice first, so I'm sorry. Well, I tried to take advice, Councillor Abbs. I was denied the chance to take the advice from officers and get that advice. But the officers hadn't received—we received the amendments before the officers did. They have also not had due time to consider it. I'm sorry, but you're too late, and you're too slack-dash with your amendments. You need to get them to us earlier. I'm sorry, but is there a seconder for this? Well, hang on. I haven't even talked about the amendment yet, Councillor Osborne. Mover, please. Are you the mover? Councillor Osborne, I haven't even talked about the amendment to say what it is. We have not discussed it. Amendment 3. Yes, I haven't even described what it is. Anybody watching won't even know. Go on, then. Right. Are you the mover of it? I will be the mover of it. Good. Is there a seconder? I'm sure there will be. OK. We'll take Councillor Hedges on this one, shall we? Absolutely. What this is designed to do is simply ensure that not everything, not everything that currently goes through and needs sign-off would be, but that contracts could not go through without being at least run past the Cabinet member, to make it a requirement to run it past the Cabinet member if the annual value is above £200,000. I would think any of the members of the Executive would be shocked if they weren't, if it wasn't run past by them. I'm sure the officers have no intention not to run it past them, but it's our job in setting rules to make sure that the rules mandate what should be the case, not to leave it to chance. And these are things, we are all equipped with brains, or at least I hope we are, both officers and councillors. Where something is pages long and technical and complicated, of course people need time to digest it. Where it is something so basic and so simple that all one takes to understand it is to read it. We are capable of exercising judgement on the night and actually reading it, taking its position and then voting accordingly. And this idea that we need weeks of prior notice to something that is obvious, whether you agree or disagree, is ridiculous. Thank you. Very eloquent, Councillor Graham. Did you want to say something, Councillor Henderson? Yes. Thank you, Chair. But what Councillor Graham actually describes is not actually how he's drafted the amendment. It talks about somebody to sign off by the relevant Cabinet Member, which sounds to me to be pretty much identical to an essay of 83A. The first thing I should say about this is, first of all, that Members would be informed about the procurement contracts a long time in advance. But completely aside from that, the value of £3 million, which I don't think people have actually referred to, is actually a lifetime. Sorry, it's over the value of the entire contract. Now, very many of the contracts we have are for five years. So, in fact, what you're talking about are contracts which are in excess of £600,000. So, it's not £3 million a year or anything like that. So, in fact, there would still be some significant contracts which would be subject to the normal processes. But what I am actually concerned about is, I mean, certainly as Head of Social Care and Public Health, but we have a very considerable number of procurements of that sort of order. I mean, frankly, I'd be spending all my time signing off, because that's what the amendment says. It refers to sign off by the relevant Cabinet Member. And I dare say myself and my colleagues would be spending all our time just reading various procurement documents, which would serve an absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever. Okay, let's move to a vote. Sorry, sorry, Councillor Osborne. I'm entitled to respond. Councillor Henderson has put your point of view. I'm entitled to respond to what Councillor Henderson has suggested. No, I'm going to move to a vote. All those in favour of amendment 3, please, hands up. Why am I not allowed to respond to his criticism? Councillor Osborne, why am I not allowed to respond to that? I want to move the process on this evening. I think we've had enough discussion. Why am I not allowed to respond to that? All those in favour of amendment 3, please. Well, I don't think this has any legitimacy at all, if you're just closing down the debate. Okay. All those against amendment 3, please. You may not have the floor, but you do have the moral high ground. I'll give you that. And my casting vote. Amendment 4. Please put your position on amendment 4. Well, as I say, we know how this is going to go, and we now know that we won't even be allowed to debate it. However, this is fundamental, and regardless of whether this amendment is carried or not, the point will stand. We cannot delegate authority to any officer to make changes to the constitution, because the constitution says the changes must be approved by the full council, unless the changes are specified, which these are not, because we have situations where it could be, could go to members for information, could not, could be this, could be that. There are any number of options that the new decision notices, the way those are drawn up. There are any number of options for how that's done and who that will involve. So we cannot have a situation in which those changes do not go to full council. We cannot have a situation in which the minor changes, which we see in appendix E, it's accepted that those have to go to council, but bigger changes do not. That's simply contradictory. And I can tell already how this vote is going to go, having seen the previous ones. But regardless of whether we vote to amend in this way, there must be a list of the changes to the constitution, which we do not have tonight, that is placed in front of the full council, because if that does not happen, then we will not have followed the articles of the constitution. I hope someone will respond to that, but I rather doubt it now. OK. Any other comments? Councillor Ambush. Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor. I think we've already debated this. We're like rabbits or mice going round and round in circles. Councillor Appes has said very clearly, what will go to full council will be what we decide, and the information will be available at full council. This is not officers taking the responsibility of full council, as I understand Councillor Graham has said. So I'm against the amendment, and I'm sure we will be discussing the full changes at council. Thank you. One sentence in response. That is what delegate authority means. Delegate authority means that the full council does not take responsibility. OK. So can we move to a vote then? We've got a proposer. Is Councillor Corner? OK. And a seconder? Councillor Jeffries. Good. All those in favour of amendment 4? All those against amendment 4? Can I have it ministered that Councillor Henderson said he does not understand the proposal? Councillor Grimston, yes? Just a general point. Obviously, I've invested interest in being the only councillor who was in opposition during the last administration and is in opposition in the current administration. I would be, by definition, the least successful councillor on the council, and that should be taken into account. Nonetheless, I have to say that a lot of what's happened tonight feels like a democratic dictatorship. And when it comes to the constitution, the constitution is there to protect. Largely, actually, it's there to protect the opposition, and whether we have some years of one party being opposition and having no idea how many years it will be of the others, that's a roundabout of politics. But it is likely that at some point in the future that pendulum will swing back and another party, maybe neither of the parties in this room, who knows, will be running the council. And it really does concern me that there are a number of things here and the second amendment is just so simple and it's only consequences. If there was a clear statement of saying let's defer the decision and maybe even look at it seriously before the coming council meeting to look at this, but sitting here as someone without a party axe to grind, I think administrations that just seek to exclude the opposition from a process, which is not just this meeting, it's been a number of changes which have come forward which have been imposed upon the opposition, rather than negotiated with the opposition to come to a point there. It will ultimately backfire on the administration because good opposition and listening to good opposition and giving the way to good opposition is the way you pick up what the electorate might be saying in the next election and put it right before that happens. And I think there's real dangers with the attitude that I think I've seen tonight that this is going to bounce badly on all of us and I'd hope that all councillors will reflect on that. All right, thank you for your view. I'm going to move to a vote on the paper, which is paper 24342. Can I see all those in favour? Councillor Osborne, can I make a comment? No, I am in the chair and I am not giving you the floor. I conceded to Councillor Grimstone, I am not conceding to you. I am moving to a vote on paper 24342. I haven't elected by the residents of this borough to make points and you're denying my right. Can I see all those in favour of the recommendations and proposals in that paper on procurement, please? Of the paper, as it stands. All those against? Thank you. Sorry, abstentions, forgive me. That was one abstention, five for, four against. Is that right? Okay. Councillor? Microphone. Thank you everybody for your patience with the meeting tonight. That concludes our business this evening. Goodnight everybody.