The Standards Committee of Westminster Council will meet to discuss a range of issues relating to the conduct of councillors and the work programme for the committee in the coming year. The committee will be asked to approve the minutes of their previous meeting and will receive a report on a proposed work programme for 2024-2025.

Work Programme 2024-2025

The Committee will consider its draft work programme for 2024-2025. The work programme sets out the meetings that the committee intends to hold during the year and the topics that are likely to be discussed at each meeting. The draft work programme contains three items. First, there will be an Annual Q&A with the Leader of the council on Ethical Standards. Second, the committee will receive a report on a review of the Member/Officer Protocol. The protocol was last reviewed in 2022 and

some of the newly elected Councillors would not have had time to constructively feed into the consultation on the Protocol. The committee also asked that the issue of diversity be included in the review of the Member/Officer Protocol Finally, Parveen Akhtar, will produce three reports for the committee. The first will update the committee on complaints against members, the second will review the council's Code of Conduct and the third will report on the findings of a review of the Member/Officer Protocol.

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

The committee will be asked to approve the minutes of their previous meeting, which was held on 22 February 2024. During that meeting, the committee received a report on its work over the previous two years. The report, which is described as a Biennial Standards Committee Report included a Statement of Ethical Standards. The committee discussed the report and asked for it to be revised to use different colours, images and orientation. They also asked for it to include photographs of what are described as the Independent Persons and a photograph of the former chair of the committee. A revised report will be circulated to members of the committee to be approved at a later date. Councillor Md Shamsed Chowdhury asked for the Member/Officer Protocol to be reviewed, and the committee decided to add this to their work programme. They decided that the review should take place in February 2025. Councillor Sara Hassan asked for the review to consider the issue of diversity. The committee agreed to cancel their meeting scheduled for 11 July 2024 due to a lack of business.

Annual Q&A with the Leader of the Council on Ethical Standards

The committee will hold its annual question and answer session with the Leader of the Council. This is an opportunity for members of the Standards Committee to ask the leader questions about ethical standards.