Fenella Merry

General Purposes Committee

Agenda

The General Purposes Committee approved a new polling scheme for Wandsworth and a series of changes to the Council's procurement regulations. The meeting also saw a disagreement on some proposed amendments put forward by the opposition members, which were all voted down.

Council

Agenda

The meeting began with a recitation of the Quran by the Mayor's Faith Leader, Ali Jafri. The Council then approved an update to the council's capital spending plans, despite some abstentions from Conservative councillors. Two motions were then considered. The first, proposed by the Labour administration, was a general statement in support of children's safety and wellbeing and was passed despite opposition from the Conservative group. The second, proposed by the Conservatives, expressed concern at the loss of winter fuel payments for many pensioners and called on the Council to take steps to provide for those affected. This motion was defeated, with the Conservatives voting in favour and Labour against. The meeting concluded with the reception of reports from several committees.

Joint Pensions Committee

Agenda

The committee received a petition from Wandsworth Friends of Palestine requesting that the council divest from companies that invest in Israel. After hearing from the petitioners and officers, it was decided to ask officers to evaluate options for responding to the petition and report back to a future meeting. The committee also reviewed the Pension Fund Annual Report, quarterly investment performance report, and received an update on several general matters including the pooling of bond investments and the proposed merger of the Nuveen UKPF fund.

Executive

Agenda

The meeting saw the Executive agree to all of the recommendations made by the four committees that reported to it. These included approval for a new grounds maintenance contract, updates to the Housing Revenue Account business plan and highway maintenance programme, and plans for a new school and community facilities in Nine Elms.

General Purposes Committee

Agenda

The meeting noted the independent review into the Putney Constituency general election count, and accepted all of the recommendations that were made in it. It also noted the progress of the Democracy Review and that a task and finish group would be established to develop proposals based on the recommendations made by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny.