Agenda and minutes

The Interim Chief Executive shall invite nominations and conduct the vote for the positions of Chair and Deputy Chair of the Assembly.

The Acting Chief Executive opened the meeting and the Monitoring Officer invited nominations for the positions of Chair and Deputy Chair of the Assembly for the 2022/23 municipal year.

The Assembly resolved to appoint Councillors Freeborn and Ramsay as the Chair and Deputy Chair respectively. 

As Councillor Freeborn was not present at the start of the meeting due to her attendance at the Queen’s Garden Party earlier in the afternoon, Councillor Ramsay took the chair until Councillor Freeborn arrived.

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 2 March 2022 were confirmed as correct.

The Interim Chief Executive will announce the formation of political groups for the purposes of the Local Government (Committees and Political Groups) Regulations 1990.

The Chief Executive announced the formation of the Labour Group, made up of all 51 members of the Council, for the purposes of the Local Government (Committees and Political Groups) Regulations 1990.

The Chair shall invite nominations for the Leader of the Council.

The Acting Chief Executive invited and received nominations for the appointment of Leader of the Council.

The nomination was unopposed, and the Assembly resolved to appoint Councillor Darren Rodwell as Leader of the Council for a four-year term of office, to expire at the Annual Assembly meeting in May 2026.

The Leader of the Council will announce the appointment of the Cabinet.

The Leader of the Council announced the following Cabinet appointments:

·  Councillor Dominic Twomey: Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Core Services;

·  Councillor Saima Ashraf: Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Community Leadership and Engagement;

·  Councillor Sade Bright: Cabinet Member for Employment, Skills and Aspiration;

·  Councillor Cameron Geddes: Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Economic Development;

·  Councillor Syed Ghani: Cabinet Member for Enforcement and Community Safety;

·  Councillor Kashif Haroon: Cabinet Member for Public Realm and Climate Change;

·  Councillor Elizabeth Kangethe: Cabinet Member for Educational Attainment and School Improvement;

·  Councillor Jane Jones: Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Care and Disabilities;

·  Councillor Maureen Worby: Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health Integration; and

·  Councillor John Dulwich: Deputy Cabinet Member for Performance and Data Insight.

The Leader will present his statement.

The Leader of the Council presented a verbal statement updating the Assembly on a range of matters since the last meeting including:

-  Reflections on the last four years and the achievements made by the Council over that time;

-  The cost-of-living crisis and actions taken by the Council to help residents, including a Cost of Living Summit due to be held in June;

-  The new Cabinet, who would be focusing on meeting the aspirations of those in the borough and working closely with partners to deliver objectives over the next four years; and

-  The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, with four days of free events taking place in the borough.

The Acting Chief Executive introduced a report on appointments to the Political Structure and Other Bodies for the 2022/23 municipal year.

The nominations schedule was tabled at the meeting.

The Assembly resolved to:

(i)  Approve the appointments to various Council committees and other internal and external bodies as detailed in the schedule attached at Appendix 1 to these minutes; and

(ii)  Delegate authority to the Acting Chief Executive, in consultation with the Leader of the Council, to approve the appointment of councillors to fill any vacant positions prior to the next meeting of the Assembly on 27 July 2022.

The Monitoring Officer presented a report on the Members’ Allowances Scheme 2022/23.

The report proposed the first set of changes to the Members’ Allowances Scheme in four years (i.e. since 2018). It was proposed that the Basic Allowance be increased to the level recommended by the London Councils Independent Remuneration Panel (LCIRP) in its recently published report for 2022 which, to all intents and purposes, represented an increase to the Basic Allowance equivalent to the local government staff pay awards since 2018.

With regard to Special Responsibility Allowances and particularly the roles of Leader, Deputy Leader, Cabinet Member and Chair of Overview and Scrutiny Committee, consideration was given to the levels recommended by the LCIRP in its 2022 report and officers also conducted a benchmarking exercise against other London Boroughs’ schemes to provide a comparison (based on allowance levels in 2021/22). Stemming from that, although it was not proposed to increase SRAs to the LCIRP recommended levels due to the ongoing pressures on the Council’s finances, the report did propose specific increases to some of those posts referred to above as well as an ‘inflationary’ increase to all SRAs, again equivalent to the local government staff pay awards since 2018.

As part of the evolution of the Council’s governance arrangements, it was also proposed to create the new role of Deputy Cabinet Member from 2022/23 and the deletion of the role of Member Champion.

The Assembly resolved to:

(i)   Agree that the annual Basic Allowance paid to all councillors be increased to £12,014 for the 2022/23 municipal year, in line with the recommendation of the London Councils Independent Remuneration Panel;

(ii)   Agree the increases to Members’ Special Responsibility Allowances for the 2022/23 municipal year, as detailed in the report;

(iii)   Agree the creation of up to three Deputy Cabinet Member posts from the 2022/23 municipal year and the deletion of the role of Member Champion; and

(iv)   Adopt the Members’ Allowances Scheme 2022/23 at Appendix A to the report, to be effective from 26 May 2022.

There are no motions.

There were no motions.

There are no questions with notice.

There were no questions with notice.