Issue - meetings

To consider the recommendation to pilot a new Open Forum

The Chair stated that the proposals were for four meetings (two forums a year). The Board had not yet been consulted fully on the details of, but the Statutory Advisory Committee felt that the aim of the proposed changes was not clear.

The Chair put forward the idea of holding a meeting of either the Consultative Committee, Statutory Advisory Committee or a stakeholders meeting without councillors. The Committee noted views stated at the meeting on the issue, including that councillors were elected by the wider community and were a more accurate representation of the local community and therefore excluding councillors from such meetings would be a mistake. The meeting also noted a suggestion that a forum in the eyes of the public that was not representative of the community could be considered concerning. The process and setting up of a forum should be led by the community itself. 

The meeting also heard that:

·           Noticeboards around the borough that was originally controlled by the Council were now largely under the control of residents’ associations.

·           Charity governance was generally undergoing a lot of scrutiny and it was important that progress was shown on charity governance which was under constant review.

·           The diversity of the intended audience included cultural background as well as diversity in age and gender. 

The Chair stated that an action plan was required before the end of the discussion.

The meeting also heard that:

·           The Councillor members of the Committee were generally more diverse in cultural background as well as diversity in age and gender. 

·           The Consultative Committee was designed so that National and regional organisations such as TfL could attend. There was now a separate dialogue with TfL and there were other groups which were engaged with directly.

·           One suggestion was to wait until the council elections had passed before holding a forum and then convene another Consultative Committee to review how the forum had progressed.

·           Another suggestion was to have forums interspersed with the Consultative Committee to allow for a consistent feedback loop. This could start sometime soon after the elections. The Statutory Advisory Committee would not be affected but the process of the Committee could be examined further for areas of improvement, particularly in relation to the representation of the Committee.

·           It was difficult to fully understand the processes relating to Alexandra Palace easily and the roles of the Committees needed further clarification.

·           The act of parliament mentioned the residents’ associations that were members of the Statutory Advisory Committee. It would perhaps be a good idea to examine the objectives and purpose of the Committee and understand how well the Committee was delivering against those objectives.

The meeting proposed that a recommendation be made to the Alexandra Park and Palace Board that each year two Consultative Committees are held and two open forums. If the recommendation was agreed then, the Statutory Advisory Committee recommend to the Alexandra Park and Palace Board that the comments made by the Statutory Advisory Committee be considered and used to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 31

To consider the recommendation to pilot a new Open Forum

The meeting heard a variety of views including that:

·           Some members were in favour of the proposals in the paper as it was evident that the current structure of the Committee was not the most representative group of residents in the borough and not the best way of representing stakeholders. However, it would be useful to confirm what the objectives of the forum actually were.  In the past public meetings such as the licensing proposal in 2017 had worked well with members of the public giving and discussion giving   their views. One of the strengths of the Committee was that it had Board trustees as members. 

·           There appeared to be a risk that the Committee may become a question and answer session and this may not be productive.

·           The reports, such as CEO reports, being submitted to the Committee three to four times a year was a good way to keep up to date and the Committees would like to see this practice continue for the open forum.

·           It would be useful if the regular routine reports, which were available on the Council’s website, were also made available to anybody who wanted them on the AP Website perhaps by linking to the Council’s committee pages.

·           Although the report considered the need for more community proportionate representation, it did not appear to represent the beneficiaries of the Charity. There were specific matters which needed to be referred to the Statutory Advisory Committee by law and some matters to the Consultative Committee due to the Councils constitution. There were many items that were put before the Board that did not come before either the Statutory Advisory or the Consultative Committees. The Board advertised any proposed decision one week before the meeting. The proposed forum stated that the public needed to provide two weeks’ notice before submitting a question, but it would not be technically possible to do this as the papers to the Board were only published one week before. It was clarified that only items for including on the agenda should be requested with 2 weeks’ notice.

·           The proposal had only been published for about a week. The legal advice stated that there were no issues with the proposals for the pilot as long as the structure was unchanged, but it appeared that the proposal would change the structure. The proposals should not be agreed until a specially convened meeting of the Consultative Committee so that all interested parties including people from different organisations could attend it and provide their suggestions.

·           It was possible to consider not agreeing to abolish the Consultative Committee but still have an open forum and have a positive pilot scheme. The forum could meet two times a year. This would help to examine how well the proposed processes would work.

·           A discussion needed to be held on what an open forum would look like, how people would be brought into the conversation and a meeting could be held regarding the processes of the open forum.

·           It  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54