Cllr John Warren (Conservative) has sent me the following regarding proposals to be put to Brent Council's AGM on Wednesday:
Item 13 of the Council AGM is "Changes to the Constitution." So I put forward a number of amendments for consideration by the meeting, but Council officers told me that they could not be considered because my amendments were nothing to do with the amendments being proposed in the report!!!
So what is " changes to the constitution," supposed to mean?
Anyway, I shall be speaking on this item and will circulate my amendments at the AGM. My proposals are in three categories.......
1.To delete the elaborate and impossible procedure which currently exists if members wish to remove the Council leader.I propose that we revert to the time - honoured tradition of a straightforward yes or no vote on the night.
2.A radical restructuring of the scrutiny process .....it has failed abysmally over the past year.I cannot think of a single occasion when it has shown any teeth.I believe that each lead member and their portfolio should be subject to separate sub- committees so as to scrutinise in a more forensic way.I also propose a separate sub- committee to scrutinise the Leader and deputy.I propose increasing the number of scrutiny members to 20 so that the heavier workload can involve more members.
3.I am also proposing a " People's Question Time ."This should be a 15 minute slot whereby the Cabinet can answer questions from Brent residents without notice of the question in the same way as PMQs.