The Committee will receive presentations on the following:

1.    Introduction and Scope;

2.    A citizen journalist’s perspective;

3.    Freedom of Information; and

4.    Public notice, consultation and decision making on Licensing and Development Committees.

The Committee received and noted presentations from local journalists and bloggers Mark Baynes and Ted Jeory, about local transparency, including how the Council can be more transparent; how residents could be better informed about Council activity, processes and decisions; how councillors could be supported to make more transparent decisions; how decision makers could be held to account transparently. Officers also presented to the committee on how the Council responds to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, and communication of information and decision-making regarding licensing and development.

In addition, the Committee received and noted the following questions submitted by Muhammad Haque:

What is the Tower Hamlets Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s priority?

a)    In the context of the most serious concerns that have been openly and publicly expressed by the lack of accountability, lack of transparency, lack of due diligence and lack of democracy in the behaviour of the LBTH Council?

b)    As made by all the known and public sources?

c)    Including and especially by a number of judges, at least ten MPs, at least four Government Ministers and in numerous comments published in print, online and in radio and TV programmes in the past two years?

d)    What is the position of the Tower Hamlets Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee at this stage in answer to the Question from the Community - why is there not an audit and transparency route in place in the Council at present?

e)    What priority as the Tower Hamlets Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee attached to the concerns, knowledge, opinions on the absence of transparency and accountability among ordinary members of the Community across Tower Hamlets?

In their presentations and subsequent discussion, the local journalists expressed the following views:

• The Council Tax payer’s interests should come before commercial and business interests.
• Councillor/Chief Officer allowances; property; expenses; business interests and hospitality received should be published
• The cost of each internal advertising in East End Life;
• Mayoral Executive Decisions should not be published in a Portable Document Format;
• The Council should publish redacted versions of MAB/CMT minutes;
• The culture of the organisation should be open and unrestricted;
• The Council should publish all credit card transactions over £10.00 and those payments of £100 to suppliers – They need to be easily identifiable so that there is a clear audit trail i.e. each supplier should have a unique identifier;
• The Council should publish if a Councillor has stood for more than one political party and who proposed and seconded them so that the public know that they are bona fide;

Other points made by the committee were:

• More Council meetings should be held at community venues;
• The Council should publish Councillors’ timesheets;
• There should be greater involvement of the Young Mayor more in Council meetings.
• The Best Value Plan (under organisational culture) should also consider policy and procedures for whistleblowing and should look to the report by Sir Robert Francis following the inquiry into Mid–Staffordshire Hospital as a model for developing this.
• Details should be provided about who sits on the Freedom of Information (FOI) Board;
• The overall costs of transparency measures should be investigated
• Why do Members have to raise FOI requests rather than being provided with information as Councillors;
• The FOI disclosure log needs to be more easily accessible;
• Consideration should be given to supporting the development of  Amenity Societies within LBTH to monitor planning and development in a conservation and other sensitive areas;
• The Council should publish a plain English glossary of terms used in Planning and Licensing, and use plain English where possible in letters and notices;
• The Council needs to encourage developers to publicise their intentions for particular sites in a way that is accessible to the public;
• There should be a weekly publication of planning and licensing applications and promotion of these issues at ward level;
• The Council should investigate how other councils inform residents about licensing applications;
• The Council needs to develop a protocol on how developers should engage the community;
• The Councils web site needs to be more accessible e.g. LB of Redbridge should be seen as a best practice example;
• There needs to be a dialogue with the community on how the "revenue" from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and Section 106 is utilised in LBTH.