NEC/Minutes/7th AUGUST 2011
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Contents |
Attending
Phil Cooke (PC)
Loz Kaye (LK)
Andy Halsall (AH)
Apologies
Ed Geraghty (EG)
Miah Gregory (MG)
Gavin Meredith (GM)
Minutes
Minutes from the previous meeting on the 31st July approved subject to GM's consent.
Actions from this meeting
GM to contact PC on his role.
AH to monitor conference organisation on an ongoing basis and make committee aware of what the NEC position is.
LK and AH will attend HSBC Monday in Sheffield to move the opening of a new account forward, subject to confirmation of an appointment by HSBC
AH to pass on link to candidates list to LK.
PC will place the election system on to the agenda for the web team meeting.
LK is to contact Stephen Ogden (SO) to deal with the issues surrounding the Party Secretary role.
NEC as a whole to ensure that availability is clear within the team collaboration site.
PC to fill out and post change of officer form for signatures.
PC to obtain ward, constituency and EC region information for the current crop of candidates.
Matters arising
AH+LK+GM worked on and finished the interim website/
GM did not contact PC with regard to his new role. GM did work on permissions and access and is asked to contact PC when he is available.
AH has ensured PC's privileges are correct within the collaboration suite.
LK did generate private keys for his email. -
LK did call AR to move forward on other release related matters to have them done for Monday. Releases were issued in conjunction with AH and JB.
AH emailed GM the proof of postage for the Scotland 2011 return and verified receipt of the documents.
Conference
AH informed the NEC that the conference comittee had been established and reported on progress so far. He pointed out that he had made the conference aware of elements requested by the NEC and informed the NEC that he would now be on the conference mailing list. AH also stated that SO would be leading the effort and that the NEC should expect the first progress report as from the week after next.
LK stated that he would like to have a date as soon as possible, AH agreed and stated it was a necessity to start advertising. AH stated that the NEC should expect a date within two weeks. AH also reported that he had suggested dates as being before the 3rd of April or after the 3rd of June to ensure elections were not hampered. LK stated that he felt March was the ideal month given the previous conference date and the timing of other events. AH stated that he would communicate that to the committee.
LK reiterated that he was happy that this process was fully under-way.
Policy Process
LK informed PC of the current situation and party aims in the near term as per previous minutes
AH stated that he had requested that the web team deliver the public policy platform within two weeks and that once live, the public policy consultation would run for 2 months. Parallel to the public policy process AH stated that the candidates should be working on policy with focus on their AOR's. AH stated that the candidates should be placed in a position to drive policy formulation on the back of discussions with the party and the public consultation process.
LK stated that there was a need for him to discuss this with the candidates.
LK asked how the policy process would be presented on the forums in order t ensure that there was a good debate, LK stated that he was concerned about detail. AH stated that as much as possible should be handed off to the candidates and noted that there would be issues in using the forums effectively for policy formulation. LK made clear that he felt it was important to have an open discussion and that there was a need to be able to pull all of the discussions nicely together to ensure policy was well formulated and detailed.
AH stated that the end result of the policy process would be production of the manifestos and the presentation of the party's policies at conference.
AH is to monitor conference organisation on an ongoing basis and make committee aware of what the NEC position is.
Candidates
LK stated that he still needed to find the right bit in feng. AH will send LK the link to the candidates list.
LK suggested that the candidates phone numbers be collected and made available to him for contact. LK stated that there was a need for clear direct communication. LK also pointed out that people needed to work consistently now and that looking at what has happened this month where the party has had an issue every day that needed responding too, the candidates need to get involved. AH agreed.
Finance Update
LK AH attend HSBC Monday in Sheffield, and will attempt. LK stated that determined to get control of everything.
Elections procedure
LK reiterated the current position for PC - LK stated that at present there is concern that the voting procedure for the party isn't robust enough, there are issues of IT security and that GM has raised concerns about the potential for abuse. LK made clear that there was no suggestion that abuse had occurred.
PC stated that he agreed that the system is open to abuse from his tenure on the IT team. PC stated that a revamp of the election system was assumed to be coming in with the new site.
LK stated that the dilemma was that elections were due and necessary to ensure a full compliment of officers but that the election system had to be secure enough to ensure that any election was fair. PC stated that he will be moving forward with the elections procedures to ensure that the NEC will be full strength.
LK queried what the order of doing things should be and how long it would take to fix the election system. PC stated that it's not an easy system to redo, that the system would need redesign. PC also stated that in the meantime there were other things that could be done to secure any current elections, PC stated that he would sit down with EG to talk to him about that.
PC will place election system on the agenda for the web team meet.
AH stated that some measures had already been taken with regard to securing the election system, specifically a reduction in privileges and some measures to detect intrusion and modifications.. LK reiterated that people had to be in place in elected positions, so elections were critical.
PC also stated that he had discussed future elections with JB and that JB had offered to act as elections monitor to ease transition.
Data controller / party secretary elections
LK reiterated the decision from the 12th July meeting, that the party secretary role had been deemed as required to replace the DC role and gave some background to the decision. LK was keen to move the specification process on. AH asked whether the concern was still the change of role after the election to which LK agreed. LK stated that intended to have a discussion with SO to see if there was a way to speed up the process.
LK reiterated NEC view that a constitutional amendment was not likely to be necessary and needed board confirmation.
PC stated that moving into September he would have limited availability to run an election, this was due to prior commitments.
Action - LK to contact SO. Action - All - to add availability on calendar
LK stated that the aim was to launch the nominations and elections process for the Party Secretary from next weekend.
AOB
LK - None
PC -PC stated that there was some paperwork that needed to be completed to bring him formally into the role, He mentioned that the RP-4 needed to be signed by the Treasurer, Leader, the incoming Nominations officer and the outgoing nominations officer. PC stated he would start that process.
PC to fill out and post change of officer form for signatures.
AH asked the NEC to ratify his nomination for an additional deputy campaigns officer in Jack Allnutt.
The NEC unanimously agreed.
AH stated that he would complete the relevant paperwork.
AH asked PC to obtain the required ward, constituency and EC boundary information for the candidates as had been requested of the NO officer previously. PC agreed..
Closing
In closing LK thanked all those involved in the production of the interim website for their efforts.