Federal People & Development Committee - July 2023 Report
Our meeting on Wednesday 26th July 2023, was actually meant to be a fortnight earlier but was moved due to the Somerton & Frome by-election, so we began by celebrating Sarah Dyke MP’s win, which was extra special for me because Somerton & Frome is where I live!
The FPDC's meeting covered the following areas for which we have responsibility:
Diversity
A light touch update was given on the new sub-committee to be set up by Vice-President Amna Ahmed. Members volunteered to be part of that working group.
Chris French - Chair of the Racial Diversity Campaign (RDC) - gave us a full briefing on his recently unveiled 'Accelerate Programme.' Members were very supportive and it was agreed that every effort should be made by the Committee to promote this to State and Regional Parties and to ensure that as many links as possible were made for RDC.
Information on the following diversity AOs and campaigns can be found below:
- Racial Diversity Campaign (RDC)
- Lib Dem Campaign for Race Equality (LDCRE)
- Liberal Democrat Disability Association (LDDA)
- LGBT+ Liberal Democrats (Plus)
- Liberal Democrat Women (LDW)
- Campaign for Gender Balance (CGB)
Membership
Whistleblowing Policy working party:
Co Vice-Chair Ellie Hudspith is leading the setting up this working group, which will work with our Chief Operations Officer Trudy Church to consider a draft new whistleblowing policy for members, and how this policy interacts effectively with the Party's complaints process.
Recruitment working party:
At the suggestion of party staff, a working group established to “understand what high performing local parties do to recruit and retain members in order to inform materials to be prepared for provision to local parties ahead of the General Election”.
A good discussion was had around how to define those high performing local parties, but included a commitment to ensure there were contributions from all State Parties and that local parties who were good at recruiting Young Liberals and diverse members should also be considered. Five members volunteered for this working party who will firstly define their plans and then create an action plan to collect that data and present it in a useful way for the staff team.
Affiliated Organisations (AOs)
Lib Dem Friends of Ukraine:
Committee members were pleased to confirm they were happy to accept the Lib Dems Friends of Ukraine application for it to go forward for approval at Conference.
AO Review:
The Federal Board had delegated to FPDC the responsibility for reviewing the work of our AOs and reporting back to the Board. We discussed how this could be done and agreed that it should not be an audit procedure. While it was important to reassure Federal Board that our AOs are compliant, it is crucial to create a two-way opportunity for sharing and enabling. A working group has been set up to create a proposed review process and then put it in place.
Training
We received a written report from Becky Carr, the Party's Training Manager, which was very much appreciated.
We also received a verbal report from Kerry Buist (Head of Compliance) on the General Election Agent Training that she and her team have been delivering. This comprises a 2-day programme for advanced and some moving forward seats, and 1-day course for all other seats. It is imperative that all election agents complete this training as it has been mandated by the Electoral Commission. If you are reading this and your local party agent has yet to undertake this training, it paramount that they are booked onto a course as soon as possible. Please contact compliance@libdems.org.uk for further information.
The FPDC also noted the importance of the ‘Fix Our Data’ campaign started by our previous Chair Mary Regnier Wilson and have asked the staff team to see that it is given high priority when they engage with local parties this autumn. The purpose of the campaign is to ensure that local parties have merged the information they hold on Connect with the Electoral Register. This will render the data we hold to be considerably more accurate - guides on how to do this can be found here.