Motion #12

Green party executive committee chair report

Motion

The Green Party Executive is responsible for the overall and day-to-day direction of the Party. Such responsibilities include ensuring the proper expenditure, administration, and raising of funds; acting as the Green Party’s employer of staff; implementing the decisions of the Annual Conference; and being liable for the governance and smooth functioning of the organisation.

GPEx fulfils many of its responsibilities through the Chief Executive Officer and the staff team. GPEx members are expected to be ready and able – and are encouraged to – challenge and test proposals and plans put forward by the CEO, and to provide independent insight and scrutiny of the party’s operations.

GPEx also has a number of sub-committees – Administration and Finance (AFCom), External Communications, Campaigns and Communications, and Development – which allow for more detailed oversight of key issues between meetings, and reporting back to GPEx at every meeting. Other committees – Political Committee, Policy Development, Elections Steering Group and International Committee – are all required to report back regularly to GPEx.

During the course of the year, GPEx has agreed to:

• The annual budget for the year – an ongoing challenge as we call on our 60+ staff to continue to spread our limited resources over delivering the powerful results that they do. We repeatedly thank them and do so again here.
• Recognising the urgency of the need to grow our income, we have agreed a powerful development strategy that looks to grow income from all sources including members, membership and supporter growth, donations, legacies and major giving. We can expect success during the course of the coming year.
• Building on the party’s 50th anniversary, we will celebrate our successes and drive incomegeneration to build a substantial fund for the next General Election.
• The revised political strategy has shaped the overall programme of activity, which has led to the hugely successful council election results driven by the combined forces of staff and local and regional parties.
• The roll-out of the new digital tools including new payment tools, Action Network and a new membership database which, after the usual teething troubles, are finally paying dividends. And, finally, we are working towards the building of a new Green Party website.

The most significant action we have taken this year is to engage the services of Diverse Matters to undertake an audit of the Party’s equality, diversity and inclusion policies and practices. Having engaged members in focus groups and one-to-one interviews, Diverse Matters prepared a report which did not pull its punches. It identified some good practices, but the nearly 70 recommendations it made provide a sound basis for an EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) action plan which has been reviewed by Equality & Diversity Committee and should be approved by GPEx before Autumn conference.

The report may not have told us much that we didn’t already know, but it is galvanising thinking and action. Major priorities include a programme of culture change to make sure that our behaviours align with our values, that our disciplinary processes are fit-forpurpose and, of course, that we make real efforts to improve the diversity of our members and candidates for election. Progress is happening. But there is a long way to go.

We are influencing and implementing policy change to tackle the ecological and social crises, and we are preparing now for the next General Election to grow our representation in parliament. The message to other parties is that we’re coming, our time is now.

Campaigns Coordinator The Campaigns Coordinator is in post as a result of cooption. Internal Communications Coordinator This post has been vacant since the newly-elected Internal Communications Coordinator resigned