Motion #01

Standing Orders Committee Organisational Report to AGM

This is only the second AGM of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) held as a separate meeting from the Annual Conference. SOC feel that the preparation process has, in general, gone more smoothly this time but the short time scale for completing the final agenda after submission dates has caused some problems. The AGM should be held ideally before Conference, however with the compressed timetable for Conference following the calling of the General Election that was not possible, and a date soon after Conference was preferred.

SOC would like to draw the attention of members and committees to a general point. Party documents require some matters relevant to committees to be brought to Conference for approval. These cannot be brought to the AGM for approval. When such matters need to be considered any committee can bring a brief report to Conference, relating to the matter in question, to be heard in section A of the Conference agenda for members at Conference to decide.

In its first report to the AGM SOC is asked to comment on:

· The AGM Agenda, including the ordering of reports and amendments;

· a notification of how many reports, elements of reports and amendments have been ruled out of order and where these are published

The AGM Reports are as presented in the document below. Reports are ordered in the sequence suggested by the ordering of reports in Standing Orders for the Conduct of the AGM (SOC AGM) Section B1.1 and B1.3. Within section (m) reports that have been proposed as separate reports are included in alphabetical order under the headings of the three ‘parent’ committees: Policy Development Committee; Equality & Diversity Committee; Campaigns Committee. Minority Reports and Amendments proposed are presented with the committee report. Parts of reports ruled Out of Order are also presented with the committee report.

The timetable for the AGM proposed by SOC may not follow the same order as the Agenda.

Shortly after Conference SOC wrote to the Leaders, the Committees, and the two groups (Young Greens and Association of Green Councillors) invited, but not required, to give reports setting out the timetable for the AGM and reminding them of the need to provide reports. SOC suggested that this would be an opportunity for committees to comment on progress against tasks placed on them and included in the Record of Organisational Statements. Each committee was reminded of what these were. We are disappointed to see that this has not always been done.

In the case of the three committees that can recognise working groups, or groups of members in common SOC asked them to contact these groups to ask for reports, and ideally to include them in their reports.

All but three of the reports required by SOC AGM were on the Agenda Forum on time. The Leaders and International Committee were contacted and reminded of the need to file reports. In the case of the Equality & Diversity Committee SOC accepted that the report, for good reason, might not be ready and wrote to the groups for which the committee was responsible suggesting that they file individual reports.

Two parts of the GPRC Report were ruled OoO as Ambiguous/Contrary to the Constitution.

The SOC report (2) is required to include rulings made and not reported to Conference. The implication of this is that SOC should report rulings to Conference. This should occur since only Conference can overrule a ruling made by SOC. SOC has included rulings made since Autumn Conference 2023 in an Addendum, and rulings made since Conference 2024 in an Amendment to this list. Any rulings that are contentious SOC will bring to Spring Conference 2025 to allow Conference to form a view on these.

SOC AGM B1.4 says that the lead author “is expected to ensure that questions and comments which are posted to the AGM Forum for this report are responded to”. Last year SOC commented on the failure of some committees to respond to questions. We are happy to record that there has been a much better response this year.