National Executive Sub-Committees

Tuesday 16th October was my day in London for the Sub-Committees of the National Executive Committee.

The meetings are held at Labour Headquarters on Victoria Street, London.

The first meeting of the day is the Women's, Race and Equality Committee.

There was a discussion about Conference which everybody felt had been a great success but there were some concerns about the suitability of Bournemouth as a Conference venue - its particularly difficult for delegates with disabilities.

Harriet Harman will be convening a Women's Summit in November - primarily for elected women - Councillors, MPs, MEPs and, very importantly, Members of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly Members. The aim is to help women members develop a specific agenda and network amongst themselves.

There was then a full discussion on other diversity strategy including the "Winning With Women" campaign and our ethnic minority strategy.

Stephanie Peacock, the Youth Rep, announced details of the £1.00 youth rate. Anyone under twenty-seven who agrees to pay future subscriptions by Direct Debit can join for £1.00 for the first year.

Literature will be coming to CLPs and its important this is used as part of a strategy for attracting more young people.

I think this sort of introductory offer is a useful way of getting over the problems caused by the initially high membership fees and will be pressing for a £5.00 introductory offer.

There will be a Women's Conference as a part of the Spring Conference to be held in Birmingham in February. This Conference will be a good springboard for next May's local elections and its good to see the pressure for a Local Government Conference has paid off. I'm looking forward to doing a pub review of Brum!

Disputes Committee

The Disputes Committee is where problems in CLPs come to the attention of the NEC. Some as matters of report, some for the NEC to intervene in directly. Its not right to go into details, but I can say that the Disputes Committee members come from all backgrounds and take the Committee and its duties seriously.

Organisation Committee

The Organisation Committee meets at 2.00 p.m. meaning essentially the day is one long Committee meeting.

We agreed procedure for selecting Euro-candidates which need to be completed by the end of January 2008. CLPs should be written to during November but will need to deal with this in their January branch / GC meetings.

We discussed selection procedures for Local Government including unitary authorities and it is clear that we need to get a move on if we are to get candidates in place as soon as possible.

Also discussed was next year's Conference timetable and NPF elections. Nominations for election to the NEC next year will probably have to be in by the end of March - subject to Conference arrangements Committee approval.

Anyone with any queries about the Organisation Committees business is welcome to contact me at Peter.Wheeler@unitetheunion.com or 07880 790182.