Tower Hamlets Council Constitution

Tower Hamlets Council — A Guide for Residents

This is a plain-English guide for people who live, work or study in Tower Hamlets. It explains how the Council works, what you can do, and where to look things up.

It is not the rulebook. The rulebook is the Council's Constitution. If anything below seems to disagree with the Constitution, the Constitution wins.

Who runs the Council?

Tower Hamlets has a directly-elected Mayor and 45 Councillors. You vote for them every four years.

The Mayor makes most of the day-to-day decisions and picks a Cabinet of up to nine Councillors to help. The other Councillors meet together as "Council" to set the budget and main policies, and to check the Mayor's work through a Scrutiny Committee. Council staff (called "officers") do the day-to-day work and take smaller decisions on the Mayor's behalf.

The Council also runs a number of committees — smaller groups of Councillors that handle specific things like planning applications, licences, the Council's accounts, staff matters, pensions, and standards of behaviour. Most committee members are Councillors. Some committees also include "co-opted" members — people chosen for their knowledge of a subject who are not elected. Council appoints these committees each year at its Annual Meeting and gives each political party a share of seats that roughly matches how many Councillors it has.

Contacting the Mayor or your Councillor

You have the right to contact the Mayor or your local Councillor about anything that worries you. Each ward elects one, two or three Councillors. They speak for everyone in the ward, whether you voted for them or not.

You can find your Councillor and their contact details on the Council website.

Going to a Council meeting

Most meetings of Council, Cabinet, Scrutiny and Committees are open to the public. You can just turn up. Some parts of meetings happen in private if they involve confidential or personal information.

Most meetings are also filmed and put online so you can watch from home.

You are welcome to film, record, photograph or tweet from a meeting yourself. Tell the Chair if you plan to. Don't film the public gallery, and don't disturb the meeting.

Speaking at a meeting

You can take part in meetings in a few ways: by presenting a petition, by asking questions, or by speaking on a planning or licensing application. Each kind of meeting has its own rules, but the general principle is that the public can take part.

At a Cabinet meeting, you can send in a written question, comment or petition by 5pm the day before the meeting.

Starting or signing a petition

A petition is a written request, signed by people who live, work or study in Tower Hamlets. You can start one on paper or on the Council's e-petitions website.

What happens next depends on how many signatures you collect, under the Council's Petition Scheme:

  • Any number — a senior officer will write back within 28 days.
  • 30 signatures — you can present it in person at a Council or Committee meeting. You get 3 minutes to speak.
  • 1,000 signatures — you can ask a senior officer to give evidence at a Scrutiny Committee meeting.
  • 2,000 signatures — you can ask for a full debate at Council.

The Council can turn down a petition if it isn't about something the Council deals with, or if it's offensive, or repeats a petition from the last six months.

Complaining about a Council service

If a service has let you down — bins, housing, schools, social care, something else — you have the right to complain. Use the Council's complaints page to send your complaint.

If you've used the Council's complaints process and you're still unhappy, you can take it to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman or, for housing, the Housing Ombudsman.

Complaining about a Councillor's behaviour

This is different from complaining about a service. If you think the Mayor, a Councillor or a Co-opted Member has broken the Code of Conduct for Members — for example by being abusive, hiding a personal interest, or misusing Council resources — you can make a written complaint to the Council's Monitoring Officer.

Use the online conduct complaint form on the Council website. You'll need to give your name and address. The Monitoring Officer will look at it and decide whether to investigate. Possible outcomes include training, an apology, or losing certain Council roles.

How decisions get made

The Council splits decisions into two kinds, set out in the rules on decision-making:

  • Mayor and Cabinet decisions — most service and spending choices. Bigger ones are called "key decisions" and must be advertised in advance (see the Forward Plan section below for the 28-day notice rule).
  • Council decisions — the budget, the Council Tax, the main strategies, and some regulatory things like planning and licensing.

A "key decision" means spending or saving over £1 million on running costs, over £5 million on buildings or projects, or anything that significantly affects people in two or more wards.

Seeing papers and decisions before they happen

The Council publishes a Forward Plan listing key decisions at least 28 days before they're taken. Meeting agendas and reports are normally published at least five working days before each meeting at towerhamlets.gov.uk/committee.

You can ask to see background papers and copies of reports. The Council can hold some information back if it's confidential, personal, or commercially sensitive — but the rule is openness, and a private meeting has to be advertised in advance with reasons.

Planning and licensing decisions near you

If someone wants to build something, change a building, or run a licensed business near you, you can speak for or against the application at the relevant committee. These are decided by:

Each committee has its own short procedure for who can speak and for how long. The Council website explains how to register to speak on a specific application.

If you disagree with a Council decision

If a Cabinet or Mayoral decision has just been made, it doesn't take effect for five working days. During that time, any five Councillors can ask the Scrutiny Committee to look at it again — this is called a "call-in". Residents can't call a decision in themselves, but you can ask one of your Councillors to do it.

Some decisions can also be challenged through the courts ("judicial review") or by the Ombudsmen — both are outside this guide.

Where to go next