The Policy Performance and Review Board met to discuss voter identification, corporate performance, and the corporate plan for 2025-26. Councillors agreed to send a letter to the borough's three MPs regarding voter ID, and also discussed key performance indicators relating to domestic violence, planning appeals, and domestic retrofit. The board also reviewed the committee work programme.

Voter Identification and the Elections Act 2022

The board discussed the impact of the Elections Act 2022¹ and voter identification requirements, following the 2024 GLA² and UK parliamentary elections. Councillors agreed that Councillor Richard Warren, Chair of the Policy and Performance Review Board would write to the borough's three MPs, asking them to lobby the government to:

• scrap voter ID
• make the scheme less restrictive if it is to remain
• enable non-UK citizens resident in the borough to vote
• improve access for younger voters, so it is comparable to older people using Oyster cards

Councillor Jonathan Cardy, Chair of the Planning Committee, said that the voter ID scheme:

wastes a whole load of money and suppresses a whole load of people from voting and pointing that out to the MPs and asking them that it's better to scrap the whole voter ID thing and go back to the previous tried, trusted and very effective system would be better.

John Evans, Assistant Chief Executive, told the board that the government is considering adding bank cards to the list of accepted IDs, and is also looking at electronic IDs and wallets.

Councillor Katie Mansfield, Richmond Town Centre Project Lead Member and White Ribbon Champion, raised concerns that the voter ID requirements disproportionately affect younger and ethnic minority communities. She called for targeted communication to these groups.

Councillor Caroline Wren suggested working with local colleges to raise awareness of Voter Authority Certificates (VACs). She suggested a competition to design posters or videos explaining VACs.

The board noted that over a thousand people in the borough had lost their voting rights following changes after Brexit. Councillor James Chard, Vice-Chair Audit, Standards and Statutory Accounts Committee and Vice-Chair Transport & Air Quality Committee., suggested contacting the borough's three MPs to address this issue.

The board also discussed the Electoral Commission's survey, which indicated that 4% of people who did not vote said it was because they did not have a voter ID.

Corporate Performance - End of Year 2024/25 Results

The board reviewed the end-of-year results for the 2024/25 Richmond Corporate Plan.

Councillor Mansfield said that the corporate plan should include more information on the prevention elements of the VORG³ and that every key performance indicator should have a comment explaining the performance. Councillor Ben Khosa raised concerns about the number of homelessness cases being prevented and asked for more information on how this was achieved.

Councillor Cardy welcomed the London Wide Programme for non-road mobile machinery to encourage the construction industry to use non-polluting equipment.

Councillor Wren noted the progress of the retrofit strategy and suggested including information on trainee numbers in local colleges in future updates.

The board discussed landlord incentive schemes to encourage private landlords to lease their properties to the council for temporary accommodation. They also discussed staining of pavements, inspections of high-risk premises, fly-tipping incidents, and air pollution from aircraft.

Corporate Plan - 25/26 Actions and KPI Proposals

The board discussed the Richmond Corporate Plan actions and key performance indicator proposals for the financial year 2025/26.

Councillor Cardy raised concerns about the enforcement of a ban on bonfires and suggested setting a target on the proportion of planning appeals where costs are awarded against the council.

Councillor Mansfield expressed disappointment that there was nothing about prevention in the domestic violence section of the plan. She requested additional key performance indicators on prevention, safety, education, and partnerships. The board agreed to recommend that the Finance Policy Resources Committee look at this again.

Councillor Wren supported the recommendation to the Finance Policy Resources Committee.

The board discussed removing an item about the number of long-term empty properties returned to occupation.

Councillor Gant suggested introducing some key performance indicators on retrofit and domestic energy decarbonisation.

The board agreed to note the Richmond Corporate Plan actions for 25/26 and the key performance indicators for 25/26. They also agreed to add a third recommendation on the VORG issues and a fourth one from Councillor Cardy.

Committee Work Programme

The board discussed the committee work programme and suggested items for future meetings.

Councillor Wren suggested that the four items in the next meeting might be quite a lot for the agenda, and whether one or two of those might be better pushed into the February meeting.

Councillor Chard suggested looking at how the council does key performance indicators again. He said that the time for an overhaul is at the start of an administration, not at the end.

The board agreed to have a paper setting out how it's done at the moment, and maybe these kinds of comments could come off the back of that.