The Mayor praised the Mayoral Roll of Honour names listed on page 9 of the agenda. The Mayor also thanked Matthew Boulter for his services as Interim Monitoring Officer who was an officer who fully understood the role of elected members and respected scrutiny and debate.

Councillor M Coxshall, the Leader of the Council, made the following announcements:

The Leader had promised, two weeks ago, to transform the culture between councillors, officers, media and between parties in this chamber and hoped that already members had seen some improvements.

The Leader spoke about the ‘Just Stop Oil’ Protests on the QEII Bridge who had stopped people from across Thurrock from going to work and taking their children to school because of those two self-important individuals. This had affected a great many of Thurrock businesses in the area, stopped some of our essential services and had hampered the blue light emergency services.

The Leader updated members on the progress of his six actions and looked forward to seeing as many members as possible at the cabinet meeting on the 9 November where any member could come and ask questions about items on the agenda. None of these need to be tabled in advance. The Leader would also arrange a press briefing for any member of the media before Cabinet. He also stated the council needed to be better at scrutiny which was why he had offered chairs and vice-chairs of overview and scrutiny committees to opposition groups.

The Leader stated that members were already forming an important part of the Improvement Plan with Councillor J Kent on the Finance and Improvement Boards alongside himself and had been informed of the council’s actions as they happened. The Leader reaffirm that the Improvement Plan would come to a debate at Full Council.

The Leader stated that access and dialogue at this council to staff and members had been improved and hoped the weekly letters were a useful way of keeping up to date. He stated he was the leader for all members of the council and would make sure that all members were properly informed as much as he could.

Finally, the Leader stated that changes were being made to the culture between officers and councillors. At Cabinet two weeks ago, he had clearly announced the executive decisions that had been made on free school meals and grants for local businesses and a process he had promised to continue. There had been significant changes to senior leadership with more directors proactively working to keep quality public services running. These restructures had put some of our best officers in senior positions that would change culture and dynamics. The Leader also expected councillors to be completely fair and reasonable with officers and their workload and with building trusting relationships going two ways and sometimes members should show their appreciation better.

To conclude, the Leader stated important steps had already been taken to improve the council and reiterated that he could not change the past, he had very little power to influence the future, but the council could decide how it acted here and now. With the journey being much easier if members across the chamber could continue to work together and put governance before party. The Leader offered for any member to walk into his office for a coffee and a chat at any time.

The Leader thanked all members for their continued support.