Kensington and Chelsea Council is set to revamp its meeting question time following a meeting of the Administration Committee on Thursday, 11 September 2025, as detailed in the Public Reports Pack. The Full Council is scheduled to consider and vote on these proposed changes on 22 October 2025.

The proposed changes aim to make the process of raising ward issues and questioning Lead Members more equitable for all councillors, particularly those outside the majority group. Opposition members have challenged the position that while the largest minority group is guaranteed an opportunity to ask a question to a Lead Member (Standing Order 22), Standing Orders do not contain a similar provision for a ward or local issue (Standing Order 11). The changes also seek to ensure councillors receive timely responses and make the standing orders resilient to future changes in the size and number of political party groups.

The proposed changes include:

  • Increasing the number of speaking slots to five for both local ward issues and questions to Lead Members.
  • Introducing an opening date for submitting requests, aligning with the public speaking registration timeline (10:00 am, two weeks before the meeting).
  • Allocating speaking slots based on group size, ensuring the majority group never dominates all questions. The allocation principle is one slot for each ten councillors. Where there is no guaranteed allocation (i.e., when the number of councillors in a group is not a multiple of ten), councillors would submit requests on a 'first come, first served' basis.

The Administration Committee has recommended that Full Council adopt these changes. The proposals would require increasing the total time for local ward issues from eight to ten minutes. The creation of an earliest submission date, which is used for public speaking, would assist councillors in ensuring that only 'live' or topical matters were brought to the meeting, with other concerns being addressed by communication with the relevant Lead Member or Executive Director.

The Administration Committee also considered other options, including retaining the current system, using the current formula for questions to Lead Member for local or ward issues, not introducing a submission date, and introducing an earlier submission date. These options were not recommended.

The proposed changes will now go to Full Council for approval on 22 October 2025.