Our usual practice at Federal Executive (FE) is to have a round up of current issues, presented by Nick Clegg, followed by a Q&A. In Nick’s absence we heard from the Chief Whip, Paul Burstow, and the new Chair of the Campaigns and Communications Committee (CCC), Willie Rennie.

Paul Burstow updated FE on the issue of Members’ expenses, outlining progress on the Legg Report and the Kelly review (due to be published 4th November), neither of which had finished. He emphasised that work on a Lib Dem Code of Conduct for Parliamentarians would be finalised once these two pieces of work were completed. In the Lords, the Senior Salaries Review Body is due to report on Members’ expenses, and an internal working party is about to make recommendations regarding the Code of Conduct. Again, the work of these reviews would need to be reflected in the final Liberal Democrat Code of Conduct.

Willie Rennie updated FE on the work of the General Election planning team, chaired by John Sharkey, and the work being done to have much of the planning, and the outline manifesto process completed by Christmas. FE had a detailed discussion on how the Party should approach Mayoral Elections, following our superb win in Bedford.

FE discussed the Key Performance Indicators, agreed a working group to consider issues around the appointment of a permanent Chief Executive after the election, and were updated on the process for determining next year’s business plan.

Interim party chief executive Chris Fox gave a presentation on the new party website to be launched next month and answered questions on ICT strategy generally.

Reports were received from Federal Finance and Administration Committee (FFAC), the President, the Campaign for Gender Balance, the Chief Officers Group and CCC. FE received updates on progress against the recommendations from previous papers on candidate recruitment and retention, and on councillors.

* Ros Scott is president of the Liberal Democrats, and chair of the Federal Executive.