For the year 2003-4, I was Vice Chair of the Scrutiny Committee - so what does that mean, and what is 'scrutiny' anyway?
As part of the government's 'modernisation agenda' for local government - all local authorities were required to restructure themselves to create 'Executive' and 'Scrutiny' functions. The Executive - made up from the controlling political groups - are responsible for making decisions and the Scrutiny - made up from opposition and backbench administration councillors - is about examining those decisions, about reviewing the council's policies and strategies and about getting the views of the public and other organisations.
Scrutiny does this in three ways:
i) pre-scrutiny: having a look at decisions that are coming up and making recommendations
ii) post-scrutiny: looking at decisions that have been made, identifying mistakes, good practice and bad practice and drawing lessons. Scrutiny can also 'call-in' a decision before it is implemented (we have to be quick) if we think it's been made badly or without all the information.
iii) reviews: Scrutiny can choose any topic and set up a working group to examine it in detail and report back with recommendations. These working groups can hold public meetings, carry out surveys, talk to other organisations, examine what other councils are doing etc etc.
Current (Dec '05) Task & Finish Groups operating include:
- Budget and Accounts Monitoring
- Corporate Charging Policy and Concessions
- Evening Economy
- Impact of Private landlords
- Local Development Framework
- Member services
- Property Costs review
- Shadow LSVT Housing
- Street Scene
- Vehicle Costs & Maintenance
