The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services presented Council with a review of work undertaken by the Overview and Scrutiny function during the period September 2014 – September 2015.  He advised that since 2008 there had been a number of incremental changes to the corporate structure.  Some changes to the remits of the Committees had been undertaken but these changes had only been to realign the scrutiny Committees to the directorate responsibilities.  He added that with the significant challenges faced by the Authority to meet the requirements of the MTFS, savings have had to be made across all departments and Directorates, with scrutiny being no exception. 

The Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services informed members that following a work programming exercise in 2014 it was identified that there was a significant volume of replication between the scrutiny committees.  Members expressed their concerns that this was a duplication of effort and distracted the committees from undertaking effective scrutiny of the service areas.  He advised that to address this and other concerns a review of the activities of Scrutiny was undertaken.  Proposals were developed in consultation with the Scrutiny Chairpersons which were subsequently collated into a report for presentation to Council in April 2015.  The Future Delivery of Effective Scrutiny report proposed a significant number of changes to address the concerns of Members, this included scrutiny of the following topics and to be co-ordinated by the Corporate Resources & Improvement Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

a.     Performance Monitoring

b.     Corporate Plan

c.     Business Planning

d.     Budget Monitoring

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services stated to Members that covering reports from the scrutiny officers to the Scrutiny Committees had now

ceased.  He explained that scrutiny officers had begun to work with the service officers to prepare their reports in accordance with the Committee requirements.  He added that the process would continue to be developed and it was hoped that reports presented to the Scrutiny Committees would fully meet their requirements.  The involvement of scrutiny officers to support the authors of the reports would also reduce the likelihood of additional requests for information being made by the committee, thereby substantially reducing the considerable amount of time spent by Scrutiny and other officers within the directorates in following up requests for further information.

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services explained that Scrutiny activities could be wide ranging and diverse and were not necessarily experienced by stakeholders within the process in a consistent and easily describable way. For example, Research and Evaluation Panels provided a less formal form of interaction between Committee Members and invitees than a traditional Committee meeting setting allows for. However, ‘Call-Ins’ were a very different experience for invitees and the impact of Scrutiny in these two instances would be specific to each case.  He added that striking an effective balance between the ‘challenge’ and ‘support’ elements of the Scrutiny function was reliant on Committees building strong working relationships and demonstrating other key skills such as negotiation and influencing, team-working, policy analysis and questioning techniques.

The Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Regulatory Services advised members of the further work that would be carried out by Overview and Scrutiny which was as followed: 

o   To develop and improve current processes to enable Scrutiny Officers to better track and monitor recommendations once they have been made to Cabinet or Officers.

o   Work with senior officers and Cabinet to develop a process to ensure that responses by Cabinet to recommendations from Scrutiny are received in a consistent and timely manner.

o   Develop the ability of Scrutiny to communicate effectively with the public and to better facilitate engagement and participation in democratic accountability.

Members thanked the officers for the report and noted that a small amount of staff were relied upon for effective Scrutiny and therefore encouraged collaboration with neighbouring authorities.  Members also welcomed the future development work for Scrutiny and encouraged engagement with the public.   

RESOLVED:               Council noted the content of the report