Statutory Guidance on Overview and Scrutiny in Local and Combined AuthoritiesExecutive Summary

Appendix A

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) released the final report on statutory guidance for scrutiny. This guidance has been developed after the MHCLG select committee conducted an investigation into current scrutiny practice across the country and as a result what they believed effective scrutiny should look like.

The guidance highlights six areas that scrutiny should consider to create effective practice.

1. Culture

2.

3. Resourcing

4.

5. Selecting Committee Members

6.

7. Power to Access Information

8.

9. Planning Work

10.

11. Evidence Sessions

Clicking each item will direct you to the relevant section in the report.

In Hertfordshire we have been confident that we conduct effective scrutiny, however, we always consider advice and guidance to improve what we do and how we deliver it.

Effective scrutiny should:

Provide constructive challenge

“New government guidance rarely

provides a reason for celebration.

But at the Centre for Public

Scrutiny we hope that the statutory

guidance on overview and scrutiny

just published by the Ministry of

Housing, Communities and Local

Government (MHCLG) will help

councils to reflect on and improve

the way that they support

councillors’ non-executive

activities – even when we know

many will be grappling with an

influx of new members.

Councils around the country have

demonstrated the significant,

sustained impact that scrutiny can

have since it was first introduced

20 years ago. But for many,

scrutiny has failed to live up to its

potential.

For some, it looks and feels like a

continuation of the old committee

system but without the decision-

making responsibility – a circular

talking shop that exists to keep

councillors busy, rather than the

vital part of the sector’s future that

we know it to be.” – Centre for

Public Scrutiny

Amplify the voices and concerns of the public Be led by independent people who take

responsibility for their role Drive improvement in public services.

Culture

Creating a strong organizational culture that supports scrutiny is essential to adding value creating efficient and effective services. Conversely a low value for scrutiny often results in poor quality work.

To create a strong culture consideration should be given to scrutiny’s legal and democratic legitimacy. Without recognition of this, Councillors and officers involved in scrutiny are not empowered to exercise their duties as they should, resulting in poor accountability and a disconnect from local people. In addition, there should be a clear understanding of scrutiny’s role and prioritization of the workload. This clarity establishes scrutiny as a strategic function of the authority and not as part of audit, which assists those involved in providing value to the exercise. It is also recommended that the findings of whistleblowing issues might be of interest to scrutiny while maintaining sufficient distance from the investigations themselves.

The Guidance advises that there should be regular contact between the executive and scrutiny to discuss work programme planning, whilst remembering that the executive should not exercise any control over scrutiny and the nature of an executive’s role in scrutiny should be determined by the chair of the scrutiny committee.

Prior to, during and after all scrutiny activity, council officers should all be available to provide impartial and high quality advice to committees, this if fundamental to effective scrutiny. To ensure that this type of advice is given by all, it is key for all officers who are already or will be involved to understand – the role that scrutiny has, what the Committee’s powers are and what can be achieved by it. This level of understanding will lead to increasing and maintaining a good culture of scrutiny.

In addition to officer engagement with scrutiny, it is important that all elected councillors appreciate the value of scrutiny. To regularly keep those councillors who have limited involvement in scrutiny up to date on the work it has done and is planning to do that a report goes to every full council meeting. Reaching wider still, scrutiny should endeavour to maintain transparency of the work programme with the public. Scrutiny should consider how to engage with relevant communities through established channels so that the profile of its work is raised without increasing the resource.

When executives and officers attend scrutiny it is critical that councillors provide an impartial challenge from an independent mind-set. This can be a particular challenge if councillors are from the administration party and so all committee chairs need to be aware of all contentious issues as well as personal relationships to make sure that these do not prevent challenge being made or drag scrutiny into parochial issues.

In Hertfordshire there is limited use of whistleblowing as an avenue of information, however with a strong whistleblowing policy within the council, this information source can be used effectively going forward. Hertfordshire scrutiny has prided itself on excellent relationships between councillors and officers. This is also true for the relationship with executives. All parties see the value of scrutiny and the benefit of engaging with it early.

Resourcing

To have an effective scrutiny function, there must be sufficient resources allocated to it. This resource is not solely financial, but also related to officer time and councillor and officer engagement. Effective scrutiny requires training for councillors so that they ask effective questions of the executive or key partners. This is best provided from an external source when the expertise does not exist in the council.

Training takes a variety of forms in Hertfordshire, endorsed by committee chairmen, which includes chairs training, annual induction training and finance training ahead of the Integrated Plan scrutiny, which has received national recognition.

Selecting Committee MembersAs per original legislation, executive members are not able to form part of a scrutiny committee membership. It is advised that this should extend to deputies when investigating topics within the portfolio related to the deputy’s role.

The Chair of a committee must be a strong leader as they are responsible for the committee’s profile and influencing the way of working. The Chair must also be able to gain a consensus across party lines, prevent politically motivated discussions from taking place and guard the committee’s independence form the executive.

When preparing committee members for their role in scrutiny, they should receive an appropriate induction and ongoing training to ensure that they are well placed to ask relevant questions to appropriately hold executives and officers to account. Authorities should consider the use of external training providers in addition to internal support.

Power to Access Information

A scrutiny committee must receive relevant information in a timely manner, so that it can be effective. This is further supported by legislation which gives the committee powers to access information, even if it is confidential. When information is shared with committee members, they must be in a position to understand it. Therefore, support must be given from scrutiny to equip councillors with sufficient skills to comprehend and challenge what they are hearing or reading.

Members invariably have different

skill-sets. What an authority must

consider when forming a

committee is that, as a group, it

possesses the requisite expertise,

commitment and ability to act

impartially to fulfil its functions.

Scrutiny committee members should also consider supplementary information outside of the authority, as well as being aware of their powers to request this from certain external sources and where those are lacking to exercise diplomacy, be clear on the role of scrutiny and the committee’s objectives in any given scenario.

Hertfordshire support councillors to engage with external organisations and capture relevant information. Work was undertaken that involved external transport providers and utility companies, which proceeded well because of the understanding of the objective and the role that each party would play.

Planning Work

When scrutiny is making recommendations it must consider the impact that they will have. To have the desired impact that makes a positive change, forward planning is essential. The committee is advised to draw up a long term plan that is also sufficiently flexible to allow capacity to handle urgent items and items that have to be delayed for unexpected reasons. It is important to balance the work programmes of all scrutiny committees in the authority to make the best use of the resources available.

Scrutiny committees must review work programmes to identify a clear order of priority for all topics being considered. This may mean that it is not possible for scrutiny to look at all items, and it is important that committees do not overreach. Once the work programme is established it must be visible to internal departments and external organisations, so they are clear on upcoming topics.

In addition, it is useful for committee members to be clear on the focus of their work and what is outside of their remit. This will help to mitigate against topics expanding beyond the committee’s responsibilities. The other benefit of an established focus is that the committee can determine

Questions to consider –

Will this make a tangible

difference to the work of the

authority?

Will this be a benefit to residents?

Is this the appropriate time or

method to conduct this?

What is the best outcome and is

that valuable?

whether the relative importance of an item is justified by the positive impact scrutiny’s involvement can have.

When preparing for scrutiny it is important to gather appropriate evidence from a wide base. Capturing the public voice is useful for effective scrutiny however, how this is captured needs to be managed. Utilising a representative for a group is more beneficial than bringing in a long list of individuals or approaching these individuals in the street. However, bringing evidence from a community event attended by scrutiny members can add value to the process.

Two other information sources are key to effective scrutiny: partner organisations, and the executive and senior officers. Good partner relationships outside of just evidence gathering are beneficial as these can provide an insight into how partners are perceived by their peers. The executive and senior officers are good to communicate with in developing the work programme as they can provide an understanding of how scrutiny of one topic can impact the authority’s wider work. This by no means implies that the executive should direct scrutiny work.

There are occasions where committees must accept the limitation of their resources and postpone the date at which they will action scrutiny investigations.

Hertfordshire has historically maintained good working relationships with NHS organisations. These have benefitted the work that scrutiny has undertaken through advance notice of planned changes and in the evidence presented to councillors. The honesty and respect between external partners and the council is clear in all meetings and results in a culture understanding and continual improvement for residents.

Evidence Sessions

There are several methods by which scrutiny can be conducted. It is not essential that all are considered by task and finish reviews. It may be possible to utilise alternative techniques so that items do not have to be dropped but may be examined in a way that

best suits the topic, such as, a committee agenda item or a long term review over a year.

There should be an agreement from all committee members involved in scrutiny what the session’s objectives are, which should be led by the chair. When there are divergent views from members of the committee the chair needs to bear this in mind when working with scrutiny officers in planning evidence gathering sessions.

When finalising recommendations it is important the members give due regard to the advice from support officers. The recommendations should be based on the evidence heard and they should be SMART. It is worth noting that exhaustive numbers of recommendations do not assist in making changes in authorities.

In Hertfordshire it is common practise to utilise a range of options including bulletins and seminars increasing the number of topics that can be addressed, while optimising the resources.