A GUIDE TO OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY OF COUNTY COUNCIL FUNCTIONS IN LEICESTERSHIRE

UNDERTAKING OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY

Overview and Scrutiny Committees have to balance the need to examine some issues in depth whilst at the same time being able to respond within limited timescales to actions proposed by the Cabinet or the formulation of plans to be submitted to the County Council. The following sections of the Guide look at how Committees can seek to adopt a balanced approach to handling their workload.

a) SOURCES OF INFORMATION

A variety of information is available to assist members in the scrutiny process:

i)	The Forward Plan of Key Decisions to be taken by the Cabinet is circulated to all members of the Council;
ii)	Agenda and supporting papers for Cabinet meetings are circulated to the Chairmen and Spokesmen of the Commission and Scrutiny Committees;
iii)	Departments’ Annual Service Plans.
iv)	Performance-related information such as:
	Analysis of trends, service user surveys, Citizens’ Panel surveys and complaints by service users; Outcomes of public consultation; Results of external evaluation of the Council’s performance, eg CPA, Joint Area Reviews, District Auditor, OFSTED; Performance Monitoring reports on the Annual Plan (BVPP) and Local Area Agreement (LAA).

Scrutiny Committee Chairman and Spokesmen should also be pro-active about keeping up to date with service developments. Regular meetings will be held between the relevant Chief Officer, Cabinet Lead member and Chair and Spkesmen of the Committee to discuss forthcoming items and other key issues.

NOTE:

Appendix ‘C’ to this guide sets out a protocol on the exchange of information between the Executive and Overview and Scrutiny. This protocol is to supplement the protocol on Member/Officer Relations which can be found at Part 5C of the Constitution.

b) PLANNING SCRUTINY MEETINGS

Although there is no legal requirement on Scrutiny Committees to publish a forward plan as the Cabinet does, it is a useful tool in forward planning for Scrutiny Committees to develop a work programme for the year ahead. This can be produced initially in an outline form, using the various sources of information referred to earlier, and developed and amended during the course of the year to include matters which arise and could not be foreseen at the start.

The work programme can be considered, updated and amended as part of a regular agenda setting meeting held between the Chairman and the Spokesmen^1, between meetings of the Scrutiny Committee to decide:

What business to include on the agenda and what supporting information may be required;

Whether the Cabinet Lead Member ^2,and/or any other Council officers or people from other organisations should be invited to attend;

How best to deal with large documents, such as plans, eg whether these should be circulated in advance of the committee agenda papers to give members more time to study them.

Whether a meeting should be held to consider a single issue; whether to consider an issue over several meetings or to recommend that a Scrutiny Review Panel should be established

NOTES:-

¹– The Chairman and Spokesmen of the Scrutiny Commission or appropriate Scrutiny Committee have been authorised to take action between meetings on behalf of the body concerned in commenting on matters referred from the Cabinet which are of an urgent nature.

²– Rule 12 of Part 4E of the Council’s Constitution states that, where practical, Cabinet Lead Members should be given at least 7 working days notice of a meeting at which their attendance is required. Although, in practice, this expectation has sometimes proved to be unrealistic it is reasonable to give as much notice as possible and an indication of the nature of the business and whether any papers are required to be produced)

c) CONDUCTING MEETINGS

There are a number of points to bear in mind in order to get the best out of meetings:

ALL MEMBERS

Preparation – read through the agenda and supporting papers thoroughly. Try to identify anything that needs explanation or clarification. Is all the information you require there? To help members to consider and, if necessary, challenge the contents of reports (other than plans) a checklist is circulated with every Scrutiny Committee agenda. A copy of this is attached at Appendix D.

Give thought not only to what questions you want to ask but how best to ask them.

Members of the Public, or witnesses invited to attend the meeting, may not be familiar with committee procedures and should always be treated with courtesy and respect. At Appendix E is a protocol for inviting witnesses to attend committee meetings.;

Establish a constructive relationship with the Cabinet and Lead Members. A ‘critical friend’ style of relationship is more likely to be productive than an adversarial relationship. Where appropriate it is worth considering the use of an informal question and answer procedure for Cabinet Lead Members who are invited to a scrutiny committee meeting, ie giving notice in writing to a Cabinet Lead Member of questions which will be asked and accepting written replies;

Recognise and respect the respective roles of members and officers (see Part 5C of the Council’s Constitution – Protocol on Member/Officer Relations);

CHAIRMEN

Layout of the meeting room. ‘One size doesn’t fit all’ A conventional circular arrangement of tables and chairs may be appropriate for some meetings but, on other occasions, a ‘theatre’ style arrangement of chairs is better for presentations;

Establish the priorities and stick to them unless there is good reason to do otherwise;

Give all members the same opportunity to contribute. There should not be limits on how often members speak and they should be encouraged to pursue a particular line of questioning as long as it leads to a productive outcome. (There will be occasions where Chairmen have to exercise judgement and control the process of debate of questioning or discussions that do not appear to be productive).

d) OUTCOMES FROM SCRUTINY MEETINGS

Chairmen should adopt an approach to meetings which results in the following:

Achieving consensus, as far as possible, recognising that any proposals or resolutions that were not supported by the Committee will be recorded. The Council’s Constitution provides for the submission of minority reports (see Rule 9 (b) of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure rules in Part 4E).

A clear and understandable conclusion –at the end of discussion on each item it is useful for the Chairman to sum up what he/she believes to be the main points and to ask if the Committee accept that summary;

A well-argued case when issues are being referred to the Cabinet for consideration. Only comments where there is a shared view should be passed to the Cabinet.

e) SCRUTINY REVIEW PANELS

Proper scrutiny is time consuming and involves in-depth examination and discussions. It is therefore, important to limit the items on the agenda and, on occasion, hold a meeting to consider a single issue. A scrutiny committee could also consider an issue over a period of time (several meetings) or establish a Review Panel to consider the matter on its behalf in more detail and report back.

Experience has shown that Scrutiny Review Panels are the most appropriate way of examining the complex and time-consuming issues.

Briefly the process for establishing the Panel and undertaking reviews which is set out in Appendix E involves:-

Stage 1 – Identifying potential topics for review

Stage 2 – Defining the scope of the review

Stage 3 – Establishing a project plan and review timetable

Stage 4 – Investigating

Stage 5 – Evaluating and making recommendations

Stage 6 – Reporting and Monitoring the outcome of the review

The Scrutiny Commission which has responsibility for managing the Scrutiny work programme has, in the light of experience, taken the view that each Committee should ensure that it is not considering more than 2 items in depth in its annual work programme.