Agenda item

7.1  The Chair introduced Members to the revised Government guidance on Overview and Scrutiny in Local Government.

7.2  She advised the guidance sought to ensure local authorities were aware of the purpose of overview and scrutiny, what effective scrutiny looked like, how it could be conducted effectively, and that they understood the benefits it could bring.

7.3  She said the two over-arching questions asked of Councils by the guidance were those below:

·  Is scrutiny working as well in as it could, and is there any actions that could be taken to improve scrutiny?

·  Are there areas of improvement for the constitution, procedure rules and protocols?

7.4  She noted that the guidance focused on six areas. The key messages emerging from these were those below:

·  Organisational culture – The guidance noted the need for the whole Council to be engaged with Scrutiny, rather than only Scrutiny Councillors and Scrutiny Officers.  The culture should encourage Scrutiny to be challenging, uncomfortable and potentially politically difficult.  This required the council and Members to have clarity on the role and function of scrutiny

·  Resourcing of the scrutiny function – this included but was not limited to budget for the function and Officer time. In addition this aspect paid regard to the need for effective support from the wider organisation to help scrutiny carry out its function.

·  Selecting committee members – this focused on the need for Members to have the necessary skills, expertise, commitment and the ability to act impartially to fulfil its functions. She suggested this was not an issue in Hackney.

·  Access to information – setting out the need for access to relevant information and to receive it within good time, including exempt and confidential information

·  Work programme planning – this set out the need for scrutiny work to have impact. This could be achieved partly through recommendations being achievable and tangible, and scrutiny having a clear role and function.

·  Establishment of protocol – the guidance recommended the creation of an Executive – Scrutiny protocol. This was in order to achieve full clarity on roles, relationships, expectations and operational processes in advance.

7.5  The Chair advised this item had been preceded by a discussion among some Chairs the previous week around the guidance. This had been particularly focused on the last of the points above and on whether there was a need to bring in some more formal processes to the function in Hackney.

7.6  Invited to comment at this point, the Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums said that the discussion the previous week and this one were set in a context where there was not a dedicated, detailed protocol in place.

7.7  The Council’s Constitution did provide a framework around processes. This included aspects around roles, relationships, expectations, and operational processes.

7.8  However, it did not cover all elements and was not prescriptive on all of those that it did. This had led to a discretionary approach being taken in a number of areas. These included aspects around the role of the public in the audience at scrutiny meetings, the layouts of meeting rooms, and the arrangements around how items for the scrutiny work programmes were prioritised and planned.

7.9  Given the guidance around the adoption of a formal protocols, the discussion at the meeting last week had focused on whether there was a need for these, including on aspects currently not covered by the Constitution. This would be intended to better enable mutual understandings between the Executive, Officers, and Scrutiny Members on the format and approach of Scrutiny.

7.10  A Member thanked the Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums. He had attended the meeting she mentioned. He agreed there was an ongoing need to review and improve approaches. He would be generally supportive of an internally-focused guidance document which set out the different options which Chairs might utilise in the work of their Commission.

7.11  However, he would have concern around a formal protocol if this prescribed the way that meetings and other evidence gathering sessions should be run and managed. This included any set criteria about the role of members of the public in meetings. He saw the flexibility in the ways Commissions were able to adjust the formats of their meetings as a strength.

7.12  Another Member agreed and said it was important that Commissions had flexibility in the way that it managed its meetings. There were some in which the topic lent weight to the public playing a leading role; for example when the Living in Hackney Commission sought to hold Thames Water to account when water main bursts had impacted on residents. For other items which asked questions of Officers and others, there was less of a role for public involvement. This was particularly for items held during reviews when Commissions were developing an understanding of complex topics and providing challenge to these. In these cases, there might be other dedicated forums which sought the views of the public.

7.13  The Chair agreed with the Member. She recalled that the Advice Review item in the previous meeting had raised some comments from the public in attendance around the discussions being quite inaccessible in nature. However, with that item, there had been a need for Members to review information in advance of the meeting and then seek to get to the bottom of a complex area during the discussion. This was one of the purposes of scrutiny.

7.14  Another Member agreed with this point. She had now been a member of three of the four Commissions, and felt that each had adapted their meetings in ways which had been appropriate. Another agreed with this point, and felt that introducing what he saw as greater rigidity, would not improve a model which already worked well.

7.15  The Chair thanked Members. She said that one area she saw for improvement was the information available on the Scrutiny webpages, both in terms of how they could be found, and their content. Members agreed with this point.

7.16  A Member said he would welcome further discussions on the support and nature of Communications support to the Commissions. Efforts by him to take a lead on communicating and creating material to promote engagement in his Commission’s work, had been met with some concern, given the need for communication styles to be broadly consistent across the organisation. He understood and appreciated this. However, offers by Communications to provide support to enable consistently branded materials to be released, had not always ended in timely delivery.

7.17  He noted that the enhanced support provided by Communications did now mean that a dedicated Officer linked with the Commission. They had been helpful and proactive. However, on a wider level, this had not always translated into a more rapid turnout of publicity material, nor information being made quickly available online.

7.18  The Chair thanked the Member. Members agreed with her suggestion that the Director of Communications, Consultation and Engagement be invited to the next meeting on the 7^th October to present on the offer from her Division to Scrutiny, including details on the enhancements made.

7.19  As a final question, a Member asked what the budget was for Ward Forums, what share of this was used.

7.20  The Head of Scrutiny and Ward Forums confirmed that each Ward was able to call on funds of around £900 per year to deliver Ward Forum activities. Currently, around 50% was not used.