Agenda item

The purpose of the report is to set out proposals and initial ideas to develop the Overview and Scrutiny function for consideration. Members should consider if they support these proposals and how they would like to develop them further.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to

(a)      consider the contents of the report and agree on how to develop the Overview and Scrutiny function moving forward.

The Committee had before it a report which outlined proposals and initial ideas to develop the Overview and Scrutiny function of the Council.  The report asked members to consider the proposals and comment on how they would like to develop them further.

Jodie Townsend, Interim Governance Advisor, in introducing the report, set out the initial thinking behind the proposals.  He reported that it would take time to embed and develop a new approach to Overview and Scrutiny, and that if the Overview and Scrutiny function was going to truly add value, then it would need to be supported by Members, both Scrutiny and Cabinet, and by Officers.  He indicated that there was a strong commitment from officers and Cabinet to facilitate more effective scrutiny.  Training and development had started and would be a continuous process to look at best practice.

He stressed the importance of creating a strong organisational culture that supported scrutiny work and could add real value to policy-making and the efficient delivery of public services.   The Committee would need to develop Core Scrutiny Proposals and actions and keep those at the centre of all it did; Suggested proposals for which were set on in paragraph 6 of the report.

Other work being undertaken included the development of Scrutiny operating procedures, including a Cabinet/Scrutiny Protocol; an effective and focused work programme, ongoing training and development for all scrutiny members; the development of an Oxfordshire Scrutiny Handbook and dedicated officer support.

The Chair thanked Mr Townsend for his presentation.  The Chair welcomed the report and that he hoped as Chair that the Committee could add real value to the areas which it scrutinised,   He expressed the importance of working together in a constructive and respectful manner, acknowledging that effective scrutiny happened when cross-party members worked together on scrutiny.

Members made the following points during discussion on the report:

·            Members expressed the importance of having reports well in advance and of scrutiny being engaged at the earliest possible stage of policy making.

·            Early sight of the Cabinets forward plan needed to be added to the process.

·            Clear guidance on Scrutiny Stakeholders should be added to the core principals, as should language such as transparency and working together to develop.

·            There needed to be a clear definition of what ‘place’ and the areas of work which fell under that heading was.

·            Information on Champions and relevant user groups should be made available to all scrutiny committees.

·            Members queried the budget commitment for officer support and whether there would be any budget for bringing in experts for specific pieces of work

·            There was a need to have clear guidance on what each of the committees covered and for that to be relayed to the public.  Plain language needed to be used.  A business mission statement could enable the other committees to understand the areas of work under consideration and reduce blurred lines.

·            The Committee acknowledged the need to be disciplined and focused on a few areas rather than trying to look at everything.

·            Joint scrutiny with district councils should be considered.

·            A mission statement should be added to the work programme for the coming year, to include political engagement, aims and values.

·            Working Groups should be considered as an effective way of covering some of the work

Following discussion, Duncan Enright, Cabinet Member for Travel & Development Strategy and Councillor Neil Fawcett, Cabinet Member for Community Services & Safety welcomed the points made by the Committee.  Councillor Enright noted that utilising the whole of the Council and scrutiny enabled better decision making by the Council.  Councillor Fawcett endorsed the points about the early involvement of scrutiny and indicated that the Cabinet may need to look at the way it produced papers for the future.

The Chair thanked the Committee for their points and summarised the main points to take forward as follows:

·            What is Place?

·            Role and remit

·            Mission Statement to be added to work programme.