One of the joys of working at CfGS is learning about the diverse approaches to scrutiny by practitioners nationwide. We encounter a range of strategies addressing similar challenges. Our annual survey serves as a key resource, consolidating these commonalities and differences into a single, convenient reference point for your practice. Our latest one surveyed 229 people from 113 councils.
Unsurprisingly, many of these councils are facing financial challenges and are looking to scrutiny to help navigate difficult decisions.
Effective
Starting with organisation, we see similar results to previous years. Interestingly, responses to the effectiveness of scrutiny for public engagement are split, with half agreeing or strongly agreeing that their scrutiny function works hard to engage the public, with the other half disagreeing. It is positive to see that two-thirds of respondents receive requested information in a timely manner, but concerning that there is still one-third that do not.
Ultimately, effective relationships make for the most effective scrutiny, and responses on scrutiny’s relationship with the executive continue to be mixed. However, an overwhelming majority (slightly over three-quarters) feel that senior officers are supportive of scrutiny’s work – and a similar majority consider that scrutiny is able to take a cross-party approach to its work.
Stability
Ways of working continue to look fairly stable. A large number of respondents reported a constructive relationship between the executive and scrutiny, with 77% (176 respondents) agreeing or strongly agreeing. However, 23% (53 respondents) either disagree or strongly disagree, indicating some level of contention or uncertainty.
There was significant agreement that there is a cross-party approach within scrutiny committees, with 77% (176 respondents) either strongly agreeing or agreeing. However, 56% (129 respondents) said poor relationships, including party politics, have a negative impact on scrutiny.
There continues to be a gentle increase in councils with executive-scrutiny protocols in place. Information about performance is still regularly shared with councillors in the vast majority of councils, but we know anecdotally that a lot of this involves the sharing of scorecards in committee, which is not especially effective. In a more general sense, most respondents said that scrutiny did not face difficulty in obtaining information – although a substantial minority had problems.
Monitoring
Recommendations from scrutiny tend to be accepted. Monitoring of recommendations is a formal process in just over half of the councils responding.
The most common chairing arrangement is for the majority party to hold all the chair and vice-chair positions. We are interested, though, to see a gradual increase in the numbers of authorities where positions are partly, or wholly, held by opposition parties.
Awareness of council finances continues to dominate thinking on scrutiny’s priorities. This year, just over three-quarters of respondents thought that scrutiny’s work was closely informed by an understanding of the council’s financial position.
Full report: bit.ly/CFGSAnnualScrutiny
