Author: Ed Hammond
2019 annual survey of overview and scrutiny in local government now open
2020 will mark the 20th anniversary of the legislative changes that led to the establishment of the overview and scrutiny function in English and Welsh councils. In the runup to this momentous event we want to have – and we want you to have – the fullest possible picture of scrutiny across the country. Notable […]
Engaging with the climate emergency
We’re hoping to do some work in the coming months on how scrutiny can engage with the climate emergency – engaging with the global challenge to understand the practical local action that can be undertaken to both mitigate and adapt to the crisis. The next meeting of our Advisory Board is devoted to the subject, […]
Health scrutiny and “integrated care systems”
If you are at an county or unitary council then structural change in the English NHS won’t have been far from your mind for much of the last decade. It seems as if there is a near constant round of local variations to health services, accompanied by nationally-led alterations – leading from the establishment of […]
Return to return to the committee system
It’s time to come back to a topic beloved of local authority governance enthusiasts – the committee system. A quick primer for those who were not working in the sector – or who, indeed, may not have been born – when the Local Government Act 2000 came into force, bringing into existence the governance systems […]
Some critical, urgent learning from recent CQC reports
The Counties and Unitaries Scrutiny Network at its meeting earlier this month (June 2019) took information from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on some of the key issues arising from recent inspection reports (largely published between March and May 2019). I thought that there would be wider interest in these reports – they speak to […]
Dealing with complaints at scrutiny
For a long time, scrutiny professionals and councillors alike were clear that scrutiny was not a place for individual complaints for local people to be aired. Scrutiny is about strategic issues – high level stuff – and the use of high quality data is the only way to understand those issues. Tempering that work by […]
Culture, governance and collaboration
What is culture? How does political and organisational culture influence governance – and vice versa? And what does this mean for local government? By “culture”, we mean the shared attitudes, behaviours and values that define how organisations work. “Organisational culture” is a familiar concept – it can be a barrier or enabler when organisations try […]
Scrutiny statutory guidance published
The statutory guidance on overview and scrutiny in local government has now been published by MHCLG.This guidance has been produced following a commitment that Government made in early 2018, following on from the Communities and Local Government Select Committee’s inquiry into O&S. We participated in the drafting process – producing material to support MHCLG in […]
Public services and the “community paradigm”
One week in February held the publication of two different think tank reports, with two very different visions of the future for the sector and interesting to compare their takes on how we should be adapting our systems to meet future demands. The first report is “Spending fairly, spending well: time for a radical overhaul […]
Brexit: what’s happening?
The short answer to this question is, of course, “nobody knows”. As I write this a further “meaningful vote” on the Withdrawal Agreement is scheduled for 14 February. A win for the Government – both in Parliament and then in securing EU amendments to the WA – still seems a remote prospect. A defeat seems […]