Author: Ed Hammond
The focus of our submission to the CLG committee inquiry into overview and scrutiny
Initial thinking on the inquiry and how you can get involved We’re delighted that the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Select Committee has decided to conduct an inquiry into overview and scrutiny (O&S). A national inquiry of this kind can be perceived negatively, it’s not! It represents a unique opportunity to bring to a wider audience some […]
What 2017 holds for local government…. and scrutiny
We hope that 2017 proves less interesting than 2016. Particularly in the weeks following the referendum, I seemed to get very little work done, as about eight years’ worth of news seemed to have been compressed into only a few days. Not only was there a huge amount happening on the international and national stages; […]
Major inquiry into local government scrutiny function
The Communities and Local Government Select Committee has launched a national inquiry into the powers, functions, and effectiveness of local authority scrutiny arrangements and is inviting anyone with an opinion to write a submission before 10th March, 2017. We would strongly urge those working in overview and scrutiny to take some time to submit evidence to […]
Deteriorating trust in government
Edelman, a global communication firm which measures trust levels across the world, stated that in 2017 trust is in crisis. Data from 28 countries suggests that people trust less in all four key institutions: government, media, business, and non-government sector. While this is a global phenomenon, the distrust trends among the UK institutions are significantly more pronounced. On average, in […]
Survey: evaluating scrutiny
The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny is interested in understanding the views of local politicians, council employees and other local people on scrutiny of local government. We have created a short survey and would like to invite anyone with an opinion on the issue to fill it. You can find the survey here – Scrutiny […]
Reflecting on the Public Account Committee’s view of Devolution
The Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), before Christmas, put out the latest in a series of reports which have been generally unconvinced of the Government’s approach on devolution. There are in my view three main elements to the PAC’s views as they have been expressed so far. Government needs to be much clearer about its […]
Draft for consultation: scrutiny self-evaluation framework
We’re publishing the draft of a new self-evaluation framework for comment and criticism. You can find it here . Back in 2006 we produced the first of these frameworks. Practitioners have always been keen to hold the mirror up to scrutiny itself, to review ourselves and how we conduct our work. But in recent years those […]
The new Combined Authority O&S Order: a quick rundown
After what seems like a very long wait, Government has now published a draft of the Order which sets out more detail for combined authorities on the form of their scrutiny arrangements. The Order will probably complete its passage through Parliament in January, but will not come into effect until 8th May 2017.
Our new report on devolution governance
Last week, we published our latest piece of research on devolution governance: “Governance and devolution: charting the way“. Despite the uncertainty around the direction of the devolution agenda itself, areas around England are working hard to have robust systems for decision-making and accountability in place by May 2017, when a number of them will have […]
Winter is coming
With winter comes emergencies and floods. Last year, we published a detailed blogpost setting out some ideas for practitioners – this post is just intended as a gentle reminder, now we’re heading into the season when this kind of thing now happens with alarming regularity – starting with the first winter storm of the season […]