Thurrock Council has faced a series of well-documented challenges in recently years. It was placed into intervention in late 2022, following a best value inspection, which identified a series of issues relating to Overview and Scrutiny.
Challenges and Opportunities
The key challenges in Thurrock related to culture and attitude. Some members had a particular view of Overview of Scrutiny which was not helpful to the authority and perhaps negative in nature.
This attitude led to an improper use of scrutiny and a sense that members lacked the skills to make the most of scrutiny.
These challenges were exacerbated by the fact that there were six committees which did not work in conjunction with one another. Instead, they created more meetings across the year than was necessary.
Prior to CfGS’s intervention, Overview and Scrutiny was not strategic in how it operated, members were not engaged, and it did not facilitate good decision-making. Likewise, the then Executive did not make good use of scrutiny to aide its decision-making and there was a need to better engage officers.
A restructure was needed.
Yet whilst these challenges persisted, they also presented an opportunity for a fresh start: they offered a chance to rebuild Overview and Scrutiny and to reset the relationship between scrutiny and the authority’s officers.
Initiatives and Actions Taken
In addressing the challenges that existed, Thurrock took a three-stage approach:
- First, the Council addressed the ‘quick fixes’ – that is, the structural and procedural changes that could be achieved quickly. This included, for example, the appointment of a Statutory Scrutiny Officer.
- At stage two, the focus was on skills transformation, which included the provision of training for both officers and members; relationship building sessions for members to begin to change the culture of scrutiny; and changing the structure of committees, to be more streamlined.
- The third and final stage, which is ongoing, is embedding a cultural shift. This involves trying to embed the changes from stages one and two – and to see how they work in practice. This is a formative stage and progress towards achieving cultural change will be reviewed by CfGS in future. This process is seen as trial and error, to find the right permanent solutions.
Outcomes and Impact
The work of CfGS was pivotal in delivering clear objectives which could be immediately delivered. Suggestions such as the restructuring of scrutiny, rethinking the work programming process, and clearer scrutiny briefings were tangible and could be done in the short term.
The longer-term ambition to achieve culture change is an ongoing piece of work, to which CfGS is continuing to offer support, but already the general attitude of members is that Overview and Scrutiny has a role which is considered and influential within the council.
Lessons Learned
Whilst Thurrock has had challenges and continues to face some ongoing challenges, the experience has been largely successful.
Lessons for other Councils to learn from Thurrock’s experience include:
- Go for the easy wins first – do not spend lots of time on a single issue, because things can change. You need to accept that things will move.
- Involve scrutiny chairs when making changes to scrutiny’s role or structure – it is not enough just to engage the political leadership.
- Using training and dialogue to convince those least persuaded of the need for change – both in terms of officers and members.
Future Directions
Thurrock has settled upon the framework for change – it now just needs to change the culture within that framework.
However, it may face future challenges in 2025, when it has all-out elections and the potential for change in its political composition. With new councillors comes the need for more training and to quickly embed new members within the burgeoning culture that Thurrock is trying to achieve.
2024/25 has served as a test year; 2025/26 will be a year of learning, in which the Council asks what worked, what could be streamlined and what structures should be in place in future.
Members are keen and, thanks to this Overview and Scrutiny transformation, there is hope and enthusiasm about the future.
CfGS’s impact
When asked to rate the impact of CfGS’s intervention on a scale of 0-10, where 0 represents the Council’s starting point and 10 represents an ideal or perfect state, Thurrock ranked its present state at 7, with an ambition to get to 9 in future.
CfGS’s support to local government improvement brings with it a contractual requirement to produce case studies of recent improvement activity funded by Government. The content of these case studies has been developed by CfGS and councils’ jointly. They should not be taken as reflecting a formal evaluation of the impact of the work described, but as a way of highlighting and describing to other authorities lessons learned from these projects that might have wider application for the sector.
All case studies