Category: Blog
Our governance risk and resilience framework
Last week we, along with our colleagues at Localis, published the governance risk and resilience framework – a set of material designed to assist councillors and officers to understand and act on risks to governance in local areas. You can find the framework and a range of supporting material at www.cfgs.org.uk/governancerisk. When we talk about […]
The governance risk and resilience framework
Introduction What is the governance risk and resilience framework? This material is designed to support individual council officers and councillors to play their part in identifying, understanding, and acting on, risks to good governance. The basics of our framework is based on three stages – The seven characteristics which will help you to anticipate governance […]
An update on changes in the NHS
With the effects of the pandemic still acute, it’s easy to forget that the NHS is in the middle of a change programme. For the last few years NHS England has been putting efforts into the design of healthcare using a larger footprint – originally framed around sustainability and transformation plans (STP) and now integrated […]
The challenges of scrutiny at a distance
In this guest blog, Rebecca Atherton from Leeds City Council considers the experience of remote scrutiny and its practical challenges. “Can you hear me – I can hear you? Are you muted? The webcast is now live.” If 2020 had a catch phrase any of the above would seem fitting. As we begin Lockdown 3.0 […]
Conducting remote scrutiny reviews
In our first guest blog of the year, Catherine Buckley from Knowsley Council explains how one scrutiny committee organised and undertook its first entirely remote task and finish review. Knowsley Council’s Children Scrutiny Committee kick-started their scrutiny year with a virtual workplanning session in June 2020 and voted for ‘Early Help and Parental Support’ as […]
Remote meetings: planning for permanence
We have spoken extensively to scrutiny and democratic services practitioners in recent months about how action to make the Regulations on remote meetings permanent would help to ensure that governance could be supported in a way that is more dynamic and flexible in future. Once the pandemic is over, being able to convene formal meetings […]
Reflections on the publication of the Ockenden report
The final report of the review carried out by Donna Ockenden into maternity care at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital (SaTH) has just been published. It can be found here – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ockenden-review-of-maternity-services-at-shrewsbury-and-telford-hospital-nhs-trust. The report makes for grim reading. There are implications here for maternity services across England – and for health and care services more […]
A scrutiny team’s perspective on the impact of lockdown and experiences of restarting
In the latest in our series from scrutiny practitioners reflecting on their experiences during the pandemic, Merton’s scrutiny team provide some insights on how they have changed the way they work in response to 2020’s very challenging circumstances. When lockdown was announced, our first priority was to transfer the function to an online platform. […]
Under the spotlight – Dudley Council’s Covid-19 scrutiny process
In this guest blog, Kevin O’Keefe and Steve Griffiths (respectively Dudley Council’s Chief Executive and Democratic Services Manager) explain the council’s approach to scrutiny during the pandemic. At the start of lockdown in March, the Council recognised the key importance of maintaining proper levels of openness, transparency, democratic oversight and scrutiny during the Pandemic. […]
Conduct, civility and the Nolan Principles
Last week was officially Anti-Bullying Week. It was good to have a real-life example of the issues and dynamics involved in victimisation and harassment, in the form of the independent report into bullying alleged to have been carried out by the Home Secretary. It makes it a good time to reflect on whether there are […]