Category: Blog
Scrutiny: the new assurance? A Good Governance Institute discussion paper
Today, people who make decisions about public services face a common challenge: how to spend taxpayers’ money effectively and efficiently in ways that meet society’s needs and ensure the best outcomes for people and communities. There is much to celebrate, great strides have been made. But significant challenges remain – and it is clear no […]
CfGS to review governance at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS) has been asked to undertake an independent review of governance and scrutiny at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC). The Local Government Association will pay CfGS for this work. This review forms part of council’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire. CfGS is a charity whose […]
New report on effectiveness of scrutiny launched by APSE and CfGS
New CfGS research, commissioned by APSE, has been published which highlights that local scrutiny and the way it holds councils to account is still often perceived to be weak and lacks impact. Accountability and scrutiny: The issues for local government in a changing political environment, which was launched at the APSE Annual General Meeting on […]
Staffordshire Deputy Leader joins CfGS staff
New Business Development Manager appointed Councillor Ian Parry has resigned his role as Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Matters at Staffordshire County Council in order to take up the role of Business Development Manager at the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny. Ian has a wealth of experience in both the public […]
New Board appointments for CfGS: Dr Catherine Howe and Nick Chard
CfGS is delighted to confirm the appointment of Dr Catherine Howe, Digital Innovation Director, Capita and Cllr Nick Chard, Kent County Council to the CfGS trustee board. Jacqui McKinlay, Chief Executive, CfGS, commenting on the appointments said: “We are delighted to have Catherine and Nick join the CfGS Board, which is growing in depth and […]
CfGS health scrutiny conference – a great success
Anatomy of Accountability – national health scrutiny conference – 27 June 2017 The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, in partnership with the NHS, hosted a well attended and engaging national conference focusing on the most important issues facing health, social care and accountability. With more than 100 attendees the event saw a range of high […]
Combined authority scrutiny and gender balance
There was another election not so long ago; the one for combined authority mayors. While the Westminster result was a broadly positive one for gender balance (the number of female MPs breaking the 200 barrier for the first time), the Mayoral election was less inspiring. No female metro Mayors – and Mayoral Cabinets predominantly (in […]
Scrutiny: divided opinions
We recently published the results of our scrutiny perceptions survey in the form of an infographic (here). However, given the amount of data we got we also wanted to explore the results in some more detail through a series of blogs. Among the many findings there is a particularly interesting one: opinions on scrutiny heavily […]
Durham County Council – what winning a MJ Award meant for us
Like many scrutiny teams, in January 2016 we were contemplating entering the MJ Award for Excellence in Governance and Scrutiny. A classic trait of a scrutiny officer is then to ask many questions – what should the focus of our submission be, which reviews should we feature in our submission, what other areas of good […]
Scrutiny – cost and control
What is the main reason for the reduction in the number of officer posts dedicated to overview and scrutiny in English councils? Usually, it’s explained as an issue to do with resources – senior officers often tell us that in an ideal world it would make sense for there to be a specific policy resource […]