The latest governance and scrutiny news, opinions, research and updates.
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, ...
We are looking for councils to feature in our forthcoming Scrutiny Frontiers 2020-21 publication, highlighting how you have overcome the challenges posed by the pandemic in local government over the ...
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 ...
Our annual scrutiny survey has opened today, and we have a message from our Chief Executive 2020 marked the 20th anniversary since legislation was passed for the overview and ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
In this guest blog, Robert McGowan, Policy and Scrutiny Officer at Monmouthshire Council, writes for us on practical experiences in carrying out vital scrutiny work on a topic of local ...
For most scrutineers, the pace does not seem to have let up since March. Over the spring and summer scrutiny was constrained in the amount of formal work it could ...
You can’t have failed to notice that controversy around councils’ commercial activity has been in the news recently. Some councils have found themselves unexpectedly exposed to significant risk around their ...
In 2010, shortly before the General Election, the Centre for Public Scrutiny (as we then were) published “Accountability Works!” – a document which aimed to provide a comprehensive expression ...
More councils are starting to experiment with different forms of decision-making. The emergence of mutual aid networks at the outset of the pandemics – agile, highly local, groups of neighbours ...
In a previous post, we set out four possible scenarios for how governance could develop as we continue to navigate the pandemic. Since then, we have been successful in ...
CfGS has been successful in securing funding to support a major campaign on local governance in the post-COVID world, and what steps could be taken to shift governance approaches to ...
As the National Housing Federation’s Together with Tenants initiative is rolled out nationally this month, many housing associations will be taking a comprehensive look at their governance frameworks to ensure ...
Recent events in Parliament have provided us with a stark reminder of the absolute importance of scrutiny on the national stage – and act as a useful rejoinder to those ...