The latest scrutiny and governance news from across the sector.
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 ...
We have recently recorded our 'Finance Scrutiny' webinar for you to watch below. We will also be uploading further webinars for member and officers in the coming weeks. Take a ...
Whilst we still face many months of uncertainty and many institutions continue to be focused on the operational response to the pandemic, there is a responsibility to consider what the ...
A lot of councils fairly regularly conduct reviews of their constitution. Your council may be one of them. You might do them in-house (your Monitoring Officer or Head of Governance ...
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many councils were engaged in serious conversations about how they needed to rethink local democracy and local governance. For some, this has been about ...
It’s impossible to look across the Atlantic and experience anything but horror at the unfolding protests – and the police violence accompanying them. Seeing footage of running battles, the deployment ...
Free scrutiny webinars focussing on key areas of the COVID-19 crisis As scrutiny committees are now operating through virtual means, we need to think about how to focus agendas to ...
Remote meetings are now up and running everywhere; scrutiny meetings are beginning again in many places and council AGMs are taking place too. It’s something like normality, although we are ...
A year ago – it seems much longer – Government finally published the long-awaited statutory guidance on overview and scrutiny in local government. We followed that up a couple of ...
We have recently recorded our 'Online Scrutiny Meetings for Councillors' webinar for you to watch below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aEJVtIBs4Y We will also be uploading recorded webinars for members and ...
Should we begin to get worried that nine weeks since the lock-down started and seven weeks since the Coronavirus Act offered councils the means to reinstate council meetings through online, ...
A few people in the sector noted with raised eyebrows that Government chose last week to publish a paper setting out its approach to future interventions in failing councils. As ...
The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny provides a helpdesk service on matters relating to governance and scrutiny. We are available on the phone, by e-mail and on Twitter to ...
The Local Authorities and Police and Crime Panels (Coronavirus) (Flexibility of Local Authority and Police and Crime Panel Meetings) (England and Wales) (Regulations) 2020 have now been published. They come into force on 4 ...
UPDATE: since this post was published, Regulations on remote meetings have been published, and we have published a more detailed guide on scrutiny during the COVID-19 which you can find ...
One of the aspects of the Coronavirus Act which has caused most concern has been the loosening of local authorities’ legal obligations in the Care Act. Powers exist for local ...
In my last blog I talked in general terms about the attitude and approach of the executive, and what makes for good political leadership. In this blog, the second in ...
6.2.20 Centre for Governance and Scrutiny welcomes appointment of new independent customer scrutiny board by Mears The Centre of Public Scrutiny has welcomed the announcement from housing and ...
This is the first in a series of five blogs on political culture and scrutiny. Over the course of the next couple of months we will explore what political culture ...
News release 1.2.2020 New guidance will help council CEOs address perception of scrutiny’s ‘Cinderella’ status New guidance, published today, from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS) will ...