Councillor resources on financial scrutiny

Posted on 19/12/2017 by Nicolay Sorensen.

As councils are now in the process of producing their 2018/19 budgets and Treasury Management Strategies, we want to outline some of the publications that might help scrutineers in their pre- or post-decision scrutiny.

1. Treasure Your Assets publication sets out councillor responsibilities in the context of managing financial assets, gives objectives of cash flow and treasury management, details treasury management decision-making and scrutiny roles, and provides best practices, tips, and questions that scrutiny may use while reviewing treasury management strategies.
2. CIPFA is publishing a new revised Prudential Code and Treasury Management Code in January 2018 and December 2017, which will contain numerous technical information about treasury management and budgeting strategies.
3. CfGS published a Risk and Resilience Guide – a guide detailing tools for officers and members to help them tackle major financial challenges like austerity and/or commercialisations. The guide looks at the relationship between scrutiny and audit in the context of risk, offers potential questions for scrutineers to use while looking at financial risk of council’s investments, and provides numerous best practice case studies on the subject.
4. A briefing on Putting Financial and Performance Management Information to Good Use which talks about techniques of handling technical financial and performance management information, integrating this information into the scrutiny process, and ways for scrutiny to get involved in business and financial planning.
5. Finally, our partners at LGA published a Councillor Workbook: scrutiny of finance – a guide for councillors who are new to financial scrutiny looking at the importance of financial scrutiny, its legislative background and potential challenges for councillors.

In the New Year, we will be launching two series of blogs – one examining financial scrutiny in more detail and the other looking at the future funding outlook for councils – look out for them!