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 past year, and showcasing your scrutiny successes!
To contribute to this publication, or if you have any questions contact Charlotte Crowley – charlotte.crowley@cfgs.org.uk
If you are interested, please submit approximately 600 words on scrutiny in your council, ideally in the words of a scrutiny councillor (either a Scrutiny Chair/Vice Chair or another scrutiny member) covering the aspects below:
- Short intro: your approach to scrutiny; the role/aim/value of scrutiny in your organisation
- A few paragraphs covering an example of successful scrutiny: brief background and context, what you did, outcomes/results/learning
- Short conclusion: hopes, plans, and key focus for scrutiny in your organisation in future
(examples could be: more public engagement, more pre-decision scrutiny, innovative scrutiny methods, focus on measuring outcomes in terms of impact on citizens’ lives, more engagement of partner organisations/outsourced council services)
Key themes that could be included (relevant to your example):
- Culture: how culture within your organisation supports and values scrutiny work, strong relationship with the executive, cross party collaborative working in scrutiny
- Value: how scrutiny work provides genuine value and relevance to the work of the wider council; how scrutiny contributes to improving council productivity
- Outcomes: impact achieved, securing and monitoring outcomes over time; long term approach to scrutiny
- Public engagement: how scrutiny engages with the public, how this has changed
- Access to information: how scrutiny is able to access information from within the council and externally, the difference if makes when scrutiny is able to access the information it requires
Photos:
In addition, please can you submit up to 4 relevant photos (we may not use all), with at least one of the Councillor who is submitting.
See here for our 2019 publication. This outlines the general structure, but as per above the focus for the text is different and each submission will be slightly shorter this time. You can see how each submission will be in the voice of a scrutiny councillor and this is the approach we are taking for the 2020-21 publication.