News & events

News release   SURVEY REVEALS LOCAL GOVERNMENT SCRUTINY IS THE POOR ‘CINDERELLA’ COMPARED TO THE EXECUTIVE FUNCTION Local Government scrutiny has never been more important in...

In the past few days we have received a number of queries from councils asking about how they manage the “pre-election period” in the...

The national charity responsible for championing excellence in governance and scrutiny in the private, public and voluntary sector, has welcomed three new Trustees to...

A range of national bodies are working together to enhance councils’ understanding of how they can diagnose and reduce the risk of failure in corporate governance,...

Scrutiny and democratic services officers are in a unique position in the council – they deal, day to day, with councillors in a way...

2020 will mark the 20th anniversary of the legislative changes that led to the establishment of the overview and scrutiny function in English and...

We’re hoping to do some work in the coming months on how scrutiny can engage with the climate emergency – engaging with the global challenge to...

If you are at an county or unitary council then structural change in the English NHS won’t have been far from your mind for...

The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny, in partnership with the NHS, hosted a well attended and engaging national conference focusing on the most important...

On EU Referendum Day three years ago, a conspiracy theory went viral. It was based on the idea that election officials would rub out...

It’s time to come back to a topic beloved of local authority governance enthusiasts – the committee system. A quick primer for those who were...

We are recruiting to the post of Delivery Manager who will lead on our event and research programmes, as well as contribute to business development and...

The Counties and Unitaries Scrutiny Network at its meeting earlier this month (June 2019) took information from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on some...

In the run up to our annual health scrutiny and assurance conference being held on 18th July at the King’s Fund, I’ve been reflecting...

For a long time, scrutiny professionals and councillors alike were clear that scrutiny was not a place for individual complaints for local people to be aired....

What is culture? How does political and organisational culture influence governance – and vice versa? And what does this mean for local government? By “culture”, we mean...

On 20th June CfGS will be holding a symposium to discuss the Government’s new statutory guidance on overview and scrutiny. The first general Government guidance...

The statutory guidance on overview and scrutiny in local government has now been published by MHCLG.This guidance has been produced following a commitment that...