Introduction
Building and maintaining strong relationships across all areas of governance is key to effective scrutiny.
The core of a positive working relationship is built on a shared understanding of scrutiny’s overall role, which is the keystone to building relationships with others. By fostering a collaborative environment, engaging with external partners, and involving the public, scrutiny bodies can enhance their impact and value to their organisations and communities.
This guide provides practical advice for developing and managing positive working relationships within scrutiny committees, with executives, and with wider stakeholders, partners, and the public.
Developing a team ethos for the scrutiny function
Committees and scrutiny bodies perform at their best when they function as cohesive, collaborative teams. Team effectiveness is crucial not only in the business world but also in the realm of good governance and scrutiny. A strong team ethos fosters trust, confidence, and a shared commitment to the scrutiny process.
Trust and confidence in relationships stem as much from how people tackle the issues as from what issues to tackle.
The quality of relationships within the team is shaped not only by the issues addressed but also by the approach taken to address them.
Building a strong team ethos involves five key steps:
Setting and agreeing on clear goals is fundamental. This process begins with a collective discussion of the vision, mission, and objectives of the scrutiny function. When team members are actively involved in shaping these goals and the strategies to achieve them, their enthusiasm and commitment are significantly enhanced. Conversely, imposing goals without discussion can diminish morale and engagement.
Clearly defining roles and understanding the interdependencies within the team provides a solid foundation for effective collaboration. This includes knowing who is responsible for what, who depends on whom for specific tasks, and identifying potential gaps or organisational blind spots. When roles and relationships are well-defined, team members are more likely to take responsibility for their contributions and work more effectively together.
Successful teamwork relies on efficient processes for decision-making, resource allocation, managing differences of opinion, and resolving conflicts. How these processes are established and implemented can either strengthen or weaken relationships within the team. It’s important to ensure that these processes are agreed upon collaboratively and are designed to support constructive interactions.
Positive group dynamics are essential for building strong relationships within the scrutiny function. These dynamics can enhance collaboration and trust, leading to better outcomes. However, it’s important to monitor these dynamics to prevent the formation of cliques or the exclusion of certain members or parts of the organisation, which can be detrimental to the overall effectiveness of the team.
Strong personal relationships within the team contribute to its overall effectiveness. By spending time together, team members can build trust, gain confidence in each other, and create shared experiences that deepen their connections. These personal bonds help create a more cohesive team that is better equipped to handle the challenges of the scrutiny process.
Practical Tips
- Organise workshops and informal meetings to strengthen relationships and build trust among team members.
- Encourage members to share insights and experiences from past scrutiny exercises.
- Take a temperature check on how personal and group behaviours are showing up in meetings and activities.
Tools and Templates
Critical meeting behaviours activity
A simple questionnaire to aid in assessing and exploring various behavioural aspects only a continuum. The first section is about your own abilities and the second is about your group and its collective behaviour. Doing this as a team activity and then sharing and discussing what you each think and notice, will lead to identifying objectives that will improve future meetings and activities.
Reaching Collective Agreement
Consensus can be a very powerful model for decision making as it opens up the process to consideration, listening and negotiation. It helps ensure that people are on board and are ready to act.
Understanding others with a stake in scrutiny
Valuing the wide range of people with a stake in scrutiny and the role they play is essential for ensuring scrutiny plays a meaningful part in decision making. This requires an understanding of those who have a stake in scrutiny, and the different roles that each person’s stake requires they take on. Relationships between these groups may be bilaterial or multilateral and there may be people (or groups of people) who belong to more than one of these groups.
Who’s involved – Looking at Roles:
The Executive – To make Executive (key) decisions and respond to scrutiny reports and recommendations. The Executive is responsible for the strategic and operational decisions that guide the direction of the council.
Full Council – To set the policy and budget framework. The full Council is responsible for establishing the overarching policies and financial limits within which the Executive operates, ensuring alignment with the community’s needs and priorities.
Scrutiny committees – To develop and review policies and make recommendations to the Executive. Scrutiny committees play a critical role in holding the Executive to account, ensuring transparency and improvement by examining decisions, policies, and their implementation.
Monitoring Officer – To ensure legality and good governance within the council’s operations. The Monitoring Officer upholds the integrity of the council’s activities, ensuring all actions comply with legal and ethical standards.
Statutory Scrutiny Officer – To promote and support the effective functioning of the scrutiny process. The Statutory Scrutiny Officer is tasked with coordinating the scrutiny function, ensuring that it operates efficiently and effectively, and that all statutory obligations are met.
Officers – To provide advice and information to scrutiny committees, ensuring a parity of esteem with the Executive. Officers support the scrutiny process by supplying necessary data, reports, and expert opinions, facilitating informed decision-making.
Underpinning principles for positive relationships
It is possible to extract a set of general (and generic) principles that reflect the kinds of important relationship behaviours that support good scrutiny. These are principles that apply to all those with a stake in the scrutiny process and should be seen as defining the way that people interact.
Adherence to these behaviours (and others like them) are likely to contribute to the creation of an environment of trust. Trust is a product of these behaviours, and not something can come about on its own (and not immediately).
Relationships between Scrutiny Committees and the Executive
Key ingredients for a productive relations include:
- Mutual respect and understanding and recognition of each other's roles
- Regular, structured communication
- Transparency and openness in sharing information
- Collaborative approach to policy development
- Organise regular briefings with the executive to stay informed and aligned
Executive-Scrutiny Protocols
A way to translate these principles into reality – in respect of the executive-scrutiny relationship in particular – is to use an Executive-Scrutiny Protocol. A Protocol of this nature can provide a way to formalise (and make more consistent) certain expectations about how the relationship between scrutiny and executive should operate.
A Protocol’s value arises not simply from the product itself, but from the process taken to develop and agree it.
The dialogue that contributes to that exercise will work to build trust and shared expectations – the words on the page will be the product of that dialogue and will not bring about the change on their own. This may involve discussion of previous instances where relationships have been positive and may have led to positive results. More information on the executive-scrutiny relationship can be found in “Taking scrutiny seriously” (CfGS, 2020)
Information on these arrangements may already be partially contained in the relevant constitutional procedure rules, but a Protocol would go into more detail.
Executive-Scrutiny Protocols generally include:
Arrangements for information sharing – This may include agreement on the type and format of information to be shared regularly with scrutiny and the process by which requests from members for additional information will be dealt with.
Work programming – This may include arrangements for consultation and dialogue on the contents of the work programme.
Policy development and pre-decision scrutiny – There may be arrangements by which the executive can involve scrutiny in decision-making before decisions are made.
Arrangements for attendance at committee meetings – There may be arrangements to define when and how the Mayor will be invited to give evidence, and when and how cabinet members and senior officers will be invited. Although the conduct of scrutiny meetings where these people are present is ultimately a matter for scrutiny itself, clarity of mutual expectation will help to ensure that all parties are prepared and know what to expect.
Reports and recommendations – There may be procedures for the submission of reports and recommendations to the executive, which may include arrangements for the formal response to recommendations as well as their ongoing monitoring.
Disagreements – A Protocol might provide a mechanism for resolving disagreements.
Politics and relationships
Scrutiny is an inherently political space.
Politics informs and influences how scrutiny is carried out – and the relationship between those involved in it (including officers). Having an understanding of the role and function of politics within the scrutiny “space” is important, because without it the exercise of the function’s roles will be at risk of being misunderstood. There are two ways in which members’ politics can influence behaviours:
- The first, more positive, way is that it connects members into their local communities and informs their priorities. Members’ political views provide a framework for an authority’s administrative choices and priorities.
- The second, more negative, way is that overt party politics creates barriers between members and makes it more difficult to find areas of consensus. The presence of party politics makes members less inclined to find space for communal objectives, and consensus.
Overall, politics should
- Inform members’ choices about the subjects that scrutiny should look at.
- Inform how scrutiny work is carried out, including in committee.
Politics, and personal relationships, can become intertwined. Political disagreement can become personal, and this can affect relationships within political groups as much as those between them. The presence of opportunities for conflict within political groups can sometimes mean that members find it easier to maintain civil personal relationships with some in other parties than they do with certain members of their own party.
Audit Relationships
Audit functions play a vital role in providing independent assurance over governance, risk management, and control processes. Positive relationships between audit and scrutiny bodies can lead to:
- Enhanced scrutiny through the use of audit findings.
- Shared insights that strengthen governance.
This can be achieved by:
- Holding regular meetings between the chairs of scrutiny and audit to discuss areas of mutual interest and explore opportunities for collaboration. This ensures that both functions are aligned in their oversight responsibilities.
- Coordinate the timing and content of audit and scrutiny reports to enhance their impact. By ensuring that key findings and recommendations are presented together or in sequence, the overall influence of these reports can be maximised.
- Share work plans between the audit and scrutiny teams to prevent duplication of effort. This approach ensures that resources are used efficiently, and both functions can focus on their distinct but complementary roles.
- Establish a clear process for cross-referring relevant findings between scrutiny and audit. This process will allow important insights from one function to be considered and acted upon by the other, contributing to more comprehensive oversight.
Partner Relationships
Successful scrutiny involves collaboration with external partners, such as public sector organisations, NGOs, and community groups. Consequently, how you present scrutiny to the outside world is critical in developing positive relationships with key partners.
Strategies for building positive relationships include:
- Understanding the goals and priorities of partner organisations
- Presenting scrutiny as a constructive and collaborative process
- Clear communication of scrutiny’s role and value
- Early involvement in work programming
- Flexible approaches to evidence gathering
- Ensuring that scrutiny outcomes are communicated effectively
The benefits of external collaboration in scrutiny
External collaboration in scrutiny not only strengthens internal processes but can increase the scrutiny function’s overall effectiveness, responsiveness, and value to both governance and the public.
Access to expertise and knowledge – Collaborating with external partners, such as subject matter experts, auditors, or consultants, brings specialised knowledge and skills that may not be available within the scrutiny committee. This enhances the quality of analysis, recommendations, and decision-making, providing deeper insights into complex issues.
Broader perspectives – External collaboration introduces fresh perspectives that challenge internal biases and assumptions. Involving partners from other local authorities, public bodies, or community organisations can help ensure that scrutiny is balanced, thorough, and considers the wider context beyond the internal focus.
Strengthened legitimacy and credibility – Involving external stakeholders in scrutiny builds public trust by showing that the process is open, transparent, and willing to engage with independent voices. This can boost the perceived legitimacy of the scrutiny process, leading to greater confidence in the findings and recommendations.
Increased accountability – Engaging external collaborators, such as regulatory bodies or independent auditors, enhances accountability. Their independent oversight ensures that scrutiny is not just an internal exercise but one that holds those responsible to higher standards of governance, decision-making, and transparency.
Improved relationships and partnerships – Regular collaboration with external partners—whether other councils, local authorities, or community groups—fosters stronger working relationships. This helps break down silos and encourages shared learning, which can lead to more effective governance across organisations.
Innovation and best practices – External collaboration exposes scrutiny bodies to innovative practices and ideas that they might not have considered otherwise. Learning from other authorities’ experiences or best practices can improve internal processes, helping the scrutiny function adopt more efficient or creative solutions.
Enhanced public engagement – Partnering with external organisations—such as community or advocacy groups—enables greater public involvement in the scrutiny process. This leads to more inclusive decision-making and ensures that the voices of diverse groups are heard, aligning scrutiny with the public interest.
Resource sharing – External collaborations often allow for resource pooling, whether financial, informational, or human. This is especially useful in multi-authority scrutiny or joint projects where costs and responsibilities can be shared, leading to more comprehensive reviews and stronger outcomes.
Cross-boundary collaboration – Scrutiny bodies increasingly work across geographical or sectoral boundaries. Collaborating with neighboring authorities or Combined Authorities ensures that cross-cutting issues—such as health, transport, or environmental sustainability—are scrutinized from a wider, more integrated perspective.
Effective cross-boundary scrutiny requires:
- Clear agreements on shared objectives.
- Establish clear protocols for joint working
- Mechanisms for information sharing
- The sharing of best practices and resources
- Coordination on issues of mutual interest
A Memorandum of Understanding can really help:
- Scope and purpose
- Governance structure and decision-making process
- Resource allocation
- Dispute resolution
- Review mechanism
Practical Tips
- Run a collaborative process for jointly agreeing your organisations key values and principles
- Test and refine these with wider stakeholders; how do they translate across organisations?
- Host joint workshops with partners to discuss shared concerns and opportunities
- Share scrutiny findings with partners and involve them in the follow-up process
Relationships with the public
Public involvement is essential for good scrutiny. Done well it can foster positive relationships and increase trust. However, done badly, e.g. tokenistic, lack of diverse voices and experiences, and no demonstrable impact, will both undermine relationships and increase distrust and apathy to further engagement. Relationships with the public involves:
- Clear and accessible communication about the scrutiny process
- Use diverse communication channels
- Provide clear, accessible information
- Offer multiple ways to contribute
- Make sure all opportunities for public input and feedback are meaningful
Practical Tips
- Host forums where the public can learn about and contribute to scrutiny activities.
- Go to where the public are, where they feel most comfortable and able to be themselves.
- Use social media and websites to keep the public informed and engaged.
- Consciously design public engagement, always start with purpose and outcomes first - never start with the process and method.
Tools and Templates
Case Study
Learn how Newham Council transformed its health and social care scrutiny process to be more inclusive, engaging, and reflective of the community’s diverse voices and experiences. Read their case study here
Framework for designing engagement
When you want to engage the public in scrutiny it is critical that you start by thinking about the reason for engaging them and what you are trying to achieve. So often people start with a process, e.g. let’s do a consultation, let’s have some services users tell us their experiences, without thinking about the purpose and outcomes.
Public Participation Slide Deck (click through the dots or arrows below)
Conclusion
Building and maintaining strong relationships across all areas of governance is key to effective scrutiny. By fostering a collaborative environment, engaging with external partners, and involving the public, scrutiny bodies can enhance their impact and value to their organisations and communities.
All resources