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Structures and Resources - A Practice Guide (Part 2)

Material covering scrutiny’s powers to engage with partners beyond the council.

Introduction

You can find links to other guides in this series on scrutiny’s powers and structural arrangements here.

Scrutiny committees have various powers to engage external partners.

This engagement can sometimes be difficult. Partners may have a limited understanding of scrutiny, or in fact local government more generally. Scrutiny’s power to make reports and recommendations about anything that affects the area or the area’s inhabitants is helpful here, but any engagement with partners needs to be preceded with careful thinking about the nature of the relationship, committee members’ motivations and partners’ motivations.

Scrutiny has specific powers relating to health services, and community safety. Scrutiny also holds limited powers of scrutiny in relation to flood risk management, although Regulations issued to govern this form of scrutiny expired in 2017.

Beyond this, scrutiny committees can “invite” witnesses to engage with it, and can require “relevant partner authorities” to respond to reports and recommendations.

 

Other material to accompany this guide

Structural arrangements for scrutiny

Scrutiny’s Powers within the Council 

Scrutiny of health and community safety.

Powers in respect of "relevant partner authorities"

Scrutiny committees have specific legal powers [[in respect of health and community safety]], but they also hold more general powers in respect of a wider range of other partners. They can require, by notice, that certain partner authorities “have regard to” its recommendations. In practice, this means that scrutiny can require specific responses to be made to recommendations made to these partners, which can make it easier to influence them and their work.

These powers also do not mean that scrutiny committees have a roving brief to investigate the general activities national and local of these organisations – the focus should be on scrutiny of the activities in which they are engaged in partnership with the council in the specific local area in question.

“Relevant partner authorities” is a term defined at s104 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007

The description relates to organisations operating in the same geographical area as the council in question. Scrutiny of health and of community safety is dealt with under separate arrangements.

The list of partner authorities includes:

  • A district council (if the council making the recommendations is a county council in the same area);
  • A county council (if the council making the recommendations is a district council in the same area);
  • A fire and rescue authority;
  • A National Park Authority;
  • The Broads Authority;
  • A combined authority (or combined county authority);
  • Integrated Transport Authorities and Economic Prosperity Boards, where they still exist as separate legal entities;
  • A joint waste disposal authority established in London or one of the former English metropolitan counties (Local Government Act 1985, s10);
  • Transport for London;
  • The Arts Council for England;
  • The English Sports Council;
  • The Environment Agency;
  • The Health and Safety Executive;
  • The Office for Nuclear Regulation;
  • The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission;
  • The Homes and Communities Agency (the Act having not been updated to reflect the establishment of Homes England, it is unclear whether the responsibilities of the HCA in this regard have been passed over to Homes England);
  • Natural England;
  • The Secretary of State, in relation to certain functions.

All resources