Test Valley Borough Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee

This is not a normal scrutiny moment

Good evening everyone, and thank you so much for inviting me.

It is a real pleasure to join you today.

Ok, I know I’m here as the warm-up act for your workshop, so my job this evening is not to tell you what your work programme should be, but to offer a bit of provocation for the conversations you are about to have about it.

Let me start with a simple thought.

This is not a normal scrutiny moment, and it needs more than a normal work programme conversation.

Because when local government is under pressure, when institutions are changing, when expectations are shifting, and when the ground is moving under people’s feet, scrutiny has a choice.

It could get pulled into process, plans and mechanics. Or, it could do what it does at its best: lift its eyes, ask the questions that matter, and help make sure change is not just happening, but happening well.

Some of you may have heard me say that since I joined CfGS, I have fallen a little bit in love with scrutiny.

But just to be clear, that is not with every committee paper. It is not with every recommendation that has been wordsmithed to an inch of its life.

But it’s with what scrutiny can be when it is at its best. Because when it is working well, scrutiny is one of the most hopeful parts of local government. It is where democracy becomes visible. It is where difficult questions can be asked properly. It is where assumptions can be tested and where challenge can improve decisions rather than simply react to them.

That is not a small thing. That is one of the ways democracy protects its own quality.

And people feel that.

At one of our conferences a couple of years ago, when we asked people what they loved about scrutiny, they talked about it bringing everyone to the table, raising issues that might otherwise never see the light of day, creating open and honest dialogue, and being the part of democracy that can have real and meaningful impact.

And I think that is worth holding onto, because scrutiny can very easily become over-procedural in how it is described — as process, committee business, or constitutional furniture.

Its real value is not in the fact it exists, but in the quality of the contribution it makes — to public confidence, to better decision-making, and to making sure important things are seen, tested and talked about.

Why work programming matters

And that is why work programming matters.

Because a work programme is not just an administrative exercise. It is one of the clearest expressions of what scrutiny thinks matters, where it thinks it can add value, and how it wants to make that contribution.

So this evening is not just about assembling a list; it is about making a judgement about where your time and influence will count most.

The shifting centre of gravity

One of the strongest things I heard at this year’s conference was that the centre of gravity in governance and scrutiny is shifting.

Three things in particular stood out for me.

Firstly, that the conversation is moving beyond structures and models alone and much more into the lived practice of democracy: relationships, behaviour, confidence, judgement, language, political navigation, and how things work not just now but in the future.

And that feels especially important, because this is not a normal scrutiny moment.

And it says something quite profound: the challenge now is not just whether formal machinery exists. The challenge is whether democracy is being lived well, especially when conditions are difficult.

And that links to the second strong theme from the conference, which was that governance and scrutiny are increasingly being tested in transition conditions — elections, change of control, new political entrants, reorganisation, devolution, combined authorities, and a wider sense that many places are operating with shifting expectations and moving ground.

Again, that feels very relevant here.

Don’t get trapped in the machinery of change

Because in periods of transition, scrutiny can add enormous value — but only if it is clear about what its value actually is.

And for me, this means that:

Scrutiny mustn’t get trapped in the machinery of change.

Of course the machinery matters. Process matters. Plans matter. Structures matter.

But scrutiny’s distinctive contribution is not to become a duplicate programme board for every moving part of organisational change.

Its contribution is to ask the questions that others may be too busy, too invested in, or too operationally focused to ask.

• What does this change mean for residents and communities?
• How will accountability actually work?
• What might get stronger — and what might get lost?
• Where are the assumptions?
• Will bigger or newer arrangements also be better arrangements — or just different ones?
• How is democratic connection being preserved with local voices being heard?

That, to me, is where scrutiny comes into its own.

Because reorganisation is never simply an organisational question. It is a question about democratic design too.

• It is about whether people can still see where decisions are made.
• Whether communities still feel connected to power.
• Whether public trust is built or thinned out.
• Whether locality survives scale.Whether accountability gets stronger or more distant.

So if scrutiny is going to pay attention to that space — and of course it should — then I would argue it should do so in a very scrutiny-shaped way:

• helping a wider group of members stay sighted on what can otherwise become quite an opaque process
• testing risks around capacity and service continuity
• keeping its eye on impact, consequences, voice, accountability and what all this means for the lived experience of local democracy

Because councils do not get to stop being councils while change is happening.

Services still need to run, residents still need answers, and scrutiny has a role in keeping an eye on how that pressure is being managed.

Scrutiny’s distinctive contribution

All of which takes me to a third point that came through very strongly in the conference reflections.

I feel that scrutiny is too often boxed in.

Too often treated as a narrow function, or a bit of the machinery over to one side.

Scrutineers and scrutiny teams are often absent from wider conversations about governance redesign, LGR and devolution, even though they understand a great deal about how challenge, accountability and public confidence actually work in practice.

I think this is a really important provocation.

Because one of the risks in work programming is that scrutiny can box itself in too …. by thinking, “What are the topics we normally cover?” or “What has traditionally come to this committee?” or “What sits neatly within the existing lanes?”

Strategic scrutiny in action

However a more strategic line of questioning is:

• Where can scrutiny add value that others cannot?
• Where can it make a distinctive contribution?
• Where can it bring an outside eye, or draw out the resident perspective, or challenge assumptions, or connect a corporate priority to what it actually means in people’s lives?
• Where can it stop the organisation mistaking motion for progress?
• Where can it help the organisation think better, not just report more?

For me, that is the sweet spot, that is strategic scrutiny in action.

And I think that should shape how you approach the workshop this evening.

Supporting councillors through change

There is one more conference thread that I think is worth naming here, because it speaks to all of you directly.

And that is councillors themselves need more attention in this wider conversation — not just as office-holders, but as people operating in demanding political environments and a complex system of change.

And I do think it is worth acknowledging that, and that good scrutiny does not emerge from nowhere. It depends on members who are able to lift their heads, exercise judgement, stay curious, and operate with enough confidence to ask the difficult question or spot the thing that is not yet being said.

This is part of the picture too.

And in a period of change, that confidence and judgement matter enormously.

Five tests for a strong work programme

So if I pull all of that together, the message I would offer you this evening is this:

A strong scrutiny work programme for the year ahead is not simply a list of topics. It is a judgement about where scrutiny can make the most meaningful contribution in the context you are actually in.

And in a context shaped by change, pressure and transition, I think there are a few tests worth applying.

1. Does this area matter materially to residents and communities?
2. Is there a real question here about decision quality, assumptions, accountability or impact?
3. Is this somewhere scrutiny can add something distinctive, rather than just duplicate what others are already doing?
4. Does this help scrutiny stay focused on outcomes and democratic value, rather than getting lost in internal movement and process?
5. Does this help shape the future well, not just comment on the present?

Because there is a real opportunity here.

Scrutiny is not just there to look backwards or hover around the margins of decision-making. At its best, it helps shape the conditions for better decisions in the future. It can help influence the culture of challenge, the relationship with communities, the seriousness with which evidence is used, and the degree to which accountability is built into what comes next.

So as you start thinking about the year ahead, I would suggest:

• A work programme that reflects the fact that this is not business as usual.
• A work programme that keeps one eye on current priorities and another on the shape and quality of what comes next.
• A work programme that is rooted in impact, not just inherited habit.
• A work programme that says clearly: this committee understands where it can make the biggest difference, and intends to do so.

Why I have fallen in love with scrutiny

If you can do these things well, then the work programme that follows will not be diminished in any way.

Quite the opposite.

It will be stronger, sharper, more strategic, and more rooted in the distinctive value that scrutiny can bring.

And that everyone, is why I have fallen in love with scrutiny.