Sarah gives us a rundown of how it went and what she learnt about the amazing impact scrutiny can – and very often does – have
From Monty to Morricone
The first question I asked everyone was ‘what has scrutiny ever done for us?’ and there were great responses, such as transparency in decision making, increased accountability, and voice of the public. With the positives in mind, it was time for a bit of fun learning together.
After hastily arranging people into teams of seven or eight they I asked them to join their allocated ‘team station’ with another ‘here’s one I made earlier’ flip chart waiting for them. The flips were organised into three columns called the Good the Bad and the Meh. Yes, I did play a snippet of Ennio Morricone’s famous theme tune to set up the exercise.
At this point I asked the teams to have a chat and put post it notes with examples n each of the columns
Good – Positive impact or success story of scrutiny
Bad – Missed opportunities/things scrutiny could do but hasn’t yet
Meh – Challenges/barriers to scrutiny impact
The good, the bad and the meh
Ten minutes of very lively chat ensued as people who had just met got stuck in and had some robust conversations about scrutiny in their authorities, sharing stories and finding similarities in their challenges and successes. There are too many responses to share here, but below are some of my favourites.
| Good | Bad | Meh |
|---|---|---|
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So what has scrutiny, actually, done then?
When asked to recount their chats the teams were so passionate, and I think a touch surprised by the commonality they found during their discussions. Then it was time for a quick team reshuffle to keep it fresh and on to another exercise.
I gave each team a pack of eight cards, and on each card there was a short story of scrutiny impact, which and I asked the teams to arrange into a league table. There were no right or wrong answers to this, I was just interested in the discussions it would stimulate and how different people view the value of the impact made. It was a fabulous buzzy session with lively discussion and laughter throughout the groups, whilst they decided how to arrange their league table. Each team had the same eight stories to choose from, and when I collected the top two from everyone to form the ‘super league’ there were two clear favourites.
The two that topped the super league table were scrutiny uncovering bottlenecks in house repairs, resulting in a 1,200 backlog being cleared in 4 months, and a library being saved from closure by scrutiny recommending that they share space with a nearby GP who was struggling for space to do blood testing. As a group we talked about why these two may have appealed, and the common theme was that they were visible impacts for residents, quickly making their lives better or easier.
And what about a world without scrutiny?
Following our reflection, and discussion about the importance of linking scrutiny to impact, it was time to put our imagination hats on again. What if scrutiny didn’t exist? Could this lovely group of people imagine some of the challenges that could present? Well dear reader they could, and it was a picture where there was no scrutiny of the decision makers, where policy changes might go unchecked, with no opportunities for backbenchers to play an active role in reviewing the decisions being made. The conclusion was that scrutiny, regardless of the challenges and barriers it can face, is an essential part of local democracy and has the potential to make a real difference.
With those last thoughts in mind, it was time to cosy up to scrutiny before this fantastic group of people made their way home. I asked people to write a short love letter to scrutiny and post it on our scrutiny tree on way out, and here it is.
When you might be feeling a bit frustrated with how scrutiny is going have a look at this and remind yourself of the essential nature of scrutiny and the impact it can have.
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