Agenda item

Report of the Head of Legal and Democratic Services

To consider the appointment of Overview & Scrutiny link members.

The Committee considered a report from the Head of Legal and Democratic Services regarding the appointment of individual members to take the lead in specific areas of the Committee’s work.

Resources & Performance Scrutiny Board

The Committee noted that no one overview and scrutiny councillor was a member of both overview and scrutiny committees.  They agreed to issue a standing invitation to the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the Resources & Performance Scrutiny Board to attend meetings of this committee as necessary.

Pre-decision Scrutiny Link Member

The Committee felt that is was important that all overview and scrutiny members should be familiar with the contents of the Forward Plan and use that document to brief themselves on issues of potential interest to scrutiny.

The Committee agreed to appoint the Chairman or Vice-Chairman as the formal pre-decision scrutiny link member.

Task & Finish Group Link Members

The Committee agreed to appoint Councillor Smithson as the link member to the Crime Perception and Anti-Social Behaviour Task & Finish Group and the Private Sector Housing Strategy Task & Finish Group.  The Committee decided that there was no need to appoint a link member to the Concessionary Fares Task & Finish Group as the review was close to completion.

County Council Health Overview and Scrutiny

The Committee agreed to issue a standing invitation to Councillor Mrs Rose Stratford, as the Council’s representative on the County Council Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, to attend meetings of this Committee as necessary to give updates on key issues relating to health.

Review of Executive Liaison arrangements

Councillor Wood briefed the Committee on the findings of the recent review of the Executive Liaison arrangements.  He said that it was apparent that, for a variety of different reasons, the system of formal pairings of Executive and Overview & Scrutiny members had not worked and had not lead to a specific scrutiny review or recommendations.   

The Committee agreed that positive, open communication between all members of the Executive and overview and scrutiny was essential.  However, they felt that it was important to maintain the independence and integrity of the scrutiny function and that therefore it would be better to pursue informal dialogue rather than any formal feedback mechanism. 

The Committee discussed whether there would be merit in inviting Portfolio Holders to attend overview and scrutiny meetings on a planned basis to hold a general briefing or “question and answer” session.  On balance they agreed that this idea was worth pursuing and asked officers to work up proposals for discussion at the next meeting.

Resolved

1)                       That the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the Resources & Performance Scrutiny Board be invited to attend meetings of this Committee as necessary to give updates on key issues relating to the work of the Board;

2)                       That the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee be appointed as the pre-decision scrutiny link member;

3)                       That Councillor Smithson be appointed as link member for the Crime Perception and Anti-Social Behaviour Task & Finish Group and the Private Sector Housing Strategy Task & Finish Group;

4)                       That Councillor Mrs Rose Stratford, as the Council’s representative on the County Council Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, be invited to attend meetings of this Committee as necessary to give updates on key issues relating to health.

5)                       That the current formal Executive Liaison Member arrangements should be abandoned and that all members of overview and scrutiny should be encouraged to develop informal dialogue with the Executive on matters of interest to scrutiny.