To note the report and consider the work of Overview and Scrutiny in the 2022/23 municipal year.

Council considered the report highlighting the work of Overview and Scrutiny in the 2022/23 municipal year.

Councillor Martin, Chair of Place Overview and Scrutiny Panel introduced the report which covered the work undertaken during the previous administration. She noted that the new overview and scrutiny panels had only met once and were currently investigating future topics for their work programme. She advised that all panels welcomed topics from the general public for discussion and that the action points and topics for future discussion from those initial meetings could be viewed on the website. Councillor Martin reported all those involved were looking forward to working with their panels, were keen to bring in genuine scrutiny and heightened transparency and more awareness into the public forum. She concluded that Overview and Scrutiny would ensure it challenged the administration and any contracts that had not been fulfilled to the high standard expected.

Councillor Del Campo seconded the motion.

Councillor Taylor echoed that they were looking forward to more transparency, taking on discussing more subjects and more working groups as well. Overview and Scrutiny were very keen to delve a little bit deeper and within the Panel she chaired, which was People Overview and Scrutiny. She thanked the previous administration’s Overview and Scrutiny Panel Chairs for their work. She thanked officers for their support and for promoting via social media that the public can give subjects for the Panels to discuss.

Councillor Moriarty commented that, as Chair of Corporate Overview and Scrutiny, he was keen to build a collaborative but positively challenging relationship with the Executive to create positive outcomes. He would welcome the opportunity to get into the critical thinking at an earlier stage and the important thing was ensuring that the public understand what panels are for and how they can contribute to them as they are here to support residents.

Councillor Amy Tisi asked the meeting to note that on page 3 of the annual report the previous membership of People Overview and Scrutiny Panel was listed and her name had been missed off. She requested that this was amended.

Councillor Price commended the change in layout and style of the report as it made what was a dry report more attractive to read and clearly laid out what each Panel was responsible for. She observed that the report was missing a critical reflection of what could be learnt by what had been done so this could be learnt from. There was no clear connection between what Panels planned to achieve and whether this had been done. She welcomed the quantitative data but there was a lack of qualitative data. She reflected that the report was poorer for not having been considered by the Panel and noted that there had been up to six months of not achieving much due to the election. She asked that this was not repeated in four years time. She concluded by saying that the clerk that produced the report should be commended for the new design.

Councillor Reeves commented that he was an active member of Overview and Scrutiny and was genuinely looking forward to being able to take the public with the Panel on decisions and questioning the Council its decisions. He felt that this gave the public a voice to be able to actually question and understand both the decisions and the way the Council worked when they previously felt lost. He would welcome the simple terms rather than bamboozle people. He reported that contract management within the Council was something that would be considered at a future Panel as there was work to be done. He reiterated that he wanted to take the public with them and give them a further voice and insight through Overview and Scrutiny.

Councillor Gurch Singh commented that he had some reservations about the report as it appeared a bit light especially in relation to the Place Panel with the report lacking depth of scrutiny required, the length of reviews and the limited number of call ins for such a critical matters. He stated that going forward the Place Panel committed to prioritise a comprehensive analysis, meaningful call ins and transparency in decision making. The community deserved a Panel that examined issues impacting on the environment, neighbourhood and wellbeing. It was a good opportunity to strengthen the Overview and Scrutiny process, ensure the process was robust and that decision made were well informed.

Councillor Werner commented that Scrutiny should be a vital part of working within the Council but that it had not been working over the last 16 years. He stated that it had failed to be allowed to act. He wanted to see change so that Overview and Scrutiny were operating as an independent partner suggesting improvements. He noted that the Executive could not do it all and he asked all the Councillors needed to work together. Independence was vital so the Executive did not need to interfere, they would not be whipping Councillors or telling Scrutiny what it must look into. He was excited by the comments of the Chairs and saw it as a positive change. He concluded it would be a significant change and an important change with scrutiny set free.

Councillor Wisdom Da Costa commented that the Council had previously reduced the number of councillors from 62 to 41. There had been more councillors to take a share of the workload so were able to delve deeper. He considered the scope of each Panel was too big. For example he stated the Place Overview and Scrutiny Panel covered infrastructure, planning, sustainability and economic growth as well as neighbourhoods, each was such a massive area. He considered that the Council now had too few councillors to do too much work which was impossible. The areas of responsibility within each Panel had massive impact on residents. He observed that there was a big challenge to deliver effective scrutiny with only one or two of us to deal with a huge range of issues. He did not have the answer but the Council needed to find a way to tackle this challenge. He considered Overview and Scrutiny to be tough now, needed to work collaboratively to take residents’ issues seriously.

Councillor Julian Tisi echoed the comments from Councillor Reeves about the intention to be a genuine scrutiny Panel and wearing another hat he was also the Chair of Audit and Governance. He thanked Councillor Werner for his comments and advised the meeting that Overview and Scrutiny were willing and ready to challenge. He noted that on the final page of the agenda pack it listed the number of meetings held and from 74 meetings that were held the previous year only two, two and three recommendations were made to Cabinet. He observed that seemed to be a low number so hoped these would improve, they would be constructive friends to work to improve the borough and provide scrutiny to assist Cabinet in making the right decisions.

Councillor Bermange commented that the role of Overview and Scrutiny could play in holding the authorities decision makers to account made it fundamentally important to the successful functioning of local democracy. Effective scrutiny helps secure the delivery of public services and drives improvement within the authority itself whilst poor scrutiny could be indicative of wider governance, leadership and service failure. He stated that it was vital for Councils to understand the value and benefits that scrutiny can bring. He was quoting the introduction to the 2019 Statutory Guidance on Overview and Scrutiny. He concluded that they were reviewing the whole constitution including how Overview and Scrutiny works. He said there would be a cross party working group to consider changes with provisions to make things more proactive and less reactive but it was how it was delivered that would make Overview and Scrutiny more effective. 

Councillor Jones commented that constructive scrutiny was the foundation of transparency in a council. She stated that in her opinion scrutiny had not worked since she was elected in 2011, it was not valued and it was not listened to and that culture needs to change. She reported that she felt that it had started to and was really looking forward to working with Panels and hope to bring more transparency, more scrutiny and share earlier and draft reports to get comments before they were finalised.

Councillor Del Campo advised the meeting that she had joined the Council as an opposition Councillor in 2019 and could only echo the comments that others had made. She did not want the Overview element to be lost but agreed that scrutiny was so important. She said that as a Cabinet member they were really looking forward to working with Overview and Scrutiny as they were aware they had a job ahead of them and wanted the help of all councillors to make good and defensible decisions.

Proposed by Councillor Martin, Chair of Place Overview and Scrutiny Panel and seconded by Councillor Del Campo it was

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY that the report be noted and the work of Overview and Scrutiny in the 2022/23 municipal year be considered.