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LGA Scrutiny Peer Challenge

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LGA Scrutiny Peer Challenge Cllr Simon Killane, Chair, Overview & Scrutiny Management Committee Maggie Rae, Corporate Director Carolyn Godfrey, Corporate Director Carlton Brand, Corporate Director Wiltshire Council Bythesea Road Trowbridge BA14 8JN 23 March 2015 Overview and Scrutiny Peer Challenge 10 and 11 March 2015 On behalf of the peer team I would like to say what a pleasure and privilege it was to be invited to Wiltshire Council to deliver the peer challenge as part of the Local Government Association (LGA)’s Sector Led Improvement work. Peer challenges are delivered by experienced councillor and officer peers. The make-up of the peer team reflected your requirements and the focus of the peer challenge. Peers were selected on the basis of their relevant experience and expertise and were agreed with you. The peers who delivered the peer challenge at Wiltshire Council were: Cllr Glen Sanderson, Northumberland Council Cllr Heather Kidd, Shropshire Council Simon Harper, Head of Democratic Services, Gloucestershire County Council Ann Reeder, Adviser and Regional Advocate, Centre for Public Scrutiny Anne Brinkhoff, Programme Manager, LGA Scope and focus of the peer challenge The framework for our challenge was five headline questions: 1. What is the common understanding of the role and purpose of overview and scrutiny? 2. How effective are the relationships between Executive and Scrutiny? 3. How effective is the structure and operational arrangements for Scrutiny? 4. What is the capacity, commitment and skills of members to lead and direct the scrutiny function, and how well are they supported? 5. How can Scrutiny increase its value in pursuing the objectives in the business plan to the purpose of Wiltshire Council? 1 It is important to stress that this was not an inspection. Peer challenges are improvement focused. As peers we used our experience and knowledge to reflect on the information presented to us by people we met, things we saw and material that we read. This letter provides a summary of the peer team’s findings. It builds on the feedback presentation delivered by the team at the end of their on-site visit. In presenting this feedback, the team acted as fellow local government officers and members, not professional consultants or inspectors. We hope this recognises the progress Wiltshire Council has made during the last year whilst stimulating debate and thinking about future challenges. 1. Headline messages Members and officers have responded well to the recommendations of the two recent peer challenges in September 2013 (Corporate) and October 2014 (Health and wellbeing). The Scrutiny function has changed its focus and is more purposeful and outcome focused. It is well aligned with the key actions in the Council’s Business Plan and there is now a real focus on important policy areas as well as partnerships whose work will significantly affect the outcomes for local communities. Examples are the emerging work with the LEP, School Improvement, Dementia and Health and Social Care integration. Relationships between the Health Select Committee and the Health and Wellbeing Board are being strengthened and the recent ‘Integration Inquiry Day’ has been beneficial in developing members’ understanding and in agreeing topics for future scrutiny. There is commitment to putting in place a formal protocol between the two committees and other stakeholders, including Healthwatch, to create clarity on respective roles and responsibilities and ways of working together. Our conversations highlighted a strong degree of ambition among members which needs to be reconciled to the resource available. This requires effective prioritisation to ensure that reviews continue to focus on outcomes. While it is the substantive work, particularly of the Task Groups, which excites and motivates Members, it is nonetheless important to capture and communicate the impact of reviews, not least as this will instil confidence in Members and the public about the importance of Scrutiny. Overall the peer team consider that the Scrutiny process is evolving well and the new approach needs to be given time to bed-in. We would recommend a ‘health check’ ahead of your elections in 2017. 2 2. What is the common understanding of the role and purpose of Overview and Scrutiny? Members and officers we spoke with were able to clearly articulate the role and purpose of the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny1 function. While individuals had their own wording, we found a strong degree of commonality in what members and officers consider as the key role and purpose of Scrutiny, ie: ‘holding the administration to account’ ‘enabling the non-Executive to influence decision making and policy of the council’ ‘not a tick box exercise’ ‘must add value to decision making’ ‘outcome focused’ ‘business plan focused’ ‘evidence led - not politically led’ The strong focus on outcomes and the need to link the work of Scrutiny to the Council’s Business Plan is reassuring, particularly given the recommendations of the Corporate Peer Challenge in September 2013. Somewhat surprisingly, there were four key aspects of the role and purpose of Scrutiny that were mentioned less frequently. These are: Providing assurance to the public; Engaging with and holding partners to account Driving improvement in services and helping to find savings; and Engaging with the public to uncover user experience and resident satisfaction In practice, there is strong evidence that Select Committees and Task and Finish Groups are increasing their work with partners, for example the Local Enterprise Partnership and the Military Civilian Integration Partnership. Given the Council’s ambition and sincerity about improvements to Scrutiny it would be appropriate for it to re-enforce the common understanding by articulating and publishing a definition of the purpose and role of Scrutiny within Wiltshire Council. 3. How effective are the relationships between Executive and Scrutiny? Relationships between the Executive and Scrutiny are good. There is on-going engagement and sharing of information between Scrutiny Chairs and Vice Chairs and the political and corporate leadership. Examples are formal agenda planning 1 For the remainder of the report we will refer to the term ‘Scrutiny’ 3 processes and informal conversations to ensure that Scrutiny can fulfil its purpose of holding the Executive to account and reflect Council concerns. We heard that most Scrutiny members are committed to evidence based working and are able to work outside a party political context. This is a genuine strength and is a key condition for Scrutiny to add value to and improve decision making in the longer term as opposed to short term political opportunism. The above enables a mature approach to Scrutiny with few Call-Ins and a confirmation that the majority of Scrutiny recommendations are accepted and valued by the Executive. While relationships are good, we heard that there could be even greater clarity of the interface and partnership between Scrutiny and Executive, using both informal and formal engagement, for example through regular timetabled meetings. In particular we heard that there could be greater alignment between the Cabinet Forward Plan and the Scrutiny Work Programme to allow better topic selection and prioritisation. We felt that there could be more consistent attendance of Chairs of the Overview & Scrutiny Management Committee and Select Committees at Cabinet and of Cabinet Member/Portfolio Holders at Scrutiny to enhance the flow of information and mutual understanding. There are some potential risks associated with the position of Scrutiny members on Project Boards. Project Boards play an important role in the operation of the Council as a means to explore and deliver specific objectives and outcomes. Often they include Scrutiny members in a non-Executive capacity to ensure that they develop their knowledge and understanding of specific projects and are able to feed this back into the Scrutiny process. While this can have a positive impact, there is a danger that Scrutiny members are compromised in their role as ‘independent scrutineers’. We suggest that there must be a clearly defined role of Scrutiny members on Project Boards that identifies them as ‘independent observers’ and that there is a formal mechanism for them to provide feedback to the wider membership of the Council. The Council needs to be cautious that non-executive members do not become associated with both decision making and Scrutiny of the same subject. The Overview & Scrutiny Management Committee is well placed to develop a protocol in liaison with the Cabinet, the wording of which is mutually agreed. This could include a recognition that reporting from Project Boards to Scrutiny is carried out by the relevant Cabinet Member/Portfolio Holder and that any non-executive member on a Project Board is not on the Select Committee or Task Group that would be scrutinising the project. 4 4. How effective is the structure and operational arrangements for Scrutiny? Wiltshire Council has adopted a clear and common structure for its scrutiny function. It involves an Overview & Scrutiny Management Committee, Select Committees for Health, Children and Environment and Overview & Scrutiny Task Groups. In addition, there is a standing Financial Planning Task Group. Arrangements are clearly set out and well understood. They allow some 90 per cent of non-executive members to be involved in the Scrutiny function. There are good opportunities for opposition members to provide leadership to the Scrutiny function. The Overview & Scrutiny Management Committee is chaired by a member of the Independent Group and Select Committees are able to elect their own Chairs. Two out of the three Select Committees are chaired by a member of the opposition, and the chairmanship of Task Groups is not determined along party political lines. This indicates political maturity as it is an important condition for Scrutiny to be non-party-political. We found a strong practice of using co-opted members on Task Groups, bringing diverse perspectives and expert knowledge where appropriate. Examples are the work on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and the ‘Continence’ Task Group.
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