[Phill Woods]

Hi everyone

I'm currently looking into how we can have a closer synergy between the scrutiny work programmes and the Cabinet/Executive forward plans. How do you make sure the two speak to each other basically?!!

It would be great to see examples or just talk through how other people are tackling this. We have a large council here in Cornwall with a very large budget and 123 Members so i would be grateful if people would like to share thier knowledge and experiences.

Feel free to email me on pwoods@cornwall.gov.uk or just share on here!

Thanks everyone

[Ed Hammond]

Hi Phil - a lot hinges on the actual quality of the Forward Plan (and do note that the law on FPs is changing, further to recent DCLG regulations).

Many are, frankly, pretty useless and it would be dangerous for scrutiny to think that they set out a clear picture of what's important to the executive. If you have a corporate project programme (which I assume you do) this will be far more valuable as something to hang the work programme off.

Such programmes are usually long-term in nature (three or four years, sometimes, taking an authority through an entire electoral term) but will have a certain amount of inbuilt flexibility. There is the risk that they are launched early in the life of an administration with great fanfare, only to be slowly and quietly ignored six to nine months later - again, if this is the case, best not to engage with it!

If it is actually used, and provides an accurate picture of what the council is doing, the scrutiny WP should naturally in part reflect it - not slavishly, but it should be possible to identify key points in the programme where scrutiny's input would be useful. Inevitably, discussions with chief officers will help to tease this out. This will then make it easier to target work - the idea being that scrutiny is looking at executive activity when policies and plans are being developed rather than when a decision is a done deal.

This is easier said than done, and I'm not aware of any councils that have consistently tried doing this - or, if they've done it, whether it's been successful. It might sound nice in theory, but I expect that practical difficulties around liaison with service departments, and the need for both scrutiny and the exec to keep to the programme, might make it difficult to achieve.

Our publication on work programming from last year ("A cunning plan") goes into some of these issues in a little more detail.

[Julia Regan]

Phill,
as well as listing relevant forward plan items on scrutiny work programme reports and alerting Cabinet members to new scrutiny task groups, in Merton we have a number of ways of helping the executive and scrutiny to talk to each other. At the start of the year we have topic workshops to which directors and cabinet members are invited and there is informal discussion of the "longlist" of scrutiny topic suggestions. At the first formal meeting the relevant director and cabinet member share info on their priorities, challenges etc for the year. Also, twice a year each scrutiny chair and vice chair meets with the cabinet mem and director to informally discuss issues which helps with relationships and communication - we organise and attend those meetings.
hope that helps - happy to discuss,
Julia
0208 545 3864

[Earl Piggott-Smith]

hi, it might be an idea to look at the strategic plans of the service areas rather the forward plans. The reports should details key prorities for the year and also some comments on the challenges or opportunities. This could be used to develop a scrutiny work programme which is informed by senior officers and which is some situations may not get on the forward plan. The same exercise could also be done with external partners. Hopefully if it works then scrutiny could be influencing reports added to the forward plan as the executive responds the topics being selected for the work programme.