[stacy Cosham]

I'm currently using the SEF to establish areas for improvement before the local elections - the idea is to establish those gaps in the current system so that we can improve the system in time for inducting new members - start as we mean to go one etc... the biggest problem i'm having though is engaging the Members and Management Team to get involved and respond to the short questionnaire. Scrutiny is low on their agenda or Committee Members feel unable to influence (probably the biggest gaps i can establish so far).

Any tips or guidance on how to adapt the framework to encourage participation would be helpful; examples of how the SEF has been used and improved the process would be helpful; a little bit of focus on district level scrutiny who deal with smaller agendas would be useful; and an update on how to assess accountability and performance now the LAA/CAA is abolished would also be helpful.

[Ed Hammond]

Thanks Stacy

Yes, all these are things which we are trying to do with it.

Would appreciate any other views, still - I will share the fruits of my labours in due course. It is much less detailed than the SEF - do people find the length and level of detail in the SEF provides a good framework or would you prefer something shorter?

[Tracey Tiff]

Hi

We used the CfPS self evaluation form back in 2009; in addition we had two Peer Reviews to inform the Review - The result being a comprehensive report with a number of recommendations.

link:http://www.northamptonboroughcouncil.com/councillors/Published/StdDataDocs/8/4/7/4/SD00004748/FinalVersionofreportasPDFdated2February2009.pdf

Following the Review, we asked one of the Peer Reviewers (Howard Boots - Head of Tameside MBC) to faciliate a workshop with Members and produce an Improvement Plan

Would be definitely interesting in seeing a revamped evaluation as we would use it again for any future Reviews

Tracy

[David Collins]

We recently did an informal "how was it for you" session with our scrutiny chairs to see how they think recent Task & Finish work has gone. But we are also looking at some form of self evaluation as part of our Annual Report in a few months, so I'd be ineterested in any proposed development of the framework Ed - are there any proposals to (for example) introduce any Results Based Accountability thinking into it?

[Kath Haydock]

Hi Ed,

We used the framework about 5 years ago now and developed an improvement plan as a result which we have monitored on a six monthly basis. It's now time to take another look, and to answer your earlier question I did find the exercise quite onerous due to its length although the results were helpful. Something a bit more concise might be helpful in achieving improved member engagement. I'd be interested to know your timetable for this as it could be helpful in our refresh.

Thanks,
Kath.

[Ed Hammond]

Thanks everyone, this is useful.

As it stands the Accountability Works For You framework can be used to carry out scrutiny evaluations, but in the next version of the methodology (published around the time of our annual conference) I need to make clearer exactly how this would work and provide more guidance.

[Earl Piggott-Smith]

The difficulty tends to be matching topics that members are interested in adding to a work programme and the topics identified through formal council process are not always the same.

It is important to find some topics that members are interested in first before moving onto other areas, which on first look would not bei something they would be interested in looking at.

You will also need to be careful to explain to a potentially wider audience the rationale for picking topics that come from using an evaluation framework.

[Tracey Tiff]

Hi

We have put in place plans to undertake the above this October/November and have peers from two Local Authorities doing mini peer reviews for us. I was wondering whether the updated self evaluation form would be available before October to use?

Many thanks

Tracy

Tracy Tiff
Scrutiny Officer
Northampton Borough Council
email ttiff@northampton.gov.uk