[Matthew Garrard]

Ehammond Wrote:

• The police and crime panel seems much more obviously a "scrutiny" body. Although composition is, tellingly, not covered in the Bill, the detail on the PCP's powers and duties focuses on its scrutiny role. Added to that the fact that in London the PCP will be a part of the Assembly - which is a scrutiny body - and you have an extremely strong argument outside the capital that the PCP should be composed of non-exec cllrs, not Cabinet members. It may well be that more detailed guidance will be issued on this in due course (the legislation makes provision for this).
  

Q. When is an overview and scrutiny committee not an overview and scrutiny committee?

A. When its a Police and Crime Panel??

[Kate Spencer]

Membership of the Police and Crime Panel is detailed in Schedule 6 of the Bill. If a participating authority has a Mayor and Cabinet executive, the panel must include the Elected Mayor - so much for the well-put argument that the PCP should be a scrutiny function. The Government seem to be continuing to mix up executive and scrutiny roles as the Schedule goes onto to refer to the functions of the PCP as the "scrutiny" of four specific issues.

The Schedule also goes on the set out the support arrangements for the PCP which look suspiciously like the functions of a statutory scrutiny officer...