[norversus]

Is there any legislation or guidance about who should be chair and vice chair of (single tier local authority) overview and scrutiny committees?

How normal or acceptable is it for every chair and vice chair within a given council to be a member of the ruling political group?

In how many councils is every chair and vice chair a member of the ruling political group?

[Ed Hammond]

Short answer - no, and it's reasonably common (particularly in councils with a large majority) for both the chair and vc to be from the majority party on most, if not all, committees.

It's difficult to be hard and fast about these things - and it's by no means true (as some assume) that having a majority chair will prima facie make scrutiny less effective. Our Annual Surveys show no significant correlation between chairships and scrutiny's general effectiveness. The most important thing, irrespective of what party the chair is from, is that they understand the non-party political, and improvement-focused, objectives of the scrutiny function.

[norversus]

(23-01-2012 02:43 PM)Ed Hammond Wrote:  Short answer - no, and it's reasonably common (particularly in councils with a large majority) for both the chair and vc to be from the majority party on most, if not all, committees.

It's difficult to be hard and fast about these things - and it's by no means true (as some assume) that having a majority chair will prima facie make scrutiny less effective. Our Annual Surveys show no significant correlation between chairships and scrutiny's general effectiveness. The most important thing, irrespective of what party the chair is from, is that they understand the non-party political, and improvement-focused, objectives of the scrutiny function.

Thank you for your reply - which sounds authotitative but - for me - somewhat disappointing.

Surely, councils with a large majority would be far more credible and appear much less partisan if they allowed a representative sample of opposing parties to chair or vice chair scrutiny committees?

[Peter Marrington]

(23-01-2012 06:21 PM)norversus Wrote:  

(23-01-2012 02:43 PM)Ed Hammond Wrote:  Short answer - no, and it's reasonably common (particularly in councils with a large majority) for both the chair and vc to be from the majority party on most, if not all, committees.

It's difficult to be hard and fast about these things - and it's by no means true (as some assume) that having a majority chair will prima facie make scrutiny less effective. Our Annual Surveys show no significant correlation between chairships and scrutiny's general effectiveness. The most important thing, irrespective of what party the chair is from, is that they understand the non-party political, and improvement-focused, objectives of the scrutiny function.

Thank you for your reply - which sounds authotitative but - for me - somewhat disappointing.

Surely, councils with a large majority would be far more credible and appear much less partisan if they allowed a representative sample of opposing parties to chair or vice chair scrutiny committees?

In Leeds no matter how many Scrutiny Committees we have had, a proportion have been given to the opposition. This has happened under different administrations. Works well.

[Ed Hammond]

The Leeds approach is a common one. A number of councils assign chairs proportionately, or have all majority chairs, but all minority vice chairs, or a variation on this general theme.

Lest we forget, the House of Commons assigns chairs of Select Committees proportionately, so it is of course possible to make the argument that if this is considered effective practice in Parliament, similar principles should be followed in local authorities.

I agree entirely about the fact that giving chairs to the opposition enhances the credibility of the function and its appearance of independence, but it doesn't affect effectiveness per se.

[Licia Woodhead]

Here in Bradford we have 7 Committees, 6 of which have Chairs and Deputies from the opposition -although this could change next year!

[Gennie Holmes]

In Coventry we have 6 Boards, 5 of which have both Chair and Deputy from the majority group. The 6th has an opposition deputy chair. We also have a large majority on the Council.

[M Ewbank]

pg 213 onwards (of recent research - see pdf) gives 2010 figures for the proportions of chairs. Higher than I thought but not statistically significant - apart from by party (which is more of council balance significance, than a party political thing)

I had assumed that figures would be much lower for sharing chairs - but quite a lot compared to early CfPS research.

[Dave Mckenna]

The Welsh Government have legislated for this and from May onwards chairs must be at least proportional to Council - don't ask me about the calculation as you need that degree in council proportionality equations to undertand it...