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If you are looking for information on scrutiny in a specific sector, please use the links in the scrutiny map on the homepage. Inevitably, some areas contain more detail than others. So, for example, under "local government" we can provide detailed information on essential reading and recommended web sites. Other areas, such as "transport" contain less information but will be updated as soon as it becomes available.
If you think some information is missing from the scrutiny map, please contact us and we will arrange to make it available.
Since its transfer from the IDeA Knowledge website, Oscar has been renamed "reviews". This is to reflect the increasing diversity of content from different scrutiny bodies: the title "Oscar", or "overview and scrutiny, authorities reviews" related to local government directly. In addition, our usability testing showed that people without prior knowledge of the service thought it was most like to refer to an awards ceremony.
The reviews section of the site is CfPS' national library of public scrutiny. You can browse reviews by subject or search for entries from specific types of organisation in different regions, etc. There is also a facility to upload examples of your own scrutiny work.
There is a variety of services available on this web site to help everyone involved in public scrutiny, including: a discussions forum; a national library of reviews; publications available for free download; and resources on the work undertaken in each sector.
CfPS also facilitates and participates in scrutiny events across the UK throughout the year. Increasingly, due to limited capacity, this happens more at regional and national levels, rather than locally. If you would like CfPS to take part in your event, please contact us. In addition, if you are holding an event and would like to publicise it via this website, please tell us about it.
We are keen to work with individual organisations to draw out cross- organisational and cross-sector learning. An example of where we have done this before is our work with Oxfordshire County Council on the role of scrutiny in the corporate planning process. If you are undertaking a specific piece of work that would be useful for the wider scrutiny community and would like to work on it with CfPS, please contact us.
If you have a question on a specific scrutiny issue, please post it in the discussions forum: if we can't answer it, hopefully someone else can.
Finally, if you have a specific question regarding the work of CfPS, please contact us.
