CfPS’ work programme for upcoming year

Last updated:25 March 2010

The CfPS Board and Advisory Board took place on 23 March - key events in CfPS existence as they involved agreeing our Business Plan for the next three years, setting our strategic aims and directions, and also agreeing a new constitution in preparation for our move to securing charitable status. Click here for more details on the latter, which is a very exciting development for CfPS as an organisation.
 
Our Business Plan sets CfPS programme of work objectives and activities. Key highlights include:

• Agreeing to develop a major research bid with academic partners to seek funding to evaluate the impact and development of overview and scrutiny in the 10 years since the passing of the 2000 Local Government Act. This would be a major project over two years carrying out quantitative analysis of CfPS Annual Surveys since 2004 and scrutiny functions' annual reports, as well as in-depth qualititative analysis through case study interviews and document reviews.  This piece of research will aim to fully understand the successes, barriers and - crucially - the impact of overview and scrutiny since its inception a decade ago. 
• Completing the final years of our Health Scrutiny Support Programme and Health Inequalities Scrutiny Programme and ensuring clear legacy and lasting impact from these programmes for health scrutiny. The Department of Health want us to work more closely with NHS partners to ensure they are on board with health scrutiny so this will form a new element to the HSSP.  Please click here for more information on this programme.
• Continuing to run an annual programme of events and publications - including our Annual Conference and Development Days - with a good mix of national, London-based events and regional practice-based events that offer support to practitioners on key areas.  These areas have been identified through our Annual Survey and other evidence of demand and need e.g. through our forum on the Scrutiny Exchange. Likely themes for the coming year include: Total Place, Scrutiny in a Cold Financial Climate, Scrutiny Project Management, Chairing and Scrutiny Leadership Skills for elected members, and Engaging the Public in Scrutiny. Views on whether these are the right areas to cover and suggestions for other topics are welcome and should be fed back to ed.hammond@cfps.org.uk as soon as possible.  There is still space in the programme for 2010-11 and we want to ensure we are providing relevant and timely support through our events and publications.
• Continuing to work closely with and support the IDeA in return for their contribution to our core staffing costs to provide specialist scrutiny inputs to assist peers and consultants, and contribute to their website and publications. We work particularly closely with the Local Democracy Team and are jointly planning work on how scrutiny can link to and benefit from academic research under the Local Authorities Research Councils Initiative (LARCI), Total Place and Equalities.
• Refreshing and developing our direct support available to councils through the Associates training and development offer, ensuring this is of the highest quality and delivered by the best experts available.
• Continuing to support and develop the National Scrutiny Network through our on-line and e-services, and the National Overview & Scrutiny Forum to enable regional scrutiny networks to network at national level and contribute to / influence policy and practice debates.

The above is simply a highlight of some of our major planned activities, and the Advisory Board were keen to stress that we will need to develop new projects using our newly acquired charitable status to access new sources of funding to support our work and objectives in the light of future public sector expenditure tightening. Everything could be different by 2011 and CfPS will need to plan a range of strategies and - in the words of one Board member - "find new friends", to ensure we are able to continue supporting scrutineers, albeit perhaps in new and different ways, in a new and harsher climate. Views welcome - please contact jessica.crowe@cfps.org.uk.

25 March 2010