Supporting Public Scrutiny: Understanding and developing the role of the professional scrutiny officer
Final report of a two year research project into the developing role of the professional scrutiny officer.
This report of a two year research study, carried out by Warwick Business School and CfPS, provides the first ever in-depth analysis of how the role of the officers who support lay scrutineers has changed in recent years. We found that while the concept of public scrutiny is a contested one - and many officers whom we interviewed initially did not see their role as being to support - there are common themes and experiences amongst those who work in public scrutiny in different contexts.
The report includes a literature review, development of a conceptual framework within which to analyse the different roles of scrutiny support officers in different public scrutiny contexts, and analysis of fieldwork interviews with over 60 scrutiny officers across a wide range of sites at local, regional and national level. At the end we make some recommendations for how the role of the professional scrutiny support officer can be further developed and supported in future.
A companion report by the Work Psychology Partnership as part of the same project, which provides a suggested competency framework and analysis of training needs for scrutiny officers, is also available here to download.