Agenda item

To consider making a recommendation to Full Council to formally adopt the proposed Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny Protocol as part of the Council’s Constitution.

The Cabinet Member for Corporate Governance and Licensing introduced the report.

The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny conducted a review of the Council’s overview and scrutiny function, further to which an action plan based upon recommendations from the review was developed.  The Governance and Audit Committee endorsed the action plan at its meeting on 28 September 2022.    The Monitoring Officer presented the report, informing that one of the recommendations from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny was the development and publication of a Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny Protocol, setting out the relationship between the two functions and associated roles and responsibilities. 

A draft Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny Protocol had been developed, taking into account the content of the Council’s Cabinet Procedure Rules and Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules, as well as good practice from other authorities.  The Protocol set out the relationship between the Council’s Cabinet and its Overview and Scrutiny Committees, including the processes that both bodies followed, where they were to interact with each other and how they expected the other to conduct itself.

During discussion, Members raised the following points:

·            A Member queried reference within the protocol wwhich seemingly indicated a legal right of the Council to review and scrutinise the performance of other appropriate public bodies.

·            The Deputy Leader encouraged Members to look outside the walls of the Authority and informed Members that he welcomed valuable contribution from external sources as part of the scrutiny procedure.

·            There were organisations such as the NHS where the Local Authority had an essential role in the decision-making process as consultees.

·            More effective work programming was to be considered when submitting decisions to Cabinet to allow sufficient scrutiny.

The Monitoring Officer confirmed that the list of responsibilities included in the protocol was from the Terms of Reference for the Overview and Scrutiny Committees in the Council’s Constitution.  In the case of joint partnership collaboration, it was appropriate that performance of public bodies be scrutinised, particularly where that work was in relation to residents effected by the services offered. The emphasise with these organisations was that they would be invited to contribute to a scrutiny review as opposed to the Committee having any legal right to demand their participation.

At least once a year the Council was under an obligation for one of its Overview and Scrutiny Committees to consider crime and disorder. The Council used this opportunity to invite a senior representative from the Police to conduct a question and answer session with all Councillors at the designated Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Officer continued that effective agenda-setting from the Chairman and senior officers would enable sufficient time to scrutinise decisions, adding that both Key Decisions and Non-Key Decisions were to be included on the Cabinet Forward Plan which offered greater transparency than solely including Key Decisions.

It was proposed, seconded and AGREED that the Governance and Audit Committee:

Recommended to Full Council to adoption of the Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny Protocol as part of the Council’s Constitution under Part 5 (Codes of Protocols).