The second term of BCP Council provides the “ideal opportunity for a full reset” of the local authority’s overview and scrutiny work, a senior officer has said.
The role, remit and responsibilities of overview and scrutiny committees rumbled throughout the first four years of the council.
Last year, a change of structure was introduced with the removal of the overview and scrutiny board.
A move was also made to reduce the number of meetings for each committee per year.
The annual overview and scrutiny report by specialist officer Lindsay Marshall “strongly” advises that any move to increase the frequency of meetings should be met with increased officer resource.
This in turn could impact on the “ambitious” aim of delivering the action plan set out in the report to next week’s place and overview scrutiny committee meeting.
Ms Marshall’s report says in the past four years 40 additional meetings were called, which was 47 per cent more than those originally scheduled.
The past year still saw the meetings 30 per cent above those programmed.
Overview and scrutiny has operated in a “uniquely challenging environment” since the council was created, Ms Marshall’s report said.
The report said: “The organic challenge that comes with a finely balanced political makeup has meant that many of the decisions made by the cabinet over the period covered by this report have been subject to significant levels of scrutiny under both political leaderships and this style of pre-decision scrutiny has dominated the work programmes of some committees over this period.”
The findings of the Local Government Association peer challenge for BCP Council were published in April last year.
Reviewers said: “Overview and scrutiny is not consistently adding value and needs to be reset to deliver on its purpose of ensuring that the council is open, transparent, accountable and delivers improved policy and services.”
The action plan has been produced after reviewing areas of weakness and improvement in the existing arrangements.
It has considered a letter from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities issued in September and it has been formulated against Government guidance, Ms Marshall's report says.
It features a wide range of proposed actions, including overview and scrutiny chairs to be opposition members.
Before this month’s local elections two of the four chairs were part of the Conservative Group, which was running the council as a minority administration.
Other planned actions include reducing the level of cabinet decision scrutiny to free up capacity for more overview work as well as focused new councillor and refresher training.
Executive members and overview and scrutiny chairs will also be asked to consider the value for BCP Council in preparing an executive-scrutiny protocol to assist in handling of issues where there is disagreement.
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