Contact: Emma Gordon x7567

e-mail: [email protected]

1. Summary and Purpose

1.1. A key recommendation of the Policy and Resources Select Committee's 2008 review of Hampshire County Council's scrutiny arrangements was a proposal to embark upon a programme of visits to Hampshire's district and borough councils to enable lead scrutiny Members to share work programmes and explore how local authorities in Hampshire may wish to take forward any preparatory work relating to the imminent regulations relating to county and district scrutiny functions.

1.2. This report summarises the feedback of Member visits to Hampshire's district and borough council scrutiny functions and recommends how further work can be undertaken to ensure preparedness for the impact of new regulations.

1.3. At the time of publishing this report, visits had been undertaken to 5 of Hampshire's 11 district and borough councils: Eastleigh, Fareham, Gosport, Test Valley and Winchester. Further visits are being scheduled for early 2009. This report provides an interim analysis of findings so far.

2. Introduction and background

2.1 The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 facilitates the appointment of joint overview and scrutiny committees comprising a county council and one or more district councils in a local area. These committees have powers to make reports and recommendations relating to the attainment of any local improvement targets specified in Local Area Agreements (LAAs). Furthermore, the Act contains provisions under which a district council may bestow on their overview and scrutiny committees the power to make reports and recommendations to the related county council, or that council's executive, which relate to any local improvement targets in the LAA.

2.2 The advent of Local Involvement Networks (LINks) is also of great interest to overview and scrutiny functions. It will be important that LINks' work complements the role of the elected member in overview and scrutiny, underlining the need for robust arrangements for partnership scrutiny to be put in place.

2.3 Hampshire's districts and boroughs welcomed the opportunity to discuss overview and scrutiny in the context of the changing landscape described above. Feedback from these conversations is summarised in the following paragraphs.

3. District perspectives on overview and scrutiny

3.1 As with the County Council, the districts and boroughs found that scrutiny needed some time to embed when it was first introduced. Identifying the best subjects to scrutinise continues to be a challenge, although where scrutiny has been focused and operated within a clear scope, it has proved to be very successful.

3.2 Most districts felt that it was important to keep scrutiny as non-political as possible and focused on improvement. Indeed, several examples of successful scrutiny of this type were showcased by the districts such as Gosport and Eastleigh Borough Councils' separate reviews of flooding and drainage.

3.3 Several districts highlighted the need for scrutiny to move away from routine monitoring of issues and reviewing Executive reports to more proactive selection of items for in-depth consideration. The desire to have more public involvement in scrutiny was also raised by some districts.

4. District scrutiny arrangements

4.1. All districts visited had variations on the theme of a principal scrutiny committee with themed sub-committees or panels. As at the County Council, the chairmanship of most district scrutiny committees is held by the majority political party. Gosport Borough Council - which is a `4^th option' council and follows a committee system - is the exception where the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the principal scrutiny committee are not from the majority party. In some instances, sub-groups or working groups are led by Members of non-majority parties.

4.2. Officer support and resources to scrutiny generally come from the democratic or committee services department of the organisation. In all cases, this support is not dedicated and forms part of the wider role of one or two democratic services officers. This contrasts with the County Council's resources of 4 dedicated scrutiny officers, although it was highlighted in several meetings that the size of the County Council and the breadth of its remit meant that this resource was required to perform the overview and scrutiny function effectively.

5. Approach to scrutiny in districts

5.1. The districts and boroughs undertake scrutiny exercises of varying types and scales, from routine monitoring of performance, to more in-depth questioning of witnesses, such as that undertaken by Winchester City Council in reviewing the reasons for flooding in the city's Tower Street car park. The level of officer support available often limits the volume and scale of work that Members are able to undertake. It was noted that districts sometimes feel frustration at having a lack of direct control or influence over relevant services and stakeholders, making it difficult for them to call other organisations to account or to invite evidence to select committee enquiries. This has limited the scope of some districts' work in the past.

5.2. When identifying subjects for scrutiny, most districts were confident that they responded to issues of concern in their local communities. Topic suggestions are derived from correspondence from the public, suggestions by Members of scrutiny committees - using their local knowledge to inform any proposal - and sometimes from suggestions by Executive members.

6. Joint scrutiny between the County Council and districts

6.1 There was generally good support for the idea of undertaking ad hoc joint enquiries between the County and one or more districts, although the concept of a `standing' joint committee met with less favour as Members felt that effective scrutiny should be timely and relevant, rather than steered by a programme of meetings. All districts and boroughs were mindful of the need for any topic selected for joint scrutiny to have the capacity to impact a significantly large geographical area or section of the population of Hampshire. It was also stressed that issues cutting across more than one organisation's remit would be of greatest interest, therefore suggesting that services delivered in multi-agency environments or by partnerships would be most relevant.

6.2 The performance of the Hampshire Local Area Agreement (LAA) was highlighted as being an important source of information for any joint scrutiny undertaken by districts and the County. It was acknowledged that, under the new Comprehensive Area Assessment regime, the need for all members in an area to focus on the achievement of good outcomes for Hampshire residents meant that members would need to cast their net of interest much wider than the services delivered by their own organisations.

6.3 Comments from some districts indicated that any County scrutiny activity focusing heavily on a district area should automatically involve district councillors on the scrutiny panel.

6.4 Topics suggested for possible joint scrutiny included the state of Hampshire's roads and pavements; Transport; cycle lanes; flooding and drain clearance; voluntary and community sector, with a particular focus on obtaining Criminal Records Bureau checks for volunteers.

6.5 The idea of an annual conference of district and County scrutiny members and officers was discussed at each visit. Such a conference would provide members with an opportunity to identify common themes for joint scrutiny. The performance of the Hampshire LAA and finding ways of testing accountability for strands of delivery within the LAA could be a key focus for such an event. Districts were of the view that such an event would be helpful.

6.6 Conclusions and Recommendations

6.7 Scrutiny is developing well in Hampshire and, in the light of new legislation and regulations relating to scrutiny, is ready to develop further to facilitate more joint working between the County Council and the districts and boroughs. The priorities and referral framework agreed by P&R Select Committee in October 2008 provides a useful starting point for discussions with districts and boroughs on this issue.

6.8 Further work is required to establish protocols for joint working and review how current resources for scrutiny can best be applied to joint scrutiny arrangements. Progress with developing joint working arrangements in Hampshire will need to be guided by forthcoming national regulations.

6.9 A greater focus on scrutinising partnerships and the performance of the Local Area Agreement has been raised as a priority. Early work is in hand to begin to identify the most effective way for partnerships to be scrutinised.

6.10 It is therefore recommended that:

1. The first Annual Conference of Hampshire scrutiny members and officers is convened before the County Council elections in June 2009, in order for Members to test the value of the priorities and referrals framework for aiding the identification of suitable topics for joint review as well as how local authorities in Hampshire could more effectively share information and feedback about the performance of services.

2. Proposals for developing joint working arrangements are explored with districts and boroughs once the regulatory framework is published.

3. Work to establish how Select Committees can most effectively scrutinise partnerships to influence and improve service delivery, or address matters of local concern is taken forward as part of the P&R Select Committee work plan for 2009/10.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

(Quote list of documents here: either "none" if 1 or 2 above apply; or list the relevant letters, memos, etc. and their location)