Written evidence submitted by an Officer from a London Borough [OSG 091]

 

Introduction

 

I am a Democratic Services Officer with over eight years’ experience in this service at Barking and Dagenham Council and make this submission in a personal capacity. The reason I make this submission is because I wish to use my experience in local government scrutiny to contribute to the Committee’s inquiry, which I hope will influence change in local government scrutiny so that it can demonstrably achieve the Centre for Public Scrutiny’s four principles of good scrutiny:

  1. Provides ‘critical friend' challenge to executive policy-makers and decision makers
  2. Enables the voice and concerns of the public to be heard
  3. Is carried out by ‘independent minded governors' who lead and own the scrutiny role
  4. Drives improvement in public services.

 

I have referred to as many of the points in the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference as my experience allows.

 

Executive summary

 

 

Main Submission

 

  1. In the local authority I work for, there are five standing select committees, as listed below, with no ‘overarching’ scrutiny committee, although the Public Accounts and Audit Select Committee attempts to undertake this role occasionally, as it comprises the Chairs of the all the select committees (as well as other members):

 

 

  1. I currently support the CSSC and the HASSC, and have previously supported the SSCSC; the opinions in this submission reflect the general effectiveness of scrutiny in these committees, and to a lesser extent, the others.

 

  1. The Authority has been operating, for a number of years, a model whereby designated senior officers act as ‘scrutiny champions’ to the above committees. For example, (until last year), the Corporate Director of Children’s Services acted as the scrutiny champion for the CSSC and the Corporate Director of Adult and Community Services acted as the scrutiny champion to the HAASC. (These posts have subsequently been ‘merged’ under the new post of ‘Strategic Director for Service Development and Integration’, with the scrutiny champion role for both committees being delegated to other senior officers within that directorate). The scrutiny champion’s role includes supporting the committee with finalising its work programme for the municipal year, and includes directing departmental officers to produce the scoping report for the area the Committee will undertake an ‘in-depth’ scrutiny review on in that year.  As the same officers provide direct support to the executive, one can immediately see the defect in this model – officers supporting the scrutiny function are not independent of, and separate from, those being scrutinised. There are attempts by some scrutiny champions to mitigate this; for example, at the start of the municipal year, prior to the select committees agreeing upon an area of ‘in-depth scrutiny’, to be undertaken in that year, some scrutiny champions have put forward a range of three topics to choose from, with the select committee ultimately deciding which topic to take forward. However, the point remains that in this officer support model, scrutiny is not independent of, and separate from, those being scrutinise. The credibility of a function which should be ‘led by independent people who take responsibility for their role’ is therefore undermined, as it is virtually inevitable that at some point, officers will face a ‘conflict of outcomes’.

 

  1. In this Authority’s Democratic Services, there is no dedicated scrutiny team; officers who support other committees (such as quasi-judicial ones) also support the scrutiny function. This is because of the reduction in the size of the Service over time, as part of the Authority’s budget reductions.  In light of this, and if going on the presumption that this is unlikely to change significantly in the near future, drawing on the expertise of senior officers to help make the right decisions as to which areas should form part of the work programme, should remain an option. However, the difference should be that the option is exercised by the select committee commissioning a report to provide that advice, if required, rather than the advice (as to which topics should be scrutinised) being the starting point of the select committee’s decision.

 

  1. The issue of resources for scrutiny overlaps with this issue of ensuring organisational independence of scrutiny. As dedicated scrutiny resources have diminished over time, it has led to an arrangement where the scrutiny officer and scrutiny champion provide generic support, and usually, a departmental group manager, whose responsibilities most closely relate to the issue under in-depth review, provides additional support, to bring some expertise input into scrutiny. Group managers and often their directors, draft the scoping report, (methodology) for the in-depth scrutiny review, present information on the chosen subject matter, identify and facilitate meetings with relevant stakeholders and undertake further research. Whilst a group manager’s input into the scrutiny of external organisations and issues can be crucial, and unproblematic, where the service being scrutinised is internal, it goes back to the issue of organisational independence of scrutiny, discussed above.  For example, an in-depth scrutiny into local eye care services by the HASSC in 2014 was supported by the Council’s Group Manager for Intensive Support and was relatively straightforward in relation to ensuring impartiality, as the Group Manager was not the subject of the scrutiny. On the other hand, the CSSC’s current in-depth review into the Council’s Adoption Scorecard Performance has been supported by the Group Manager for Looked after Children, Adoption and Prevention Services, which would raise questions relating to impartiality in the mind of an external observer.  Whilst these arrangements are an effort to support the scrutiny function (because without them, undertaking in-depth scrutiny reviews, would be near-impossible) the situation is sub-optimal because a group manager’s priority, is to run their service, not to provide ongoing advice and support to the scrutiny function. One can also see the problems these arrangements would present for this Group Manager if, for example, the CSSC choose to review services for looked after children in the next municipal year, an area which also falls under her responsibilities. These arrangements result in the quality of the methodology of in-depth scrutiny reviews being compromised as the departments do not have the capacity to support complex or thorough methods for evidence gathering, and therefore, the outcomes of the investigations are often weak. The last two scrutiny reviews undertaken by the HASSC (eye care and cancer prevention), have generally not included in the methodology, meetings with the commissioners, providers or users of the relevant services, with most of the evidence being provided by the Council’s Public Health team.  In recent years, I have observed that towards the end of scrutiny reviews, officers have come to realise this and in an attempt to address it, have undertaken intense further work before the scrutiny report is finalised. This is not in keeping with the principle that scrutiny should be carried out by ‘independent minded governors' who lead and own the scrutiny role and is a ‘poor return’ on investment into scrutiny reviews.

 

  1.                                                                                                                             Due to the lack of resources, scrutiny reviews can only make a minimal effort to ‘enable the voice and concerns of the public to be heard’. For example, the Adoption review’s terms of reference included speaking to those involved in the scrutiny process to help improve the service; however, only two interviews - one with an adopter and another with an adoptee - were included in the methodology; not enough to form a true picture of the service. (Those selected to speak with committee to fulfil these terms of reference, were selected by the Adoption service, thereby also raising questions of impartiality). Similarly, the HASSC, in undertaking its scrutiny review into cancer prevention, only spoke with one person about their cancer journey.

 

  1. These challenges can be rectified by introducing a discrete, more substantial, scrutiny budget so that outside and independent expertise can be brought in to inform the committee and its outcomes, and more resources can be put towards scrutiny engaging with the public. There are some efforts to bring in expert advice into in-depth reviews, but they are not enough; for example, the CSSC heard from Professor Julie Selwyn, an expert in the field of adoption, as part of its in-depth review; however, the session with her provided the  Committee with an overview of the topic, as opposed to the Committee members spending ‘quality’ time with her to obtain ongoing, expert advice on how to conduct the scrutiny in a way that would lead to a thorough understanding of the local context, the right challenge and recommendations to improve services. The scrutiny budget, which is ‘hidden’ under the Democratic Services budget would not have been sufficient to achieve this.

 

  1. Whilst Parliamentary select committees have come to be well-regarded, local government scrutiny has yet to achieve this level of credibility both internally and externally. Barking and Dagenham has been, since the 2010 local elections, a one-party authority (with the exception of a very small minority of councillors who deflected) but it is still open to politically partisan influences and it has not demonstrated the ability to produce member-led, expert, evidence-based reports.

 

  1. After the 2014 elections, the authority saw an increase in the number of call-ins. Call-in, therefore, may be viewed as a disruptive tool by the executive. If it is used in this way, it has the potential to tar the executive’s perception of all scrutiny work programmes, leading to less engagement between the two, and scrutiny being alienated. A pre-decision scrutiny tool, that allows sufficient time to consider a ‘key decision’ in public, before it is taken, (if certain prescribed conditions are met) that is enshrined in legislation, should be introduced to replace call-in.

 

  1. The Barking and Dagenham Council Constitution includes, in the remit of all select committees, external scrutiny, policy development, holding to account, performance management, and in-depth scrutiny reviews. This means there is potential for the select committees to take a ‘scatter-gun’ approach and, as a result, not have enough impact or not prioritise the right issues. Hence, it can be difficult for the executive to pay attention to scrutiny because its role has become ambiguous. In this authority, scrutiny meetings are therefore, typically between scrutiny members and senior officers where the temptation to ask questions to simply learn more about a subject-matter is greater than if the cabinet member had also attended. This habit was manifested by the Safer and Stronger Community Select Committee a few years ago, when it recurrently made the issue of anti-social behaviour the subject of a number of its in-depth scrutiny reviews.  The Council’s Member Development Officer, together with Democratic Services Officers, do arrange training for scrutiny members when opportunities arise; but this has proved insufficient as members infrequently display the required level of listening and questioning skills to make scrutiny impactful. Too many discussions at meetings are based on requests for more information, without expressing why it is required or how it will facilitate good scrutiny. This is slowly starting to change, as cabinet members are more frequently attending scrutiny meetings, and may lead to a shift away from discussions of this nature towards ones which aim to hold decision-makers to account more directly.

 

  1. Barking and Dagenham, like many other authorities, is in the process of undertaking a holistic service transformation exercise, as a result of budget reductions, which will result in the largest change to the Authority’s services in decades. Whilst, these plans are likely to have been to party group meetings, they have not been included in the scrutiny work programmes; a far cry from the radical vision in the CfPS’s publication, ‘The Change Game’, whereby scrutiny is involved from the outset of transformation plans.

 

  1. Chairs and members are selected via the party group process. As the select committee Chair (a two-year appointment in this Authority) plays a crucial role in setting the direction for their Committee, raising its profile and being outcome-led, the selection process should be based on their skills and experience and a commitment to attend all relevant meetings regularly.

 

  1. In my experience, the HASSC, has on a number of occasions demonstrated, effective scrutiny of external organisations; NHS commissioners and providers. For example, in 2015, the local Clinical Commissioning Groups proposed changes to stroke services, which would amount to ‘substantial variations’ in service, triggering a formal 12 week (statutory) consultation with the health scrutiny functions of the affected local authorities. The HASSC via its representations was able to act as a ‘critical friend’; see below extracts from its official response to the consultation:

 

“The Committee commends the CCGs for producing a comprehensive consultation document which provides members of the public with clear information about stroke, the case for changing the way stroke rehabilitation services are offered, the different options being considered by the CCGs, and their potential impacts.

 

“The CCGs’ representatives informed us that the current offer under the Early Supported Discharge service was five days a week, for up to six weeks. The issue of seven day working in the NHS is a topical one and we would encourage the CCGs to use this service reconfiguration as an opportunity to put this into practice as we believe it is in the best interests of our residents. However, in the event that the CCGs ultimately opt to continue the “five days a week” model, we strongly feel that the offer must be entirely flexible.”

 

  1. A further example of effective scrutiny by the HASSC is when it held the Chief Executive of the local hospitals Trust to account on its performance on referral to treatment times (it had emerged that large numbers of patients had been waiting more than 52 weeks on the elective referral to treatment pathway). Effective questions were asked by HASSC members, including whether the Trust had deliberately provided inaccurate data on waiting times to the Care Quality Commission as part of its inspection of the Trust, whether the Trust had a conflict of interest when it came to advising patients that they could receive treatment elsewhere, and how it came to the view that no one had suffered harm as a result of the waiting times.

 

  1. The reason why scrutiny of health services is more of a success than other areas of scrutiny can perhaps be attributed to the fact that health scrutiny has specific legislative powers, including the right to refer proposals which may substantially vary services to the Secretary of State for Health. This, together with guidance on how to interpret statutory provisions published by the Department of Health, gives health scrutiny more ‘teeth’ and a bigger public profile.

 

  1. However, the Francis report has led to a bigger spotlight on health scrutiny with the expectation that the Care Quality Commission should expand its work with overview and scrutiny committees and that health scrutiny will work more closely with local Healthwatch organisations. However, no extra resources have been dedicated to scrutiny in the Authority to reflect these change, which may affect its ability to fully carryout its functions going forward.

 

 

March 2017