Written evidence submitted by It’s Our County (Herefordshire) [OSG 124]
Introduction
Executive Summary
It’s Our County makes the following recommendations for the committee’s consideration:
In the opinion of the council’s Monitoring Officer the scrutiny function at Herefordshire Council is seriously defective. There are a number of factors which we cite in support of that professional view and which contribute to the scrutiny committees being far less effective than they should be:
1.1 For several years and until very recently the statutory scrutiny officer was also the council’s director of Economy, Community and Corporate. As GOSC is the committee responsible for overview and scrutiny of this directorate’s policies and decisions there was a clear conflict of interest in that senior officer’s two roles and functions. [see also 2.1 below]
1.2 The scrutiny officer should be a dedicated post, a member of the council Management Team and should report to Full Council. Reports from scrutiny committees should be a standing item on Full Council agendas.
1.3 The shortage of officer capacity – with no full-time scrutiny clerks - has led to a considerable reduction in the number of committee meetings and the loss of options to call any necessary extra meetings apart from a call-in of a decision. There is thus an increasingly embedded cultural expectation of limited time and capacity for scrutiny, affecting every aspect of committee work from the setting of work programmes to over-crowded agendas. [see also 7 below]
1.4 Budget cuts mean there is now no dedicated budget for scrutiny functions. One result of this is a severe constraint to the committees’ abilities to co-opt external members and to call external witnesses with entitlement to expenses incurred. For this and all necessary purposes scrutiny should have a ring-fenced budget adequate to its needs, and separate from other Democratic Services functions.
1.5 Whilst it is widely accepted by members and officers that scrutiny is a key part of the decision making process, the point in the process at which scrutiny takes place is often too close to the decision date and thus too late for recommendations to be given due consideration by the executive.
1.6 The reduction in scheduled meetings has led to a serious diminution of the overview function of the committees. Meaningful contributions to policy shaping have become the exception rather than the norm in the committees’ work programmes and operations.
1.7 The capacity for members to take part in scrutiny is limited by the scheduling of all meetings during working hours. This reduces the ‘talent pool’ available for appointment to scrutiny committees and thus the effectiveness of those committees. About half the members of the IOC group are of working age and in full-time employment; scheduled meeting times effectively prevent these members’ participation, unless their working conditions are sufficiently flexible or their employers unusually accommodating.
1.8 Insufficient distinction is made between member briefings on areas of policy or council responsibility and member training. Apart from some initial post-election training, generally only taken up by newly elected members and a single event during the previous 2011-15 administration, there have been no training events for chairs or members of scrutiny committees. This is a serious omission that has obviously limited the effectiveness of scrutiny.
1.9 Formerly it was the usual practice for scrutiny committees to hold a pre-meeting to identify questions and to apportion these among members. In the absence of a pre-meeting a small number of active members – not normally those from the administration - tend to ask the majority of questions. The chairs tend to compound the problem further by limiting the capacity of ‘active’ members to ask all the questions they may wish to, and are entitled to ask.
2.1 Herefordshire Council’s written evidence [OSG 101] omits to mention that for a considerable period until December 2016 the statutory scrutiny officer’s functions were undertaken by a senior director whose directorate and working relationship with at least two cabinet members was, in our view, a conflict of interest that severely compromised the objectivity of the scrutiny functions and political impartiality.
2.2 With political proportionality there is an inbuilt majority of administration members on the scrutiny committees: furthermore the current ruling group habitually operates a whip on policy decisions. This may account for the frequent absence of any contribution to debate and questioning by administration members, and often leads to recommendations proposed by other committee members being diluted or voted down.
2.3 The council’s constitution allows for cabinet support members to be appointed also as members of a scrutiny committee. We contend that this makes contestable any political impartiality from the executive on the part of those members, particularly as regards their own portfolio responsibilities.
3.1 Chairs and vice-chairs are elected at Annual Council. The majority ruling group can nominate candidates who, in its view, may be more malleable or sympathetic to their policy agenda and such candidates be elected on a block vote of that group. We contend that nominations and appointments should, in principle, be made primarily on the basis of a candidate’s ability to fulfil the roles concerned.
3.2 It is recognised nationally as good practice that, where numbers permit, both chair and vice-chair of a scrutiny committee should be opposition members. Whilst conceding this principle for the nomination of chairs the administration has, for several years persisted in the nomination and election of its own members as vice-chairs of each scrutiny committee. Vice-chairs will, from time to time, be called on to chair meetings and are also required by the constitution to be the default chairs of scrutiny Task and Finish groups.
3.3 Since local elections in May 2015 It’s Our County has been the largest opposition group but has failed to have any of its nominations for chair or vice-chair of scrutiny (or any other council committee) supported by the ruling group.
3.4 We support the proposal that, given the principles of good practice outlined in 3.1 and 3.2 above, councils should adopt the same practice as parliament for appointments to chairs of select committees: that these appointments are proportionate to the political balance of the council, and that furthermore they should be elected by secret ballot.
3.5 Ordinary members are selected by political groups according to proportionality. Our group chooses members – within the constraints as per 1.7 above - based on ability and commitment to undertaking the role with due diligence and responsibility.
4.1 Whilst powers to summon witnesses – officers or members – internal to the council are adequate and generally effective, as a consequence of budget cuts there is no longer a dedicated scrutiny budget. There are thus severe constraints in practice on the ability to summon witnesses external to the council with entitlement to any expenses incurred; furthermore it is not possible within budgetary constraints to call and pay for external expert advice.
4.2 Committees have the power to request – but not to require - external partner organisation representatives to attend meetings. In view of the catastrophic failures of scrutiny in local authority cases such as Rotherham and Mid-Staffordshire we urge the inquiry to strengthen the powers of councils to be able to require the attendance and involvement of representatives from partner organisations in the scrutiny function.
4.3 We recognise that the role of partner organisations and arms-length bodies in the delivery of services and shared responsibilities with councils has increased considerably in recent years, and that this trend is likely to continue. The ability and capacity of scrutiny to hold such partners and bodies to account is critical. This requires ongoing training for members and supporting officer staff of a kind which has been notably lacking in Herefordshire.
5.1 As a political group of elected councillors we fully recognise this key role of scrutiny, and that members are required to represent all their constituents. It is also vital that scrutiny members have consistently full regard for service users throughout the county, not merely the issues or priorities of their own wards.
5.2 To be fully realised this potential requires members to receive proper and ongoing training – as offered by the national Centre for Public Scrutiny – in, for example, how to interrogate committee reports objectively and how to question witnesses effectively.
6.1 Annex 1 of the written evidence from officers of Herefordshire Council [OSG 101] provides details of the process of scrutiny topic selection. Whilst it is not necessary to repeat this here it should be noted that in practice the procedure detailed in Annex 1 is all too often not observed, with the result that scrutiny undertaken tends to be only of the administration’s work programme rather than issues of strategic concern to the authority and the county as a whole.
6.2 As already noted [see 1.2 above] constraints on the number of meetings held, and thus the viable extent of the work programme, have restricted the range of selected topics. In these circumstances not all topics that would otherwise merit scrutiny are selected, and those which are do not always receive sufficient time and attention in meetings.
7.1 The officer team consists of the statutory scrutiny officer (currently also a key Democratic Services manager) and a clerk to each committee. These clerks are not ‘dedicated’ to scrutiny, as misleadingly stated by Herefordshire Council in OSG 101, but have the scrutiny role as part of their overall job specification.
7.2 Political leaders and senior officers all support the scrutiny function though understanding of its role, scope and potential varies. The current Leader and cabinet members do not attend meetings as a matter of course, and their response to scrutiny recommendations ranges from the diligent and responsible to the sometimes whimsical and cavalier.
8.1 Insufficient such use is made. As noted [see 4.3 and 5.2 above] training for members is entirely inadequate and external advisors could play a significant role in this. There is a wide range of relevant professional expertise available in the county, let alone beyond, but regrettably this is all too rarely recognised or engaged in scrutiny functions.
9.1 Herefordshire Council is at an early stage in its progress towards any devolution deal. Scrutiny, though the work of a Task and Finish group due to report in May, has been engaged in considering the authority’s involvement in membership of the West Midlands Combined Authority; at present the council is a non-constituent member with ‘observer’ status only.
10.1 The written evidence submission from Herefordshire Council officers [OSG 101] gives an example of scrutiny but without specifying whether in their view this ‘case study’ is an instance of “where scrutiny has worked well” or “not so well”.
10.2 In this example, and in another piece of scrutiny on ‘Short breaks and respite for teenagers with complex needs’, we contend that whilst scrutiny itself “worked well” the decision outcomes did not meet policy, and that implementation promises made by the council and the administration have not been realised.
10.3 In the case of the ‘Smallholdings’ cited in OSG101 an external consultants’ report, requested by General Overview and Scrutiny committee, critical to its own work and that of a confidential Task and Finish Group set up by the committee, was only made available in an almost entirely redacted form, beyond any criteria of “commercial confidentiality”, that included redaction of all the report’s recommendations. Following an EIR request from the National Farmers Union and after the cabinet decision to sell the entire estate - contrary to both the consultants’ and GOSC’s own independently reached recommendations - the council eventually released a substantially less redacted version of the report at the behest of the Information Commissioner’s Office.
10.4 The withholding of information germane to its functions from the scrutiny process was contrary to the requirements of the law and the council’s constitution on Access to Information; and, it is our contention, rendered the cabinet decision unsound and unlawful. It’s Our County will continue to pursue this breach of due process internally to the council, and will be considering requests for an investigation by the office of the Local Government Ombudsman or the National Audit Office.