Overview & Scrutiny at Northamptonshire County Council James Edmunds Democratic Services Assistant Manager & Statutory Scrutiny Officer [email protected].

Overview & Scrutiny at Northamptonshire County

Council

James EdmundsDemocratic Services Assistant

Manager & Statutory Scrutiny Officer

[email protected]

Northamptonshire

• 692,000 population

• 7 district / borough councils; 2 CCGs; 2 acute hospitals; Northamptonshire Police and Fire & Rescue services

• Not just “the county of spires and squires”

• Economy: logistics, food and drink, high-performance engineering

Northamptonshire County Council• 57 councillors (boundary review in 2012)

• Conservative majority (35), with Labour (11), Lib Dems (6), UKIP (3) and independents (2)

• £1,116m revenue budget (£489m DSG)

• 4,695 staff members

• Service partnerships: LGSS, Northamptonshire Highways, Olympus Care

Overview & Scrutiny at NCC (1)• 4 x O&S committees:

- Children, Learning & Communities

- Environment, Development & Transport

- Finance & Resources

- Health, Adult Care & Wellbeing

• 1 x Scrutiny Management Committee made up of Chairs and Deputy Chairs

Overview & Scrutiny at NCC (2)• 10 councillor members per O&S

committee

• Additional voting and non-voting co-optees involved in education and health scrutiny

• Chairs and deputies allocated proportionally

• 4 x meetings of each O&S committee per year

• O&S reports presented to Cabinet

• Supported by Councillor Development activity

Working Methods

• Scrutiny reviews

• Contributing to in-depth work led by Cabinet Members, service officers or partners

• Set-piece scrutiny of policy and performance

• Others: monitoring, off-agenda briefings, visits

• Co-operation: Healthwatch; Young Leaders; joint scrutiny

• Engagement: webcasting and social media

Officer support

• Based in Democratic Services

• Now 2.5 FTE from 5 officers

• NCC support officers have always provided both ‘scrutiny’ and ‘committee’ support

• Good working relationships with directorates

Scrutiny work in 2014/15

• Scrutiny review of apprenticeships in progress

• Scrutiny review of bus services just reported

• Pre-decision scrutiny of key policies and projects: Care Act implementation; future provision of school transport

• Monitoring service performance: children’s social care; podiatry service changes; EMAS; education outcomes

• Budget Scrutiny Review

Call-In

• Requires 8 councillors, from more than one group, including an O&S Chair or Deputy

• Call-ins go to Scrutiny Management Committee

• In numerical terms:

- 1 call-in so far in 2014/15

- Average of 1.5 call-ins per year

- 12 call-ins since 2004/05 resulting in 2 decisions being referred back

O&S over the years (1)

• 2001-2006: 7 x O&S committees, with

thematic remits

• 2006-2008: 4 x O&S committees, with

remits aligned to Local Area

Agreement blocks

• 2007/08: Cross-Party Review of O&S

• 2008-11: 4 x O&S committees, with (different) thematic

remits

• 2011- : Current structure

O&S over the years (2)

Previous areas of debate and change:

• Finance scrutiny

• Central co-ordination

• Lead scrutiny councillor role

• Size of scrutiny committees

No current drive to move to a smaller permanent committee structure.

Current challenges

• May you live in interesting times: more issues meriting scrutiny requires more prioritisation

• Getting a good balance between wholly O&S-led work and joint work with decision-makers

• Looking at how O&S fits in effectively with other local oversight and inspection processes

• How O&S fits in with national developments concerning scrutiny of public services