To coincide with the launch of the i-pad today I’d like to reveal our own piece of state of the art technology: the r-Board.
Let me tell you about this very important piece of kit.
The r-Board helps us keep track of the reviews that the overview & scrutiny boards are working on. It goes like this:
Once a review is completed (this can take many months),a report is finalised (Fin), it goes to Cabinet (Cab) after which an action plan (AP) is reported back to the overview & scrutiny board by the the cabinet member. Six months after that a further follow up report (FU) details progress and, if necessary, one further follow up report might be asked for. 
As you might be able to see, this deluxe model comes with a spellcheck and a refresh button (top right) although my almost completely illegible white board writing renders these functions pretty much obsolete.
At the moment we have:
- Eight reviews that have been to Cabinet and are being followed up
- Two ready to go to Cabinet
- Four waiting to be finalised
There is plenty of space on our r-Board which is good because the new boards haven’t told us what reviews they want to start work on yet….
You can see all the published reports at our overview & scrutiny pages or on the Centre for Public Scrutiny Website which has a mammoth searchable collection of overview & scrutiny reviews from across the UK.
We use a siilar type of technology in our team! The GN-Board publicises all the little bits of good news that we are proud of (and want visitors to our office to know about), but not big enough to go overboard with press releases, award submissions and the like. It’s partly serious and partly not-so-serious, but is a good way of keeping positive through the darker times!
Great stuff. This could be the start of a company to rival Apple!