Let’s Catch Up!

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Let us catch up on everything that has happened since Local Government elections 2022 were held and what is to come for Scrutiny.

Council Annual General Meeting

Following the Council elections in May, the Council held its first AGM in June 2022. At this meeting the Leader of the Council was elected, and we found out who he appointed as Cabinet Members. The Scrutiny Programme Committee (SPC) also re-elected Cllr Peter Black as chair and Cllr Terry Hennegan as vice chair for the year 2022-2023.

Scrutiny Councillor Induction

As part of the Council’s Induction Programme for Councillors, we delivered sessions on Scrutiny to non-executive Councillors in June. This was an Introduction to Scrutiny which was new for many Councillors, but also acted as a refresher for returning Councillors.

Scrutiny Work Planning Conference

At the end of June 2022 we held the annual Scrutiny Work Planning Conference. The purpose of this meeting was to bring all non-executive Councillors together to identify topics and issues of concern for the SPC to consider when developing the annual work programme for scrutiny.

Members considered issues of public concern arising from the Scrutiny Public Engagement Survey, issues covered in the media as well as issues of strategic concern within the Council.

First SPC Meeting

The SPC held its first official meeting on 19 July 2022 to agree the Scrutiny Work Programme for 2022/23. The SPC agreed for the following scrutiny panels to be established:

• Inquiry Panel: Anti-Social Behaviour
• Performance Panels: Service Improvement & Finance, Education, Adult Services, Child & Family Services, Development & Regeneration, and Climate Change & Nature
• Working Groups: Road Safety, Co-production, Healthy City, and Customer Contact

Many issues of concern will be also picked up by the Committee which meets every 4 weeks and has its own work plan.

You can view details discussed at this meeting by clicking here.

What is next?

Now that the SPC has agreed which topics will be looked at and which Scrutiny Panels and Working Groups will be established, we will be getting scrutiny activity up and running again shortly.  Councillors will be choosing which Panels / Working Groups they wish to be a part of, with the membership of each then being agreed by the SPC in August. Performance Panels, which will be monitoring and challenging service delivery and performance, will be developing individual work plans based on their area of focus.