Stronger scrutiny in the South West
Final report of the South West Scrutiny Development Project 2008-11
The South West Scrutiny Development Project was funded by the South West Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership and delivered by the Centre for Public Scrutiny, the Improvement and Development Agency and South West Councils.
The project team coordinating the regional activities over the life of the project were David Bowater, Nerissa Shepherd, Laura Mansell and Tom Oswald (SW Councils), Andrew Winfield (IDeA) and Ann Reeder (CfPS) with input from Jodie Townsend (Swindon Council and a member of the Officer Network).
The main elements of the Project were:
· Two Scrutiny Leadership Academies for chairs of overview and scrutiny
· The development of a regional overview and scrutiny members’ network alongside and jointly with the officers’ network
· Two surveys on scrutiny activity in the region at the beginning and end of the Project
· Support over one year for an Action Learning Set to develop scrutiny across the county and district councils in Gloucestershire
· A one day Action Learning Set for unitary councils in the region
· Support for a joint review conducted by the district councils in Somerset
· Guidance and publications placed on the website of South West Councils and through a regional database through Huddle
· Five reviews of the scrutiny function in particular local authorities.
Scrutiny Leadership Academies
A Scrutiny Leadership Academy was held in Bristol in March 2010 and in Bath in July 2010 for Chairs of Overview and Scrutiny. The programme aimed to build the confidence and ambition of Scrutiny Chairs to enable them to meet the challenges posed by the new agendas in Overview and Scrutiny, support networking across the region so that more authorities might work jointly to scrutinise common issues and challenges, build skills as leaders and chairs through practical exercises and group work and enable chairs to understand and develop their own leadership styles and preferences.
Both events were fully subscribed and well received with many ideas and experience shared and skills developed.
Regional scrutiny networks
In the south west region, there already had been a successful regional officers’ network, but there hadn’t been a members’ network for overview and scrutiny.
This was established through the Project, enabling members and officers to meet on the same day four times a year to share a regional round-up of scrutiny structures, changes and reviews, then jointly to receive presentations, learn from good practice and participate in workshops. Nearly every authority in the region sent at least an officer or a member, and many sent both on a regular basis. Meetings were held in Bridgwater, Bristol, Exeter, Taunton (twice) and Weston-Super-Mare. Most authorities participated through presentations, contributions in sessions or input to workshops.
The Members’ Network chair was Cllr Andrew Gravells of Gloucestershire County Council and its vice-chair was Cllr Kate Haigh of Gloucester City Council. The Officers’ Chair was Stephen Taylor (Swindon) with Jodie Townsend (Swindon) or Simon Harper (Gloucestershire) stepping in as cover from time to time.
The normal format was parallel sessions of members and officers from 10 am for an hour long regional round-up, followed by presentations and case studies at a joint session before lunch, concluding with a joint workshop until 3 pm. The preferred meeting day of Friday.
At the final meeting of the networks during the Project, it was unanimously agreed to continue the joint Network meetings incorporating parallel sessions. South West Councils agreed to undertake the administration. Local authorities agreed to offer a complementary venue with basic hospitality. Simon Harper (Gloucestershire) was elected as the chair of the officers’ network with Ros (Cheltenham) and Jaine Fitzpatrick (Bournemouth) as vice-chairs, thus meeting the agreed requirement that the three officer positions include a representative from a county, district and unitary.
Surveys
Participants at the first Leadership Academy for Scrutiny Chairs in the South West suggested a survey should be conducted early on in the project to find out what was happening in scrutiny, so that the development programme could be tailored to meeting needs and filling gaps in the region. A further survey was held at the conclusion of the Project to gain a snapshot of scrutiny in the region and to identify the changes that had been effected through the Project.
Comments made in the survey included the opportunity the networks afforded “to put a face to a name, the continued contact and collaboration and the useful sharing of ideas and contacts.
As a result of support for the continuation of the networks, participants welcomed the sustained opportunity to share experiences with other scrutiny officers, to hear case examples of reviews as it is a good way of learning, to keep up to date with reviews underway and to learn from good practice. It also is seen as invaluable continued personal development for overview and scrutiny members and officers.
Action Learning Sets:
a) Gloucestershire
Using real situations, two Associates of the Centre for Public Scrutiny worked with Gloucestershire to run a joint officer and member action learning set. The county and district scrutiny officers and members in Gloucestershire already had made connections through joint reviews, a conference, a DVD and joint training using a theatre company, and had requested support to develop this joint working.
At the first meeting, participants introduced themselves, learnt about action learning, committed themselves to that approach, briefed each other on scrutiny on each authority, and tackled a particular challenge of wider interest. Subsequent meetings included an update from each authority, followed by a particular focus. The set worked on real problems and issues that they were each facing in their authorities and developed solutions together, learning from each other as much as from the facilitators. Topics covered were 1) learning the lessons of the Comprehensive Area Assessment and identifying how scrutiny can play a role tackling any red flag issues or preparing for future assessments, 2) budget scrutiny and 3) the opportunities for scrutiny through Total Place and community budgets.
At the end of the ALS meetings that had been supported through the Project, a district member and county officer gave a presentation to the regional networks on the Gloucestershire experience, commending the approach and sharing their learning. The seven Gloucestershire authorities have committed to continuing to meet regularly and elected a chair from a district and a vice-chair from the county, with officer support and hospitality being provided by the county.
b) Unitaries
An action learning set was held at Dennett House, Taunton on19 July 2011 for unitary authorities in the region. A member and officers participated, introducing information about their structures and ways of working, then bringing a particular topic to the set for a discussion of the problem and suggestions for solutions.
Topics covered included engaging directors and cabinet; the opportunities for scrutiny of services across local authority boundaries; monitoring the impact of overview and scrutiny and ensuring follow up; involving stakeholders and witnesses; and the means to demonstrate the value of overview and scrutiny.
Participants welcomed the opportunity to meet together to share experience, to reflect on immediate challenges, to discuss ways to address each of them and jointly to find ways to address the concerns and find solutions to problems. It was agreed to be a useful approach that could form part of the programme for future network meetings.
c) Somerset District Councils
District councils in Somerset undertook some development work in 2009, out of which they decided that they needed to review the operation of the Choice Based Lettings scheme across the county. A number of workshops were held to scope the project, leading to the organisation of a joint review. South Somerset members and an officer coordinated the project, with support from a CfPS Associate.
Two joint meetings were held to plan and review the research and evidence – on 26 January 2010 and 27 April 2010. Five theme groups were set up to cover statistics and bench-marking, policy, consultation, web and publications and telephone bidding. Tasks were allocated including testing the advertising, evaluating the councils’ own advertising and web pages for the HfS scheme, researching the information provided by the RSLs, reviewing the documentation from Homefinder Somerset including the application form, guidance notes and the lettings policy, researching the statistics and key indicators such as void times, visiting area offices and using the online application form for a ‘customer’ experience, testing the banding criteria, looking at customer satisfaction surveys, talking to customers and those who had not registered, consulting with a range of advice agencies and others, and bench-marking the service against successful authorities.
Homefinder Somerset was briefed at the beginning of the review and was supportive of the exercise. The report and recommendations were presented to the HfS Board, of which 95% were accepted, the majority of which could be implemented almost immediately at little cost.
The shared experience of the review of choice based lettings was presented by two members of South Somerset to the regional network. The project was written up and has been prepared as a web-based guide to conducting a review. Lessons were learnt from the review by the participating councils, and they have agreed to conduct a further joint review, this time on partnerships.
Guidance and publications
Materials were drafted for the pages of the South West Councils website, focusing on overview and scrutiny. Members were invited to share practical examples of good practice and learning, as well as reports, such as an induction DVD and a training DVD and manual.
Uploading of documents on structures and reviews by local authorities onto the Huddle workspace was encouraged as it was useful at Network meetings during the regional round-up for members and officers to be able to ask each other questions about particular pieces of work or reorganisation of the overview and scrutiny functions. A discussion forum was set up using Huddle, and members and officers were invited to submit views, ideas, templates, resources and updates on their reviews and structures.
Following a network meeting’s workshop that covered scrutiny of preparedness for extreme weather, members and officers were encouraged to contribute to a discussion group on the theme on Huddle and to upload their own reviews.
Scrutiny reviews
A number of authorities in the region were keen to develop scrutiny’s capacity and performance. The Self-Evaluation Framework of the Centre for Public Scrutiny was used in three authorities to enable evaluation, review and challenge to identify barriers and what needs to change to improve scrutiny practice, and IDeA used their scrutiny peer review techniques in two other authorities. Peer reviews were held in Taunton Deane and Torbay (IDeA) and Scrutiny reviews in East Dorset, North Somerset and South Hams (CfPS).
Reviews typcially included a preliminary survey of key stakeholders, a document review, observation of an executive and scrutiny committee, member workshops, focus groups of relevant officers from service areas in the authority and of external partners, interviews with leading members, senior officers and scrutiny chairs, vice-chairs and members, an initial feedback session and a report with recommendations for improvement.
A regional network workshop was held on conducting a self-evaluation review, facilitated by a CfPS Associate with input from an IDeA Improvement Manager and contributions in person or writing from each of the authorities that had undertaken a review.
Conclusion
All of the elements of the Project identified in the original project specification were completed by 19 July 2011. The final scrutiny survey and the willingness of the Network participants to continue to meet testify to the effectiveness of the Project.
Members and officers welcomed and were positive about the impact of the extra resource in the region that enabled the development of the member and officer scrutiny networks, two scrutiny leadership academies, a number of authorities to have a review of their scrutiny function, some authorities to undertake joint reviews, joint learning and working, the sharing of good practice and resources, and regularly meetings through action learning sets and the networks in which members and officers could update each other on scrutiny reviews and ways of working whilst being briefed about national developments in overview and scrutiny including legislative change.
The Project has lasting legacies in the contacts that have been made, the relationships that have developed, the improvements that have been made to procedures and the conduct of reviews and the structures that endure.