Something that I know bothers Chairperson Alex is when papers come to her scrutiny committee with the recommendation ‘that the report be noted'. “What does that even mean?”, she says. “It feels like we are not even expected to read it, just say ‘oh yeah,’ there it is, thanks’.”

She’s had some fun with the word ‘note’ though, suggesting it might stand for:

Needs Only Ticking Exercise

or

Not Open To Engagement

or

No Objective Transparently Expressed

And yes, it is a little unfair to those officers and executive members bringing these reports. There will nearly always be a very good reason for something to be pitched towards scrutiny. But perhaps a little more care could be taken thinking about what the scrutiny committee might actually be asked to do and the contribution that they might make?

Scrutiny could be asked to endorse the report, for example. Scrutiny has an assurance role after all and might draw on their previous work, as well as on what committee members have picked up from constituents and elsewhere, to say ‘in our view, this is fair picture of what’s going on’ or ‘actually, we’re not sure this is right for these reasons…’.

Or they might ask scrutiny to consider the report and provide feedback. Again, drawing on what the committee knows outside of the report they might highlight the strengths and potential weaknesses of what is being proposed. Scrutiny is there to provide challenge to the executive after all.

Even better, those bringing reports might speak to the chair first. I know Alex likes to ask, ‘what are you hoping that the committee will do with this report?’ or ’what difference do you think we might make?’. Best not to reply with ‘we just need you to sign this off’ by the way!

And Alex will always refer the committee to ‘what we are being asked to do’ in the pre-meeting and when introducing an item in the meeting itself.

Also, as Alex mentioned to me the other day, when the inspectors were looking at her scrutiny committee, they watched videos of meetings and read through the minutes, seeking evidence of challenge. As Alex pointed out, ’the committee agreed to note the report’ doesn’t really demonstrate much of that, does it?

Actually, I wonder if the whole idea of ‘recommendations’ might be a little out of place? I mean scrutiny committees don’t make decisions; their role is to provide challenge to those that do. Isn’t it more of a broader ‘ask’ than a decision to be made? And maybe that’s partly why the ‘recommendation to note’ feels so awkward?

Alex, however, doesn’t allow this awkward way of putting things get in the way of a productive scrutiny session.

“We’ll get on and dig into it anyway.” Alex tells me. If they get a recommendation to ‘note the report’, they will read ‘note’ as:

Needs Our Thoughtful Examination

Not that they have seen the a recommendation 'that the report be noted' in a good while.

I hope this was useful to reflect on 🙏