Once upon a time, dear scrutineer, there was a senior officer called Ralph who worked as a director at three different councils. Here is his scrutiny story. I wonder what you’ll make of it?

At the first, Strawbridge District Council, Ralph’s relationship to scrutiny was as a witness, appearing before the scrutiny committee to present reports and answer questions. At this council, it was generally the officers who did this, cabinet members, when they did attend, sat with the committee members and chipped in when they thought it was helpful. It certainly caused Ralph to raise an eyebrow at one meeting when a cabinet member started asking him questions!

Whilst this didn’t seem altogether right, Ralph went along with it as CMT had agreed that, in the interest of good governance, officers should not get involved with scrutiny directly. ‘Scrutiny should be left to act independently’ was the view. A couple of years later Ralph heard from a former colleague at Strawbridge, that this had been mentioned in a corporate peer review which noted that their arrangements for scrutiny support should perhaps be reviewed.

When Ralph moved to Stickshire County Council things were a little different. Senior officers were expected to act as advisors to scrutiny. It was the cabinet members who presented reports and answered questions at scrutiny and, whilst he would sit alongside his cabinet members to deal with technical points, policy questions were for the cabinet member to respond to.

At Stickshire the guiding principle was ‘the same advice to cabinet as to scrutiny’. Directors were comfortable sitting down and discussing a range of things with scrutiny including the executive forward plan, the scrutiny work plan and training options. Yes, there were occasional bumps in the road, but relationships were good and this meant that the work felt worthwhile.

After a few happy years at Stickshire, Ralph moved for family reasons and got a job at Brickbury Borough Council where the relationship with scrutiny was different again. The watchword at Brickbury is ‘parity of esteem’ so that scrutiny is afforded the same importance as the executive. Directors are each allocated a scrutiny committee and asked to act as sponsors.

As well as meeting regularly with the chair, vice chair and support officer, Ralph’s role is to represent the committee at SLT, picking up and helping to resolve issues as well as helping to identify resources. And yes, cabinet members have expressed a concern or two, but these have all been talked through OK. Having a sponsor role brings a certain clarity which Ralph finds particularly helpful.

So, this tale of three councils is a tale of three very different approaches to scrutiny.

And the moral of the story?

Well, I’ll let you decide.

As for Ralph? Well, I’m not saying it’s anything to do with the relationship to scrutiny but he’s still at Brickbury Borough Council and still very happy to be there.

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If you want to to see / add any comments, I've posted this on LinkedIn here.