Dear scrutineer, isn’t it funny how different people have different ideas about what good scrutiny looks like? I spoke to the local democracy reporter for Rashomon Council the other day, and they had interviewed a few people after a recent scrutiny committee meeting.

Checking back on their notes they found four very different quotes and weren’t sure what to think. Can you make any sense of it?

The Cabinet Member

“It all went very well as far as I’m concerned. I’d prepared carefully with the officers and was able to give good responses to questions. I only had to pass things on to the Director beside me a couple of times. Yes, I could tell the committee was pleased with my input and could see that everything being presented to them made sense. A colleague told me afterwards that it came across as a confident performance, so I was pleased with that, naturally. In an all, it was a very good meeting.

The Scrutiny Chair

“It was a good session, and we were able to give the cabinet member a decent test with some tough questions. Whilst I think some of the answers sounded a bit scripted, we were able to keep them on their toes and a couple of times they had to ask the officer to answer. A couple of the committee members were able to really press on subjects they knew a lot about and yes, there are certainly a few things we can pick up at the next meeting. I think you can see scrutiny is working well.

The Scrutiny Officer

“All par for the course really. We’d done some preparation beforehand with the members and briefed the chair, but I wouldn’t say the session was particularly productive. Some of the committee members are very capable and looking to get things done but perhaps, if the others focussed more on some of the key issues, and less on those old hobby horses of theirs, the committee might be more effective. I’m not sure I could point to anything that has changed. Don’t quote me on that, obviously.

The Member of the Public

“A bit of a talking shop really. I was interested in this issue so my friend, who’s a councillor, told me I could sit in the public gallery and watch - so I did. Although I’m not sure what I was watching, to be honest. There was a lot of people trying to be clever with questions and a lot of long-winded answers. Oh, and plenty of ‘council speak’. I wanted to stand up and ask them what they all thought they were doing but you can’t really, you’d probably get arrested or something

So, who’s right? Can you make any sense of it?

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