Meeting of the North West Scrutiny Support Officers’ Network

Stobart Stadium, Halton - 14th July 2008

Present

• Liz McQue – Chief Executive, North West Employers Organisation
• Peter McKenzie – Democratic Services Manager, Vale Royal BC/Cheshire West & Chester
• Joseph Org – Policy Officer, St Helens MBC
• Janet Borgerson – Overview & Scrutiny Officer, Sefton MBC
• Karen Dainty – Principal Scrutiny Support Officer, Salford CC
• Sam Martin – Principal Scrutiny & Improvement Officer, Trafford MBC
• Danielle Lowy – Scrutiny & Improvement Officer, Trafford MBC
• Liz Bateson – Senior Democratic Support Officer, Lancaster CC
• Stephen Metcalfe – Principal Democratic Support Officer, Lancaster CC
• Hannah Easby – Principal Scrutiny Support Officer, Tameside MBC
• Howard Boots – Head of Scrutiny, Tameside MBC
• Gina Murphy – Scrutiny Support Officer, Tameside MBC
• Alison Williams – Health Policy & Scrutiny Manager, Warrington BC
• Ruth Harrison – Scrutiny Support Officer, Sefton MBC
• Michelle Wainwright – Head of Overview & Scrutiny, Sefton MBC
• Joanne Heron – Scrutiny Manager, South Ribble BC
• Debbie Campbell – Overview & Scrutiny Officer, Sefton MBC
• Eric Dickinson – Democratic Services Officer, Burnley
• Ian Blythin – Corporate Manager, St Helens MBC
• Alice Rea – Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Officer, Bury MBC
• Steve Callender - Scrutiny Manager, Stockport MBC
• Mark Grady – Policy Officer, Halton BC
• Alex Villiers – Chief Scrutiny Advisor, Halton BC (Chair)

1. Apologies

Apologies were received from:

• Kate Haydock – Pendle B C
• Diane Hill – Blackburn with Darwen B C
• Sue Wakeford – Vale Royal BC

2. Notes of the Last Meeting

Accepted as an accurate record, subject to the addition of Alison Williams (Warrington) to the list of those in attendance.

3. North West Employers Organisation

Liz McQue, Chief Executive gave a presentation on the North West Employers Organisation (NWEO) and agreed to circulate the presentation for information.

(View a copy of the Presentation by Liz McQue, Chief Executive of NWEO 441.75 KB ).

In addition, the following points were noted during the presentation:

• NWEO is a not for profit organisation within the regional structures that has represented local authorities across the North West for 75 years.
• The North West is the largest region outside of London with 46 local authorities that together have 300,000+ employees. The region however contains very different local authorities from large metropolitan councils such as the Cities of Manchester and Liverpool to small rural councils such as Allerdale and Eden. Also there would soon be two new unitary authorities for Cheshire.
• The need for all local authorities to develop links for scrutiny with the N W Regional Improvement & Efficiency Partnership (NWRIEP)  as it develops was highlighted.
• A resource is available for Members through the NWEO website  for e-learning around a variety of modules, such as chairing and scrutiny. As well as these short modules, Liz confirmed that tailored modules can be developed for the needs of a local authority and authorities are encouraged to develop modules for wider use through the package. It was suggested that the resource could be used as part of new Member inductions or at least the resource being highlighted for Members to utilise privately when needed. Liz agreed to circulate a link to colleagues giving a snapshot of the resource.

The following comments were noted during discussions after the presentation:

• Links between this Network and the Scrutiny Chairs’ Network should be strengthened.
• The website for this network will be revised and improved shortly thanks to the appointment in Tameside of Gina Murphy as Scrutiny Support Officer.
• NWEO has been involved with some local authorities when requested around benchmarking for job evaluation, to support authorities in gauging where to draw pay band lines once scores have been calculated.
• It was felt that communication from NWEO could be improved to increase awareness of upcoming events, as well as to highlight the resources available through the website.
• More training and development opportunities for Members should be available locally rather than in London, perhaps this could be highlighted through the chairs network within the North West.
• A training day is to be developed by NWEO around LAA scrutiny, where CAA fits in, etc.

Liz was thanked by the group for attending and for her presentation.

4. Health Scrutiny in the North West – Facing the Challenge Together

The meeting (NWSSON) was informed that steps to improve health scrutiny in the North West started in March 2007 with a conference funded by CfPS. Following this, work started on consolidating links between NWSSON and the Strategic Health Authority (SHA) to develop regional health scrutiny. As this work progressed it was felt that the option of a regional health scrutiny panel would not be the way forward. Instead, a second regional conference was held in June 2008 attended by around 100 delegates. Those at the meeting who attended gave good feedback overall on the speakers and work undertaken at the event.

The health scrutiny activities thus far were characterised as ‘partnership in action’ and to build on the recent conference a number of options are being explored to further develop partnership working around health scrutiny, including:

1. Holding an annual conference.
2. Creating sub-regional groups to look to develop health scrutiny within their area.
3. Look to learn more about the barriers to effective health scrutiny (and how to reduce them)
4. Look for the most effective way to enable dialogue with health scrutiny officers
5. Look for ways to link with health scrutiny panel/committee chairs.

All colleagues were asked to send comments, or ask their principals to do likewise, on these options to determine which should be taken forward to improve health scrutiny.

The following comments were noted during discussions:

• This group is the best way to establish a route to lead members and chairs.
• A piece of work is needed on what elements of health scrutiny are within the remit of Members and what is for other agencies/bodies (e.g. LINks).
• Colleagues were invited to become involved in developing health scrutiny further, particularly at sub-regional level.

5. Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007

Joanne Heron fed back to the meeting on a recent workshop, primarily focused on scrutiny of LAAs in two-tier areas, held on regulations and draft guidance around the above Act. Guidance on the Act generally is due to will be released later this month.

Joanne reported that no answers were given about an overall process for how LAAs will be scrutinised in two-tier areas, - be it in clusters, or whether the scrutiny process will be adapted specifically for two-tier authorities. Questions were also asked about whether funding will be available for this scrutiny: but again no answers were forthcoming at the workshop.

Information about these issues is expected to be included in the draft guidance. A 12-week consultation period (roughly August – October) will follow before the final guidance is released towards the end of the year.

6. Quality Benchmarking

Colleagues were asked for feedback on the Quality Benchmarking Scheme and its use within local authorities since the last meeting, and the following comments were noted:

• The benchmarking Scheme (in draft form at the time) was used in Halton in December/January as tool for reviewing the overview and scrutiny function. It was found to be useful for this purpose, with potential for training and Member induction and in developing service improvement plans.
• The Scheme has also been used elsewhere for induction purposes, but sometimes it has been difficult to see what the overall outcomes from it are.
• The Scheme was thought to be the best as easiest to use benchmarking exercise yet, and can be adapted to suit local intricacies.
• The comparison element works especially well for highlighting where best practice can be found in particular aspects of scrutiny, enabling practitioners to learn from the experience of high performers in other authorities.
• Using the tool to make comparisons across authorities can be difficult at times, but it was felt to have potential for making comparisons within one local authority.

Howard Boots hoped that Tameside MBC’s next phase in deploying the Scheme would involve the authority’s 4 scrutiny panels benchmarking against each other, with a view to improving their performance.

7. Any Other Business

7.1 (SSPs Scrutiny of LSPs)

Alex Villiers asked colleagues about the scrutiny arrangements in place in their authority for scrutinising LSPs and their key sub-groups. Halton’s own arrangements are not yet fully functioning, but the authority has 5 overview and scrutiny committees (OSCs) themed according to the LSP’s and the Council’s five, shared strategic priorities. The LSP in turn has 5 Specialist Strategic (commissioning) Partnerships), aligned to the same 5 priorities, on each of which the relevant OSC Chair is a member. Besides this cross-membership and scrutiny of issues of shared concern as they arise, it is intended that each OSC will monitor SSP performance against its strategic performance objectives on a 6-monthly basis.

• It was noted that arrangements for Rochdale’s LSP are similar but the overview and scrutiny functions have been split into separate boards of Members. Scrutiny works particularly well around crime.
• Sefton also has similar arrangements to Halton. From this year, information on the LSP is given to Members as part of the induction process. It has yet to be decided whether Sefton will separate its LAA indicators across the SSPs or whether these will be monitored by the Performance Committee.

A query was raised about whether authorities should look to create joint scrutiny panels, along similar lines as the cross-agency panel that has been created in Cardiff.

• It was stated that a paper has been written around similar proposals for Salford.
• A democratic deficit is apparent in LSPs so such a development would help to tackle this problem.
• Another option to improve scrutiny would be to create task and finish scrutiny panels, with a defined lifespan of perhaps 12 months to scrutinise a particular issue until it’s completed. Such an approach is in place in Camden.

It was agreed that overall, there are variances between LSPs across the region, in particular some are embedded within and driven by the council, while others are led by the Voluntary & Community Sector.

7.2 Overview & Scrutiny Committee Involvement in Service Plans

Alex Villiers asked colleagues how far their overview and scrutiny committees are involved in developing service plans. In Halton involvement has typically been at a fairly late stage providing Members with an opportunity to comment upon and ‘endorse’ nearly finalised plans. Options are being explored/trialled to enable Members to provide input at an earlier ‘issues’ stage when plans are more fluid.
This prompted a brief debate about the role of Non Executive Members in respect of service planning.

One view was that this was not a matter for Non Executive Members. Their role is to develop the themes for the corporate plan. Service plans revolve around operational delivery and so should be the responsibility of officers. Nevertheless, it can be useful to take service plans to Members as they are being finalised and for the purpose of performance monitoring.

Alternatively, and alongside other input to service plan priorities, non-Executive Members’ views can be sought on what key issues they would particularly hope to see addressed through the planning process. This could include issues highlighted by the performance monitoring work undertaken through scrutiny of the past year’s service plans.

8. Arrangements for the Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Network to be held on Friday, 17th October 2008 at Salford. Further details will be circulated in due course.