Notes of Meeting of the North West Scrutiny Support Officers Network (NWSSON)

26th July 2004

Present :

• David Fletcher - AGMA
• Anthoney Lockley - Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council
• Bob Fletcher - Blackpool Borough Council
• Janet Ransted - Blackpool Borough Council
• Robert Landon - Bolton MBC
• Katy Spencer - Bolton MBC
• Eric Dickinson - Burnley Borough Council
• Alan Darnell - Bury MBC
• John Mallinson - Carlisle County Council
• Gordon Bankes - Chorley Borough Council
• Doug Scott - Cumbria County Council
• Oliver Shimell - Fylde Borough Council
• Sulafa Halstead - Lancashire County Council
• Debbie Franklyn - Lancashire County Council
• Chris Walsh - Liverpool county Council
• Susan Collier - Oldham MBC
• Steve Dugdale - Preston City Council
• Bill Alker - Ribble Valley Borough Council
• Carol Chapman - Salford City Council
• Linda Sharples - Salford City Council
• Steve Willoughby - Sefton MBC
• Peter Hughes - St.Helens Council
• Katy Master - Stockport Council
• Warren Heppolette - Stockport MBC
• Howard Boots - Tameside MBC
• Diana Paver - Tameside MBC
• David Jones - Vale Royal Borough Council
• David Shaw - Warrington Borough Council
• Jacky Denning - West Lancashire District Council
• Katherine Fairclough - Wigan MBC

Apologies were received from:

• Andrea Saltmeir - South Ribble DC
• Robin Roberts - Cheshire CC
• Alex Villiers - Halton Borough
• James Doble - Lancaster CC
• Helen Gale - High Peak BC
• Helen Burt - Congleton BC
• Graham Canning - Knowsley MBC
• Gary Finch - Rochdale MBC
• Ellen Bird - City of Manchester
• Kath Haydock - Pendle BC

1. Notes Of Last Meeting

The notes of the last meeting (11/05/04) were agreed.

2. Matters Arising

None were raised

3. North West Employers Organisation

Katy Master (Stockport) and Howard Boots (Tameside) reported on a meeting they had on 13^th July 2004, with Vic Hewitt, Chief Executive of the North West Employers Organisation (NWEO). The meeting had been arranged to discuss (on behalf of the Network) the possibility of setting up web pages for the Network on the NWEO web site, the Scrutiny Chairs Network, joint training and regional scrutiny arrangements.

Vic Hewitt had said that he could see value in having an officer network and would support it. NW employers are re-doing their web pages and have said that they will include a page for the officers network.

There was some discussion of training needs for both Members and Officers.

Re Members

Vic has said that the Chairs network is active and expects the next meeting to be in September. This is a Member network and officer attendance is discouraged. However it is possible that NWSSON could suggest things that Scrutiny Chairs would benefit from.

Oldham recently held a Member training event on a Saturday when 37 of 48 Members attended. The training was done by company called "Councillors Skills" utilising ex-Members. General experience was that bringing in external facilitators works better for Member training and that they definitely take notice of who the facilitator is. Members like training given by peers.

Allerdale had undertaken in-house training, looking at things that are working and things that are not, and using role-play. 3 priorities were identified for Democratic Services for the next year.

It was agreed that the network could be used to spread ideas and good practice, and that this could form part of the web-site once it had been set up.

Re Officers

It had been highlighted that regional/joint training is less well attended than training for individual councils, but that now that a network is in place, it might work better. North West Employers would be open to suggestions from the officer network as to what officers training needs are. Some were identified as

• Political awareness for officers
• Including the public/consultation
• Chair and committee support skills
• Health Scrutiny/Partnerships

Mention was also made of a possibility of working with NWEO to develop a qualification for Scrutiny professionals.

It was proposed that Vic Hewitt be invited to come to the next network meeting and also run one of the workshops to discuss officers training needs.

Oldham, Blackpool and Liverpool volunteered to work together to draft up copy for the NWEO web site. This should be brought back to the next meeting for discussion.

4. Benchmarking

Bob Fletcher (Blackpool) introduced the Draft proposals for a benchmarking exercise for all authorities in the North West. He explained that the format presented was intended to be comprehensive and to collect detail once rather than keep coming back asking for more information. However as one group were to look at this in more depth during the workshop session, further discussion was reserved for then.

5. Health Scrutiny - Joint Bid For Centre For Public Scrutiny Funding

Katy outlined the joint bid that had been sent to the Centre for Public Scrutiny on behalf of the members of the NWSSON in relation to "Increasing the Value of Statutory NHS Consultations with Local Authority Health Scrutiny Committees". The outcome of the bid was imminent and to be circulated with the minutes. It was envisaged that if the bid were successful then this network would become a sounding board for the steering group of project. Thanks to Katy for preparing this.

Cumbria gave an outline of a bid they had put forward relating to teenage health, working with schools and colleges. A survey would be used to get teenagers to do their own "scrutiny" coming up with questions and putting them to bodies on health.

Stockport have had four consultations and utilised lots of committee and officer time and effort raising the questions "is it worth it/" and "does it allow councillors to exercise health scrutiny effectively?"

Health bodies nervous of scrutiny. There can be tension between Scrutiny and "The Council", the NHS can be unclear as to where a response has come from and relationship between the two. They also need to understand Local Authorities' capacity and knowledge issues.

Liverpool said they are swamped with consultation info and having to make judgements as to a whether a change is substantial without having background in the subject.

Authorities are trying to deal with this in different ways, Lancashire have the Trust Chief Execs at committee meetings to decide if an issue is substantial; Bristol have a detailed definition; Bury are trying to agree a definition; Wigan have a protocol with the PCT as to what is a substantial variation.

6. Workshops

Three work shops were held:

a) Benchmarking:

The group discussed two levels of benchmarking activity ;

1. a library of information - what different authorities do and how they do it. This could be used as a resource tool for authorities in the network. For this purpose a new draft will be agreed and circulated.
2. How to evaluate the value of scrutiny to the authority (and the public). If we want to develop performance indicators, benchmarking would help. St Helens, Trafford, Blackpool, Stockport and Lancashire have formed a smaller group to work on this.

b) Scrutiny Reviews:

Some viewed support from the executive (Chief) to be valuable when creating a work plan, others were using facilities such as Area Forums. Public engagement and workshops with strategic partners were other tools being used to benefit workplans, scoping and projects.

c) Management of scrutiny meetings:

Discussion took place to compare the different ways people are tackling and experimenting with agendas and minutes as well as holding meetings in different locations etc. The discussion highlighted resource issues.

Several authorities were experiencing similar problems such as suffering from standard committee format and Minutes not useful ("a discussion took place"). There was a strong feeling that change had to be Member led to be successful, but that strong benefits could be gained from moving away from traditional formatting. Some authorities were becoming much less formal in their agendas for Scrutiny Committees, eg including pictures, making them look more like posters, using action sheets instead of minutes.

7. Next Meeting And Programme For Future Work

Thursday, 21st October, 11.00am - Cumbria County Council, Kendal Town Hall.

Areas identified for the next agenda were :-

Attendance of Vic Hewitt, North West Employers Organisation.
Scrutiny officers and the relationship with service colleagues.