Scrutiny

The scrutiny function was created by the Local Government Act 2000 to lend greater transparency and accountability to councils' decision-making by:

Publicly holding the Council’s Executive (the Cabinet) to account
Examining matters of wider public interest
Contributing to policy review and development

In July 2011, the Council introduced a structure of four scrutiny committees:

Resources Scrutiny Committee
Safer and Stronger Communities Scrutiny Committee
Health and Well-being Scrutiny Committee
Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee

The restructure reflects the development of scrutiny since its inception in 2000. Scrutiny has become more about 'scrutiny of place' than just scrutiny of Council services. Two important aspects of this shift are:

(i) the increasing focus on the leadership role of local councillors; and

(ii) scrutiny of partner organisations

We are also witnessing a period of unprecedented change in the delivery of local public services. The old ‘top down’ approach to partnership working enshrined in the North Yorkshire Local Area Agreement and the Sustainable Community Strategy is being replaced by a more fluid landscape of different service providers (some at a very local level) and new joint working arrangements with other councils, other public bodies and private partners.

Regardless of the diversity of delivery models, ward councillors have a democratic mandate which other partners do not have, representing their local communities to hold decision-makers and the different service providers to account.

By making three of the committees thematic, scrutiny can focus on the broad subject areas integral to the achievement of the Council’s Corporate Plan 2011-2016. This enables the work of the increasing amount of partnerships and commissioned services to be reported evenly across the structure. The fourth scrutiny committee – Resources – takes a strategic overview of the Council’s budget, organisation of services and staff, including the important areas of financial and service planning.

Vision

Scrutiny's vision is that:

'Through a process of questioning, discussion and seeking a wider representation of views outside the Executive, the quality of the Cabinet and Council's decisions can be improved'

The same vision applies to the scrutiny of other public agencies and their decision-makers.

The public can get involved in this process in a number of different ways. See the first document listed on the right hand side.

Representation on the (Overview and) Scrutiny Committees can be found on the Committee Structure page.

Meetings of the (Overview and) Scrutiny Committees are on the Committees page.