PAPER G1
Committee : CO-ORDINATING
COMMITTEE
Date : 15
NOVEMBER 2002
Title : AN
EVEN NEWER WAY OF SELECT COMMITTEE WORKING!!
REPORT
BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE FIRE AND PUBLIC SAFETY SELECT COMMITTEE
REASON FOR COMMITTEE
CONSIDERATION
Since the abandonment of the
old service committee style of local government, the council decision-making
process has been made clearer and easier.
Delegated power to the Executive and officers, in my opinion, has
undoubtedly assisted in this but the current structure, whilst it is now
beginning to deliver some constructive and exciting changes in policy, is only
beginning to scratch the surface of scrutiny in one Select Committee
(Resources) and this is constrained by the time put in by individual members
and the physical duration of the meeting. The Select Committees by and large
(including my own) are failing to deliver effective scrutiny of delegated
Executive and officer decisions across the Authority. This situation can be improved and must be addressed before the
Select Committees fall into the comfortable trap of becoming service committees
again. This is a likely scenario even
though new Chairmen have been appointed to these Committees as the Committees
are made up of a large proportion of longer standing Members who are
comfortable with the way things were.
Following my visit to The
University of Birmingham Institute of Local Government Studies, a course
entitled Successful Scrutiny, and a fact-finding visit to the House of Commons,
I have formed the opinion that the current system is better than the old
service committee style but is still not challenging enough.
I believe the effectiveness of scrutiny can be developed further by reducing the burden and volume of work on all Select Committee Members and the formation of a separate scrutiny committee that has the dedicated resources and support to tackle cross-cutting issues and dig deeper into the organisation on behalf of the public.
SPECIFIC
DISCUSSION TOPICS FOR THE CO-ORDINATING COMMITTEE:
•
To reduce the number of Select Committee
Members from twelve to eight.
•
To establish an additional politically
proportional scrutiny committee dedicated and resourced to undertake
challenging and rigorous cross-cutting scrutiny.
•
To continue the existing select committee
system focussing on scrutiny and review of policy.
•
To consider offering the Chair of Scrutiny to
the Opposition parties.
•
To consider a mock up scheme to evaluate the
effectiveness of this proposal and report the findings back to this committee
BACKGROUND
The current select committee
system was designed and implemented in 1999. An Executive Committee comprising
nine members and the Leader of the Council and six Select