Overview and Scrutiny

The Isle of Wight Council has adopted a “cabinet” style of governance. In addition to a Cabinet and regulatory committees, the Constitution provides for three Scrutiny Panels, an Overview & Scrutiny Committee and an Audit Committee. The Scrutiny Panels have responsibility for policy review and development work, as well as scrutiny, within their areas of responsibility. The Overview & Scrutiny Committee manages and co-ordinates all overview and scrutiny work, and takes an overall view on budget and performance management.

The statutory health scrutiny function is undertaken by the Health & Community Wellbeing Scrutiny Panel and the statutory education scrutiny function is undertaken by the Children & Young People Scrutiny Panel. The statutory crime and disorder scrutiny function is also undertaken by the Health & Community Wellbeing Scrutiny Panel.

Each Scrutiny Panel, the Audit Committee and the Overview & Scrutiny Committee usually meet every two months. Details of times and venues for meetings together with copies of agendas are available in libraries or on this website.

Procedures at Scrutiny Panel, Overview & Scrutiny Committee and Audit Committee meetings are governed by a number of rules which are set out in Sections of the Council’s Constitution. Occasionally confidential or exempt information has to be considered and relevant business may then be dealt with in private session.

Members of the public are actively encouraged to attend meetings, and to become involved in overview and scrutiny investigations. In addition, the Scrutiny Panels and the Overview & Scrutiny Committee would welcome input into their workplans from members of the public. If you would like to suggest an item for enquiry or comment on ongoing or previous enquiries please contact us at [email protected].

Please note: these pages contain a number of links to pdf documents which may take a while to download over a standard 56K modem. If you do not have a version of acrobat reader - this can be downloaded via our downloads section.