Decision-making Process
Producing reports
When Commission Members have agreed their recommendations, a report is produced which sets out all the evidence taken into account in reaching these conclusions. Estimates of the cost of implementation and financial comments are included in the report in cases where recommendations are likely to express a desire for increased spending.
The report will also be considered by the Council’s Monitoring Officer, who will comments on any relevant legal issues.
What happens next?
A final report will be presented to the Overview and Scrutiny Board by the Chair of the Scrutiny Commission. The Board may ask questions as to why the recommendations were made, and then decide whether the report should be sent on to either Cabinet or Council.
If approved by the Board the report will then be included as an agenda item on the next available meeting of Cabinet or Council, where the Chair of the Commission will again introduce the report and be prepared to answer questions about the recommendations. Cabinet or Council will then decide whether the recommendations should be accepted.
If Cabinet or Council choose not to accept the recommendations then the reasons for this must be explained to the Commission that produced the report.
Implementation and monitoring
If Cabinet or Council has agreed to recommendations made by the Scrutiny Commission it is important that these are implemented. To ensure that this happens, the Scrutiny Commission will monitor the situation regularly. The Commission can do this by asking the Cabinet Member responsible to provide an update or by sending a Reference to Cabinet. In addition, Officers will be asked to provide updates on action taken, typically after six to twelve months.
The Commission may also give one of the Commission Members responsibility for monitoring progress and for reporting back to the Commission.
Overview and Scrutiny Board
The Overview and Scrutiny Board must report annually to the Full Council on their workings, and make recommendations to the Full Council for future work programmes and amended working methods if appropriate. Please see below for past Annual Reports.
Overview and Scrutiny Annual Report and Forward Plan 07/08 (595KB) Overview and Scrutiny Annual Report and Forward Plan 06/07 (1.41MB) Overview and Scrutiny Annual Report and Forward Plan 05/06 (253KB)
Page updated: 7 Feb 2008