Scrutiny at Leeds

Leeds wants its policies to be relevant to the needs of local people - and its services to be of the highest quality.

To achieve this, the Council aims to examine and review its policies and services in an open and accountable way that involves local people.

The Council's Overview and Scrutiny process is its way of achieving this.

Through a series of Scrutiny Boards, Councillors work together to review services or policies and make recommendations for improvement to the Council's Executive and/or partner organisations for improvements or alternative ways of working.

Scrutiny Boards will look to work in partnership with the Council's Executive - but will not refrain from offering constructive criticism where they think services are being poorly provided or failing to meet the needs or desires of local people.

Local people are the heart of effective scrutiny. With their involvement, Councillors are able to hear the views of people who receive services.

Overview and Scrutiny is about working alongside providers, partners and local people to improve policies and services.

Overview and Scrutiny is part of the Council's aims to :

Improve its performance

• Consider all options to provide better
   services
• Listen to the community, to deliver services
   which are relevant and meet local needs
• Ensure decision-making is clear, transparent
   and accountable.

The Council has six Scrutiny Boards consisting of councillors from all political parties on the Council.  Some Scrutiny Boards have Co-opted Members.

The scrutiny Boards will identify areas of need or issues of concern to local residents.

These may be:

• an existing policy
• a policy proposal
• a service
• a community issue
  
  With support from Scrutiny Unit, each Scrutiny Board agrees a work programme and terms of reference for particular inquires.  This process clearly identifies the scope of what each committee will look at over the coming year.

Scrutiny Boards meet once a month and Executive Councillors, Council officers and expert witnesses may be invited to provide information to members in relation to the topics on the committee's agenda. Having heard the information members of the committee will then have the opportunity to ask questions.  The Chair will manage the meeting to allow a range of questions to be put and give the opportunity for answers to be given. Members of the Scrutiny Board will then be able to have an informed discussion around the evidence given. Detailed Guides on how scrutiny operates are available to download from this site.

The Scrutiny Board may also choose to gather its information in other ways outside of formal meetings, for example:

• Working Groups
• One to one discussions
• Site visits
• Community meetings
• Surveys/questionnaires
  
  Once the Scrutiny Board has gathered all the information its needs it will valuate it and if appropriate make recommendations for improvements.  These will usually be presented in a report to the relevant decision makers: the Executive Board, Full Council, or individual partner organisations.

Once Scrutiny Board has gathered all the information together and drawn its conclusions it will produce a report with a practical list of recommendations, to address the issues and improve the service.

This report will be forwarded to the Council's Executive for consideration. The report will then be debated in public at the Executive Board or Council where Executive Councillors can make their response to the report.  They will advise the meeting what they will do to carry out the recommendations or explain why they reject certain recommendations.

If the recommendations relate to services provided by the Council's partners, the report may also be forwarded to individual partners such as the health for their consideration as well.