How does scrutiny work?

In Carlisle, scrutiny operates through three committees - Community Overview and Scutiny Committee, Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny and Infrastructure Overview and Scrutiny.

There are eight non-Executive members on each committee and each committee is politically balanced (ie the proportions of each political party on the committee are the same as on the Council as a whole).

Each of the committees meet in public every six weeks, usually at the Civic Centre, Rickergate, Carlisle. Sometimes, special meetings of a committee are held to deal with items that need more detailed consideration. The committees also work in more informal ways – often ‘workshops’ are held which allow the committees to discuss a matter outside of the formal committee meeting with various officers and sometimes outside bodies. Members may also make use of site visits or other ways of finding out about a matter they are interested in.

At each formal committee meeting, a committee will usually consider a range of different matters. Some items will be reports referred on by the Executive for scrutiny’s view but there may also be reports or presentations requested by the committee. In general, the committee will have the opportunity to ask questions of the relevant officers and portfolio holders (members of the Executive) on each item. In this way, the committee aims to scrutinise the work of the council. The committees also pursue a small number of in-depth pieces of work – you can read more about this here.

In the last few years, more scrutiny work has been taking place jointly between the local authorities in Cumbria. In practice, this involves a committee which is made up of individual Members from the 6 District Councils and the County Council. This way of working is used for those issues which are best considered on a County scale. The first scrutiny of this sort was examining the work of the Cumbria Strategic Waste Partnership and the group produced 3 reports with a number of recommendations. There is an ongoing piece of work considering the Local Area Agreement (LAA).