How overview and scrutiny works
What is overview and scrutiny?
The Local Government Act 2000 requires all
councils in England and Wales to have scrutiny arrangements in
place as part of their political management structure.
The council has three overview and scrutiny
bodies, which hold the council’s ‘executive’ (primarily Cabinet and
Township Committees) to account for the decisions they make and the
policies they develop on behalf of the Council. The O&S
committees do this by overseeing, reviewing, challenging and
scrutinising the provision, planning and management of services and
partnerships. The Overview & Scrutiny (O&S)
Committees are as follows:
- Policy Overview Committee (POC)
- Performance Scrutiny Committee (PSC)
- Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee (HOS)
- Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committees (JHOSC)
All members (except Cabinet members) can sit
on O&S Committees, but membership of the committees must
reflect the political make-up of the council. Church
representative and parent governors also sit on O&S committees
when they are scrutinising educational issues.
How does scrutiny work at Rochdale Borough Council?
Policy Overview Committee
Cabinet make proposals regarding the council’s
Budget and Policy Framework, plans and strategies and refer them to
Policy Overview Committee for consultation.
POC’s findings will be reported to Cabinet at
the next appropriate meeting. Cabinet will consider the
recommendations and may amend their proposals before submitting
them to full council for adoption.
Once the budget and policies have been
approved, the Cabinet, and if necessary Township Committees, is
responsible for taking day-to-day decisions relating to the Budget
and Policy Framework.
Performance Scrutiny Committee
Call-in
Executive decisions made by the Cabinet or
Township Committees cannot take effect immediately. Within
five days of a meeting of an executive committee the minutes are
circulated to all members as a Notice of Executive Decisions.
Members then have a period of five working days to ‘call-in’ any
decision they consider have been made inappropriately or require
further consideration. To qualify for this two or more
members must request a ‘call-in’.
‘Called-in’ decisions are then considered by
the Performance Scrutiny Committee and decision made as to whether
they should stand or be referred back to Cabinet or to full council
for re-consideration.
Performance monitoring
As well as its role regarding ‘call-in’ the
Performance Scrutiny Committee also monitors the performance of all
council services.
Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee
This Committee scrutinises the services provided by the Heywood,
Middleton and Rochdale Primary Care Trust by looking at
various performance reports and by being consulted about proposals
for significant change to local services.
Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committees
These committees include the JHOSC Pennine Acute NHS Trust,
covering Bury, Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale, and the JHOSC
Pennine Care (Mental Health) NHS Trust, which serves Bury, Oldham,
Rochdale, Stockport and Tameside. These committees help
to monitor the health and wellbeing of the Borough’s
population, and link into the work of the Greater Manchester Health
Scrutiny Committee.
Details of these committees and their role is provided by
links to the Bury Metropolitan Borough Council website.
JHOSC Pennine Acute NHS Trust;
JHOSC Pennine Care NHS Trust