Agenda item

Member Scrutiny Champion - Update Report

Minutes:

The Chairman welcomed the Scrutiny Champion, Cllr A.N.Woolcock, to today’s meeting to provide Members with a verbal update on the scrutiny process.

 

Cllr Woolcock advised the meeting that he had made a similar presentation to the Chair and Vice Chair Forum on 12 December 2018.  He felt that the scrutiny process was being undertaken quite well within the Authority, but could still be improved.  To this end a training session on chairing skills had been arranged for 1 March 2018.  Cllr Woolcock advised of the different ways in which scrutiny was undertaken and that local authorities in Northern Ireland did not have scrutiny at all. He believed that it was important for the Authority to scrutinise outside organisations particularly those to which the Authority provided funding.  As an example he referred to the Policy and Resources Scrutiny Committee held on 31st January, 2018 where the work of the Public Services Board was scrutinised.

 

Cllr Woolcock also drew the Committee’s attention to the Authority’s Constitution, which stated that Members could only speak for 5 minutes.  This he felt was not conducive to good scrutiny and suggested that consideration be given to amending the Constitution. 

 

Members agreed that additional training would be useful for Chairs and Vice Chairs but that the Democratic Services Committee would benefit from training on Constitutional issues.  The Committee agreed that the Authority’s Constitution required amendment to take into account the scrutiny process.

 

It was noted that following the training for Chairs and Vice Chairs training would be undertaken on a Committee by Committee basis for scrutiny members.

 

RESOLVED:      That the Monitoring Officer be asked to consider amending the Authority’s Constitution in line with the Committee’s views as outlined above.

 

 

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