Agenda item

The Presiding Member invited the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee, Councillor Hourahine to present the 2021/2022 Scrutiny Annual Report to Council. The purpose of this report was to apprise Council and other interested parties of the role of the scrutiny committees, and their work during the 2021/22 municipal year.

Scrutiny was a function of Councils in England and Wales and was introduced by the Local Government Act 2000, creating separate Cabinet and Scrutiny functions in Local Authorities.

The role of scrutiny was strengthened with the passing of the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011. This Act required the Committee to report annually to the Council on the work that carried out in the past 12 months and its future work programme. Since the introduction of the Wellbeing of Future Generation Act, Scrutiny also had a statutory role to scrutinise the work of the Public Service Boards.

The underlying principle of Scrutiny arrangements was ensuring that the decision-making process was open, accountable, and transparent.

The scrutiny function at Newport City Council was performed by four scrutiny committees comprising of Elected Members who were not part of the Council’s executive. Three of these committees were concerned with performance under Place and Corporate, People, and Partnerships. Overview and Management Scrutiny considers policies, strategies and plans that are cross-cutting and impact upon the whole Council.

The annual report covered the period from May 2021 to April 2022 and was the final annual report of the five-year term leading up to local elections in May 2022.

During this time, there was a restructure which meant that the configuration of the Council changed, however this did not have a material impact on the service areas scrutinised by each Committee.

The Report highlighted the important work carried out by Scrutiny over the year, during which the four committees met on a regular basis.

Performance Committees considered regular updates on service plans for their relevant areas, and used this evidence base to scrutinise performance in a wider context. The Service plan updates included financial information, links with corporate goals, Wellbeing goals and work towards goals set externally to the Council.

End of year updates also included details on how the Council adapted and responded to the challenges faced by services and communities due to the pandemic, and how support was provided to residents and businesses.

A number of recommendations were made to Cabinet commending the quality of the updates, and to promote key achievements within Newport so that residents were informed of actions that provided support during and subsequently to the pandemic. 

During this time Committees received reports on the Cabinet’s responses to the Recommendations the Committees previously made to the Draft Budget proposals, including investments, as part of Scrutiny’s remit of measuring and assessing the Authorities impact and value.

Outside of the cycle of performance review, the Performance Scrutiny Committees also considered reports on topics including In-House Residential Care in Newport aimed at increasing the local provision available for looked after children, the Economic Recovery Strategy detailing progress against the plan supporting Newport businesses and investment, and the wellbeing support provided to staff in this challenging period. 

The Performance Scrutiny Committee for Partnerships considered the Wellbeing Plan Annual Report presented by the Public Services Board (PSB) and submitted their comments to be shared with the PSB. Similarly, the Committee also scrutinised the performance against the Wellbeing Plan 2020-21 and submitted recommendations to the Public Services Board for consideration. Partnerships Scrutiny also assessed the collaborative work between the Council and the Education Assessment Services, Shared Resource Service and Barnardo’s as part of their agenda.

Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee considered and shaped key strategies setting out priorities for the Council over the coming years, including the Climate Change Strategy and Welsh Five-Year Strategy, as well as annual updates concerning safeguarding, risk management and digital services.

Significant progress was made against actions planned for the reporting period during this time, including revisions to make sure that scrutiny arrangements continued to meet the requirements of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 and the Equality Act 2010. This ensured that scrutiny continued to operate effectively considering recent legislative changes. This would also be a focus for Scrutiny in the next reporting period to recognise changes to arrangements for regional scrutiny of Public Services Boards.

Councillor Hourahine looked forward to Chairing the Overview and Scrutiny committee for the remainder of the Municipal year, working alongside committee members to provide an objective and productive challenge to the decisions of the local authority. Councillor Hourahine also took the opportunity to thank scrutiny colleagues, Cabinet Members, Officers of the Local Authority, and partners for their continued support.

Councillor Routley seconded the motion and congratulated all scrutiny members for their support.

Resolved:

Council agreed the content of the annual report as a basis for the work of the Scrutiny Committees in the coming year.