The Local Government Act 2000 marked one of the most significant shifts in English local democracy since the 1970s.
Replacing the age-old committee system with an executive model for most councils, it separated executive decision-making from scrutiny for the first time – with most councils setting up overview and scrutiny committees in 2001.
At the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS), we’ve been along for most of the ride. Established in 2003, our role has been to support councils to deliver effective scrutiny and governance. So, how is scrutiny holding up after its first 25 years?
In many ways, it’s come a long way.
Devolution, partnership working, integrated care systems and sustained financial pressure have reshaped the role of councils and how decisions are made.
Scrutiny has had to evolve, increasingly operating across organisational boundaries and examining whole systems, rather than individual services.
In many councils, scrutiny has become embedded as a constructive and respected part of decision-making, delivering real impact on policy making, and improving services.
But we should acknowledge that progress hasn’t been uniform.
Scrutiny was envisaged as a driver of community voice and forward-looking policy development, but it has also been associated with post-decision review or weak, 11th-hour, pre-decision scrutiny.
While partnership working has grown, scrutiny’s powers and practices have not always kept pace with the complexity of the systems being governed.
These lessons matter as local government enters another period of structural change, which offers a rare opportunity to rethink how accountability and democratic oversight are designed from the start.
“Too often in the past, scrutiny has been ‘bolted on’, after constitutions and executive arrangements were settled”
Too often in the past, scrutiny has been ‘bolted on’, after constitutions and executive arrangements were settled.
Now, with local government reorganisation, there’s a chance to do things differently: to embed clear expectations about scrutiny’s independence, ensure it is properly resourced, and to design arrangements that are capable of examining whole-place systems as well as council services.
That will require the status, capacity and skill sets to match the ambition.
So, if the first 25 years of scrutiny were about making the model work, the next phase must be about making it matter – consistently and visibly – and to drive forward its powers and practices.
This will be one of the conversations we will bring to our annual conference in March, where we’ll mark 25 years of overview and scrutiny and the Local Government Act 2000.
The conference will reflect on how far scrutiny has come and explore what the next five, 10 and 25 years should look like for local democracy.
At a time of local government reorganisation and reform, it will offer a timely space for councillors and officers to share learning and help shape the future of effective scrutiny.
- The CfGS annual conference, ‘Learning from yesterday, leading for tomorrow’, is on Thursday 12 March at Millennium Point, Birmingham. Find out more and buy your ticket at CfGS website.