Committee details

Overview and Scrutiny Committee consists of 13 District Councillors, who are appointed each year by Full Council.

It is important that a council can be held to account and stand up to close scrutiny by you, the people the council represents.

That is why South Hams District Council has a Scrutiny Committee to make sure that a robust process is firmly in place and procedures are being properly monitored on your behalf.

South Hams District Council aims to have a scrutiny function that adheres to the Centre for Public Scrutiny’s four principles of good scrutiny:

·         Provides critical challenge to executive policymakers and decision makers

·         Enables the voice and concerns of the public to be heard

·         Is carried out by ‘independent-minded governors’ who lead and own the scrutiny role

·         Drives improvement in public services

The Committee meets 8 times a year but can meet more often if needed. The meetings are held on a Thursday at Follaton House, Totnes.

What does the Committee do?

Reports and recommendations from this committee are put to the Executive and Full Council to advise on policy, budget and service delivery.

The Scrutiny Committee also monitors the decisions of the Executive and have the ability to ‘call-in’ decisions made by the Executive which are still to be implemented. This enables the Scrutiny Committee to consider whether the decision made was appropriate and if it should recommend that the Executive or Full Council reconsider the decision. Scrutiny may also be consulted by the Executive or the Council on forthcoming decisions and the development of policy.

Members of the public may raise issues and ask questions at meetings of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee in relation to items on the agenda. For more information on this procedure, please see Public Questions.

Policy Development and Review

In this role, Scrutiny Committee can review the Council’s policies to assess whether the intended policy outcomes have been achieved. It can also assist the Council during the early development of new policies and the formulation of key plans. Very often policy review can lead to recommendations to develop new policy. This work can be carried out by Scrutiny Committee, or it may assign this task to a smaller number of members in the form of a Task and Finish Group. Carefully choosing which topics to review can help the Council focus on the issues that matter most to local people and derive real outcomes for them.

New Standards Functions

Under the Localism Act, the new Standards functions (which include responsibility for the new Code of Conduct and consideration of Standards Complaints) have been delegated to the Overview and Scrutiny Panel.