How can Overview and Scrutiny Committees make recommendations?
A key role of an Overview and Scrutiny Committee is to make recommendations that will lead to improvements in services. One of the ways that they will do this is to investigate a topic in depth, this is called a scrutiny review. To do a review a committee may:
- hear from external witnesses
- invite reports from officers working for the county council or partners
- ask questions of the relevant cabinet members
- ask members of the public and service users for their views
- research best practice at other local authorities or organisations
When complete, an Overview and Scrutiny Committee sends a report which includes their conclusions and recommendations to the appropriate person. This is usually the cabinet member or the lead for an external organisation, for example the chair of a clinical commissioning group.
They are then asked to report back to the committee with an action plan on how the recommendations will be put in place or a reason why a recommendation has not been agreed.
The committee then monitors how recommendations are put in place by inviting them back to Committee meetings and asking questions on progress.
