SCRUTINY - AN EMAIL TO THE CABINET SECRETARY

The following may further illuminate a few things. I sent it to the Cabinet Secretary and all IW Councillors yesterday:

The Local Government Bill from our Government, not just mine whether you like it or not, outlines changes to the overall scrutiny role, not to the committees. As you know most authorities have more than one Scrutiny Committee and indeed here the only previously existing external scrutiny role - Health - sits with Erica Oulton's Policy Commission, with a Conservative majority.

The Scrutiny Committee that I agreed to chair last year is actually a Corporate Scrutiny Committee with an internal affairs brief. Of course I was pleased that you wanted to give it new external duties, which opposition chair wouldn't be, but at no time was I advised that this would entail your group reneging on the commitments made by David Pugh last year. If I had been then I would have had nothing to do with the changes. That is why I consider that lies were made to the Labour Group last year about our role within an opposition-controlled Scrutiny Committee..

If your group did not want external scrutiny in the hands of the opposition you should have set up an External Partners Scrutiny Committee or such like, and left the Corporate Scrutiny Committee to get on with what it is doing.

By using the methods you have you have effectively destroyed effective internal scrutiny of this Council leadership. It is that that I am pondering as I consider my position ahead of the next formal meeting on 17 May. Can opposition scrutiny of internal matters really be effective if all Scrutiny Reports are likely to be voted down on the Conservative whip ?