The scrutiny process at St Edmundsbury

All councils are required to have at least one ‘overview and scrutiny committee’ to hold the Cabinet to account. At St Edmundsbury we have two such committees: Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Performance and Audit Scrutiny Committee.


Overview and Scrutiny Committee

The Overview and Scrutiny Committee is a politically balanced committee of 16 members, appointed by the council. It holds the Cabinet, full Council and staff to account by monitoring the decision making process and testing existing practices to check they are working properly. The committee advises on the development and implementation of new policy and processes. It can also call in Cabinet decisions to scrutinise them before they are put into practice, as well as hearing Councillor Calls for Action, whereby any member of the Council may bring a long-standing, unresolved issue before the committee. The committee has eight scheduled meetings per year.

Performance and Audit Scrutiny Committee

The Performance and Audit Scrutiny Committee is a politically balanced committee of 10 members. This committee plays an important role in monitoring the performance of services, and also leads on improvement planning and risk management. It looks at how well the council’s services are performing by considering a range of information such as performance indicators, reports from external inspectors and the monitoring of action plans. It also monitors the council’s budget, recommends the annual accounts to full Council and examines proposals for future corporate plans and budgets. It has four quarterly monitoring meetings per year, plus two others to consider the annual accounts and forward budget.