Who Scrutinizes The Scrutineers At Worthing Borough Council?

Thursday, 22 April 2021 09:32

By Karen Dunn, Local Democracy Reporter

Worthing Town Hall (Photo: © John Warburton)

A councillor has called for an independent review of part of the scrutiny process at Worthing Borough Council.

During a meeting of the full council on Tuesday (April 20), members were asked to approve the work programme for the joint overview and scrutiny committee (JOSC) for the coming year.

The committee is responsible for reviewing the work and decisions of the executive members of both Worthing and Adur councils, and holding them to account.

While recognising ‘much of the good work’ carried out by the committee, Carl Walker (Lab, Selden) felt there were issues which needed addressing.

He said:

“I’ve been on JOSC for a couple of years and there’s been some really good pieces of work done – some excellent scrutiny.

“But there have also been a lot of problems which I think require an independent scrutiny in order that we can improve and bring the scrutiny up to the level it needs to be at.

“Therefore, I would like to see a scrutiny improvement review from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny.

"I think we will all benefit as a result of that.”

The Centre for Governance and Scrutiny is a consultancy and national centre of expertise which helps organisations to improve those areas of their work.

Charles James (Con, Durrington), who is also a member of JOSC, took issue with Mr Walker’s words.

He said:

“I’m not aware of those problems and if there are, I would like him to enumerate them so that we can all be aware of them.”

Keith Bickers (Con, Selden) serves as Worthing’s chair on JOSC. He is not standing for re-election in May and the membership of the committee will change.

He said:

“Any requirements that need to be brought forward in terms of scrutinising the scrutiny committee will need to be considered by the new committee in the next municipal year.”

The work programme was approved by 24 votes to 13.