The Overview and Scrutiny Board is chaired by Cllr John Appleton and is made up of 12 Warwickshire County Councillors which includes 6 Conservative Group representatives, 2 Labour Group representatives 2 Liberal Democrat representatives and 2 Independent representatives. Three of the spaces are allocated to the Chairs of Overview and Scrutiny Committees. The Board also includes representatives from partner organisations.
Remit of the Board
- To review and scrutinise the functions of the Council relating in particular to the Budget, Medium Term Financial Plan, Corporate Business Plan, planning and performance arrangements, finance, property, information technology, facilities management, workforce strategy and development, law and governance, customer service and communications.
- To review and scrutinise the delivery of public services in Warwickshire through partnerships at countywide and local levels and the arrangements for partnerships within the county and the Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire sub region.
- To review and scrutinise any other functions of the Council to the extent that they do not fall within the terms of reference of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees.
- To manage the overall Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme including the commissioning of scrutiny reviews and the appointment of Task and Finish Groups.
The Board provides strategic direction for overview and scrutiny within Warwickshire County Council and oversees the implementation of the Overview and Scrutiny Strategy 2009 – 2013.
Overview and Scrutiny Strategy 2009 – 2013 (pdf, 382Kb)
If there is an issue you would like the Overview and Scrutiny Committees to consider, please email democraticservices@warwickshire.gov.uk
Current Topics and Work Programme
Strategic Commissioning
The Council is currently undertaking a significant review of each of its services, as part of its commitment to becoming a Strategic Commissioning authority. This may mean that in future, some services will be delivered through external providers, whereas some services will remain in-house. The process of reviewing each service is known as the Transformation Programme. The Overview and Scrutiny Board will be tracking the overall delivery of the Programme by having progress updates at every meeting. The Board will also receive an outline of how each service will be reviewed and which stakeholders will be consulted. Scrutiny members will have the opportunity to make suggestions and submit their views before each review starts.
Finance and Performance Working Group
In May, the Overview and Scrutiny Board agreed to shift performance data reporting away from Committee meetings to a dedicated Member Working Group that will only look at the data. The Group, which has been called the Finance and Performance Working Group, will meet on a quarterly basis to consider each ‘Organisational Health’ report which gives a full picture of the performance, finance and risk data for each service. It will meet two days before the report is due before Cabinet, in order to submit comments or recommendations in time for the Cabinet meeting, and will also look for performance issues and areas of concern to refer to the Overview and Scrutiny Committees for further investigation. The Group is made up of the Chair and Vice-Chair of each OSC, to ensure that all of the OSCs are represented at the meeting. A copy of the Terms of Reference for the Working Group are available at the following link:
Finance and Performance Working Group – Terms of Reference
Work Programme of the Board
Up to date information about the work of the Board can be found at the following link:
Future meeting dates
All meetings are held in Shire Hall, Warwick and start at 2pm
