Changes being made to the way Shropshire council is held to account

Plans to reorganise the authority’s scrutiny committees were unanimously agreed at a meeting of the full council, with members from all sides of the chamber expressing support for the move.

The changes will come into effect at the start of the new civic year in May, and will see the five current scrutiny committees disbanded and replaced with four new ones.

The committees help to shape policies, improve the performance of the council, and hold cabinet to account.

They look at council services as well as those provided by other organisations.

The shake-up follows a review into the effectiveness of the current scrutiny structure, which found there were “pockets of good practice” and “good relationships” between councillors and officers, but added there was a lack of understanding around the scrutiny process, lack of resourcing and “political tensions”.

The report said the new recommended four-committee structure would enable the council to better align scrutiny with the four aims of its overarching Shropshire Plan, and the council’s four directorates.

Councillor Heather Kidd said: “I really welcome this. I think it’s a long time coming but is exactly what we need to do.

“There comes a point where you think, ‘why am I sitting on a scrutiny committee, what difference have I made?'”

Councillor Julia Buckley, Labour group leader, said: “This council isn’t completely terrible at scrutiny, we have some examples of really good practice that we should be proud of.

“If we look at areas where collectively we all scrutinise third parties we do a really good job – when we scrutinise the water companies to account, hold health partners in the NHS to account, the excellent work looking at housing developers.

“When we work together and take off our political hats we really are capable of effective scrutiny, and what I would like to see is that approach and that joined-up working going on with these four new committees.”

Council leader Lezley Picton summed up: “This has been brought about by a genuine desire to want to do things better.

“Scrutiny isn’t broken in Shropshire but there are improvements we can make so let’s take this forward and make these improvements.

“It’s a first step and there is quite a way to go, but I’m genuinely excited by what is possible.”