‘Urgent review’ needed into committee that scrutinises Rugby Borough Council’s decisions

Rugby Town Hall, the headquarters of Rugby Borough Council

That was the call from Cllr Neil Sandison (Lib Dem, Eastlands) who added he feared it would be years before members managed to respond to other matters referred to the group.

Speaking after the scrutiny committee’s annual report was presented to this week’s full council meeting, Cllr Sandison said: “It makes interesting reading in as much as that there has not been a great deal of progress in the last 12 months and I personally think that it should be reviewed by the committee itself on whether it is actually delivering what it pertains to deliver.

“One of the big problems it has is that it replaced two other committees and I believe a lot of the load could be taken up by the audit committee and then perhaps they could create more than one task and finish group report per annum.

“I understand that a number of items tonight will be referred to scrutiny but the rate they are going at the moment we will be lucky if we see those scrutiny reports back before 2027. It has to up its pace, be more inclusive of members and it needs to have the workload shared.”

There was further criticism from Cllr Maggie O’Rourke (Lab, Benn) who said: “We have done very little and I think it is very disappointing. We need an urgent review. I think it would be good to have more independence because at the end of the day if you are just looking in on yourself all the time you are not going to make a lot of changes.

“There has been some good stuff that has happened but we need to do more.”

Committee chair Cllr Peter Eccleson, (Con, Dunsmore) admitted in the report that there had been shortcomings.

He wrote: “The ongoing resource implications of the pandemic and staffing structure changes meant it was not possible to allocate the time required to undertake as many reviews as hoped, but it is anticipated that the next municipal year will generate a fuller work programme.”

Leader Cllr Seb Lowe (Con, Coton and Boughton) said: “In all the time I’ve been a councillor, the consensus of pretty much every member of this chamber was that scrutiny was not effective.

“There were some changes and those changes began their process this time last year. I am more than happy to listen to people’s further changes but I think it is worth noting that this administration does not shy away from scrutiny.”