HEREFORDSHIRE COUNCIL'S OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

Council on 28 September 2012 decided that this Overview & Scrutiny Committee be replaced by two Committees namely: General Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Health and Social Care Overview& Scrutiny Committee. These can be accessed by selecting an appropriate year in the drop down box and then selecting the committee from the refreshed list of committees.

History of this Committee

As from the Council meeting on Friday 27 May 2011 the Overview and Scrutiny Committee was the sole scrutiny committee and had responsibility for all the Council’s Scrutiny functions.

(Please note that pre 1 January 2010 elements of this Committees remit were dealt with by the Strategic Monitoring Committee. These can be accessed by selecting an appropriate year in the drop down box and then selecting the Committee from the refreshed list.

Prior to 27 May 2011 the Council had Scrutiny Committees for: Adult Social Care and Strategic Housing; Children’s Services, Community Services; Environment, and Health and the history for these committees can be found by following a similar procedure to that described above.

Purpose of this Committee
The purpose of this Overview & Scrutiny Committee was to ensure the accountability and transparency of the Council's decision making process.

The principal roles of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee were to:

·          Help in developing Council policy

·         Probe, investigate, test the options and ask the difficult questions before and after decisions are taken

·         Look in more detail at areas of concern which may have been raised by the Cabinet itself, by other Councillors or by members of the public

·         "call in" decisions  - this is a statutory power which gives Scrutiny Committees the right to place a decision on hold pending further scrutiny.

·         Review performance of the Council

·         Undertake external scrutiny work engaging partners and the public

Formal meetings of the Committee were held in public.