Council considers letting every officer face scrutiny sessions

At present, only the chief executive and corporate directors can be called before Hull Council’s overview and scrutiny management committee, where they may be asked questions regarding decision-making, implementation of council policy and service performance.

Plans to extend this to allow heads of service, who are below the level of corporate director, had been suggested but now members of the committee have indicated they would like the power to call officers of all grades for questioning.

Committee chairman Tom McVie said: “There’s an argument that sometimes scrutiny needs to look at the detail. Senior officers come and they have got a broad understanding of what’s going on but if there’s a lack of real detail there’s a view it may be better to have more junior officers to give us that detail.”

He added: “We are going very carefully at this. It’s to make sure scrutiny can do the full job it needs to do. It’s a matter of balance.”

However, Government guidance for overview and scrutiny committees is that normally only officers above a certain grade are questioned to avoid junior officers being put under “undue pressure”, and a report by council chief executive Nicola Yates highlights other potential “risks” with calling junior officers to give evidence.

A concern is that officers with insufficient knowledge of strategic or other issues may “inadvertently mislead” the committee, or feel intimidated because they are not used to the experience of appearing before committees.

The report also says that officers with disabilities that are known to their line manager but may not be known by the committee may be inadvertently “treated less favourably, victimised or harassed”.

This could lead to managers seeking to prevent the member of staff from giving evidence in order to protect them from such treatment, which may be perceived as an attempt to undermine the committee and its work.

The report suggests these risks can be managed and addressed by extending the grades which can be called to assistant heads of service, with any appearance by more junior officers only coming after consultation between the committee chairman and the manager of the officer in question, who must agree their appearance is necessary and appropriate.

In reaching its conclusions, the council has looked at the approaches of other local authorities and found that junior officers can be called before scrutiny bodies at Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar and Cleveland, North Tyneside, Newcastle, and Darlington councils.

Junior officers can be asked to give evidence at Hartlepool Council at the discretion of their senior manager, at Gateshead Council following consultation, while at Brighton and Hove Council they would be expected to attend “where necessary”, although only senior officers can be compelled to appear.

The Centre for Public Scrutiny was asked for its comments and said: “Your approach should be designed to get the best value from hearing from a range of people. Formal scrutiny committee meetings can be intimidating for people not used to that kind of environment.”

It said this can be mitigated by good briefings and questioning.

The report concludes: “The current provision for attendance of officers at scrutiny is clearly too restrictive for members. It is a reasonable extension of the provisions that scrutiny can require the attendance of officers at assistant head of service level and above.

“Attendance of more junior officers has more potential difficulty as set out in the report, but is likely that problems can be resolved through the suggested consultation process.”

The proposals will be considered by the committee on Monday, and its conclusions will go before the full council when it meets on September 15.