Overview and scrutiny

The overview and scrutiny function is vital to our work, helping us develop policies, improve our performance and hold the City Mayor and Executive to account for their decisions. It can also help scrutinise work carried out by other organisations, such as the NHS.

Scrutiny is a function designed to increase transparency and examine policies and decisions to improve public services. Our scrutiny system consists of the Overview Select Committee and six Scrutiny Commissions that are made up of councillors who are not members of our main decision-making executive. They can also include people from outside bodies, such as community leaders, school governors and members of our Young People's Council.

Each Scrutiny Commission is made up of eight members that is politically balanced. They meet six times per municipal year to gather evidence from officers, councillors, service users and experts before making recommendations to the City Mayor and Executive. Where a Scrutiny Commission cannot examine the level of detail required for a particular topic within a formal meeting, it may decide further in-depth work is required separately before reporting back meaningful conclusions and recommendations to a future public meeting. Members of Scrutiny Commissions may therefore also meet to undertake task reviews, inquiry days, workshops, community meetings or site visits about particular topics.

What areas do we scrutinise?

Our scrutiny system consists of the Overview Select Committee and six scrutiny commissions:

• Overview Select Committee has a general remit to perform the scrutiny role and functions as set out in Article 8 of our constitution, and specifically scrutinises the work of the city mayor, deputy city mayors and areas of our work overseen by them as well as cross cutting issues such as equalities and our finances.
• Adult social care focuses on matters relating to our delivery of statutory adult social care functions, such as care services to allow independence in own homes, care services for those that need care away from home and policies for health needs such as dementia.
• Children, young people and education looks at children's social care, education and attainment and support provision for children and young people and families.
• Culture and neighbourhood services looks at areas including parks and play areas, museums and heritage interpretation, sports services and the provision of community services, libraries, environmental and enforcement services and welfare reform.
• Economic development, transport and climate emergency consider matters which include regeneration, public transport and cycle and car provision, adult learning and job provision and tourism.
• Housing considers matters relating to housing and the homeless.
• Public health and integration of health services has a unique democratic mandate to act in the interests of all Leicester residents, in relation to the health services they receive. It also exercises, from 31 January 2024, the power to make a call-in request to the Secretary of State to intervene in a proposed local reconfiguration.

Contact us

Write to us:
Governance Services
City Hall, 115 Charles Street
Leicester
LE1 1FZ

Send us an email: [email protected]