What is Overview and Scrutiny?

The Overview and Scrutiny role (often called 'Scrutiny') was introduced to local councils in 2000 to ensure that the views and needs of the public are taken into consideration when decisions are made. Overview and Scrutiny was introduced because the law changed the way local councils made their decisions about the delivery of public services.

The new law gave power to a small number of elected councillors to make all executive decisions which, at Chesterfield Borough Council, we call the Cabinet. The Overview and Scrutiny function is here to ensure accountability to the public and reflect the needs and concerns of the community. It achieves this through the scrutiny of decisions and reviewing the effectiveness and efficiency of public service delivery.

Overview and Scrutiny Committees can:

• scrutinise decisions and actions to ensure accountability to the public
• review and develop the council's policies
• scrutinise and monitor the council's performance and use of finances and resources, for continuous improvement
• examine services delivered by other public service providers in the community

Overview and Scrutiny is undertaken by elected members of Chesterfield Borough Council – an important community role for ward councillors. The work of Overview and Scrutiny at Chesterfield Borough Council is currently undertaken by three Overview and Scrutiny Committees (OSCs) the Overview and Performance Scrutiny Forum, the Community, Customer and Organisational Scrutiny Committee and Enterprise and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee. 

Would you like to be involved in Overview and Scrutiny work?

To improve local government and services to the public, the council encourages greater public involvement to influence the decisions made about the delivery of public services to you. As Overview and Scrutiny involves representing public needs and concerns we want to enable the public to be involved in influencing our work. If you would like to be involved in scrutiny work, or you wish to raise an important community issue for our attention, please get in touch using the contact details to the right of this page.