Council and democracy

Overview and Scrutiny Committee

The Overview & Scrutiny Committee ("OSC") is the single Committee for all scrutiny purposes, except health scrutiny.

Proportionality rules apply to the OSC. Executive Members and Deputy Executuive Members are not be able to sit on the OSC.

The remit of the OSC is:

(1) to act as the County Council’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee for all purposes except health scrutiny

(2) to determine an annual work programme for scrutiny, keeping flexibility to deal with urgent issues

(3) to appoint time limited, task and finish Topic Groups to undertake detailed scrutiny work and make recommendations to the Executive; and to establish one-off scrutiny hearings where that is appropriate

(4) to appoint and manage a pool of Topic Group Chairmen and to ensure those members are trained. The pool is be open to all Council members except Cabinet members, and to the 4 parent governor and 2 church representatives.

(5) to have a reserve power to scrutinise issues itself, when urgent or required by law.

The OSC will be responsible for ensuring that the Cabinet’s budget proposals are scrutinised appropriately; and that there is regular scrutiny of the Hertfordshire Children’s Trust Partnership and the Hertfordshire Safeguarding Children Board.

The Chairman and Vice Chairmen of the OSC work together between meetings and deal with issues by consensus. Where there is no consensus the issue is referred to the OSC.

Membership:

The composition of OSC is:

(1) Chairman appointed by the Administration:
A M R Searing (Chairman)

(2) 2 Vice-Chairmen, one appointed by each Opposition Group:
J T Metcalf (Vice-Chairman)
R G Prowse (Vice-Chairman)

(3) 7 other members
N K Brook
M Downing
S B A Giles-Medhurst
B N W Hammond
M D R Muir
P A Ruffles
L Spencer

Plus:

(4) 4 parent governor and 2 church representatives, together with an additional 6 Administration members, when the OSC is dealing with education matters. There is a legal requirement for a Scrutiny Committee which deals with education matters to include these added members.

A D Dodd
B C Engel
T C Heritage
D W Hills
T J Price
M J Tucker

Parent Governor representatives:	Church representatives:
N Betteley	P Barber
S Milligan	J Reynolds
D Thomson
vacancy

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Dates of the meetings and papers for this committee.