Who scrutinises the scrutineers?

It’s only right and proper that councils do all they can to ensure that public money isn’t wasted. Wealden District Council in East Sussex, for instance, has three scrutiny committees. A council spokesman says the council is “looking at making savings of £2.7 million over the next three years.”

To that end, they’ve now set up another scrutiny committee – to oversee the actions of the council’s three scrutiny panels and to “scrutinise the council’s scrutiny arrangements.” The members of this panel responsible for the scrutiny of scrutiny will be made up of members of the existing scrutiny panels and its remit is to “review and improve services and to achieve better value for money.”

Sounds like that’s exactly what it’s doing.