‘There is certainly a place for a strong and effective investigatory body in this era of Labour’s overwhelming control of Camden Town Hall’

IT is just over 20 years since the first scrutiny committees were introduced as part of the Local Government Act.

They were set up with good intentions of holding big budget, publicly-funded institutions to account, but in Camden they have struggled to really make their mark.

There is certainly a place for a strong and effective investigatory body in this era of Labour’s overwhelming control of Camden Town Hall.

With so few members in opposition, it is important to have a group of elected councillors unafraid of asking difficult questions, however awkward they may be.

At Tuesday’s culture and environment scrutiny committee there was an hour-long discussion about policing of Primrose Hill park that included lengthy debate about whether or not permanent gates should be installed and when a hotly-anticipated survey would be published by the Royal Parks.

No one from the Royal Parks had bothered to show up for the meeting, despite requests for them to appear.

The very next morning the Royal Parks published the survey and announced plans to install the gates on the park. Those at the meeting and supposedly with the inside track were exposed as utterly out of the loop.

In the same meeting, councillors spent 90 minutes probing the inner workings of Camden’s dockless bike plans with Lime.

The accompanying papers said a new contract was due to be approved at the end of the month – but at the very end of the meeting, a council official suddenly announced that he had just been told as far as Camden was concerned, the contract was fully approved.

Any recommendations for changes would be considered a breach of contract. Again the majority of the meeting was rendered meaningless.

It is unfair to single out the committee chaired by Cllr Awale Olad, who is not afraid to ask fierce and unsettling questions of people who have got a little too cosy in their relationships – and he seems to relish it too!

The health and wellbeing scrutiny has also often fallen foul of that old saying: shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

The big problem for the scrutiny committee system is the splintering of public services.

The consequence of endless privatisation, quangos and third-sector organisations, is we have many institutions that despite being publicly-funded are not accountable to one another.

If we are to have scrutiny committees it is up to senior councillors in the administration, and senior officers, to set the tone and create an environment that welcomes constructive challenge and democratic accountability.

When scrutiny is marginalised, is there not a risk of damaging the council’s reputation?