Every May at the start of each municipal year the Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) function asks local residents, partner organisations, council officers, and stakeholders to highlight areas of concern or make suggestions for a scrutiny review or smaller investigation.
Overview and Scrutiny is a function within Hackney Council that holds the decision makers (called the Executive) to account for the services the Council delivers. The Cabinet, led by the Mayor of Hackney, is responsible for making sure that people receive the services that the Council has agreed and Overview and Scrutiny (O&S) is responsible for ensuring that Cabinet and the Mayor do their job. O&S is made up of back-bench councillors i.e those not in Cabinet and is the local government equivalent of Select Committees in Parliament.
The role of Overview and Scrutiny is to review performance and examine the decisions of the Executive from a non party-political perspective, and to conduct in–depth investigations into key issues when necessary. Overview and Scrutiny has powers to scrutinise the services not only provided by the Council but also by partner public service organisations e.g. the NHS, police or housing associations, as they too have a significant impact on the wellbeing of the population.
We look at how the Council and its partner organisations might improve their services and to do this we divide the work across 4 themed Commissions as follows:
Health in Hackney - covering adult health services (NHS community and hospital health care including mental health) and social care services for adults
Living in Hackney - covering housing, public realm (highways, waste, energy etc), community safety as well as leisure and parks
Children and Young People - covering education & schools, children's social care, youth services
Skills, Economy and Growth - covering adult employment, economy, transport infrastructure, planning and licensing.
We want to hear from you about what you you would like the Council to look at next. Suggestions could be local issues and services that are important to you and which you think should be improved.
Please look at our most recent annual report here as this will help give you an idea of the range of topics you might consider suggesting.
Your feedback will be collated and reviewed and a work programme for the year will then be agreed.
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