Manchester City Council has 6 “scrutiny” committees that are supposed to keep tabs on what the 9 member Executive and the officers are up to. Supposed to. One of the problems is, there is – out of 96 councillors – only a single non-Labour councillor (John Leech, Lib Dem, in Didsbury West Ward). So, while there are some councillors with axes to grind and bones to pick, there are very few who will get hold of an awkward issue on which the council has been faaaaaaiiiiiiling consistently (take, oh, I don’t know, climate change as a random example) and ask specific questions, and then refuse to be fobbed off by the officer or Exec member. Failure to back off and accept the nonsense they spout would be a career-limiting move, you see. The people at the top do not reward such awkward independence that lets cats out of bag, skeletons out of closet.
But asides from them all being from the same party, the problems go deeper. Reports are opaque, delivered at short notice and there is simply too much for some committees to tackle. And councillors are just normal human beings (well, most of them), with other commitments (jobs, family, volunteering, helping people who are getting screwed by the Tories). So the amount of time and energy they can dedicate to piercing the propaganda is extremely limited.
Meanwhile, both the media and civil society are largely asleep at the wheel. [For more on all this, see here] .
So, scrutiny is an empty soothing ritual, where naïve activists go to get their belief in the representatives of representative democracy crushed.
If you DO want to go to a scrutiny committee meeting then please, for the love of gaia
a) do not go alone
b) do not go unprepared.
Some of the most miserable, horrible, soul-destroying hours of my life have been spent watching the farce that calls itself ‘scrutiny’.
It IS worth going (once or twice maybe), but not alone, and not unprepared. Srsly. Here’s a five minute video about what happens and some further advice.
Please feel free to contact MCFly – mcmonthly@gmail.com if you want more info.
Here below I have click click clicked through to all the specific pages of the website where the six scrutiny committee agendas are. The Council COULD, if it wanted, easily have one page where all the agendas were available. The fact that it doesn’t tells you exactly how much they care about keeping citizens informed.
Tuesday 19th July
Young People and Children’s
10am The Scrutiny Committee Room, Level 2, Town Hall Extension
Agenda
- This meeting will be webcast – see www.manchester.gov.uk/webcasts
- Download the Agenda (82.11 KB, PDF)
- Download the Supplementary Agenda (26 KB, PDF)
Reports
- 5. European Youth Capital 2019 (63.77 KB, PDF)
- 6. Residential Review (107.11 KB, PDF)
- 7. Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) – Part 1 – Rodney House School (135.58 KB, PDF)
- 7. Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) – Part 2 – Broad Oak Primary School(73.06 KB, PDF)
- 8. Local Government Association (LGA) Care Practice Diagnostic (49.56 KB, PDF)
- 9. Post Ofsted Improvement Plan Update: Early Help (209.03 KB, PDF)
- 10. Post Ofsted Improvement Plan Update: Signs of Safety (291.46 KB, PDF)
- 11. Overview Report (124.87 KB, PDF)
Neighbourhoods and “Environment”
2pm The Scrutiny Committee Room, Level 2, Town Hall Extension
Agenda
- This meeting will be wecast – see www.manchester.gov.uk/webcasts
- Download the Agenda (29.01 KB, PDF)
- Download the Supplementary Agenda (25.39 KB, PDF)
Reports
- 5. Manchester City Council’s Policy Framework for Neighbourhood Planning (40.42 KB, PDF)
- 6.1 Neighbourhood Planning in Castlefield (8.68 MB, PDF)
- 6.2 Neighbourhood Planning in Levenshulme (356.38 KB, PDF)
- 7. Climate Change Action Plan and Emmissions (131.38 KB, PDF)
- 8. Air Quality Action Plan (1.07 MB, PDF)
- 9. Tree Strategy and Action Plan (59.89 KB, PDF)
- 10. Overview Report (119.54 KB, PDF)
So, if all items get an equal amount of time, and the meeting is kept to two hours there will be… 20 minutes for discussion of climate change. And one of those minutes will be taken up explaining how to spell emissions. God help us all.
Weds 20th July
Economy Scrutiny Committee
10am The Scrutiny Committee Room, Level 2, Town Hall Extension
Agenda
- This meeting will be webcast – see www.manchester.gov.uk/webcasts
- Download the Agenda (73.01 KB, PDF)
- Download the Supplementary Agenda (69.23 KB, PDF)
Reports
- 5. Cumulative Impact of Welfare Reforms (129.87 KB, PDF)
- 6. Universal Credit Presentation (1.13 MB, PDF)
- 6. Universal Credit Presentation – Updated version (4.3 MB, PDF)
- 6. Oral Report on Jobcentre Plus
- 7. Welfare to Work Programmes (82.15 KB, PDF)
- 8. Overview Report (131.24 KB, PDF)
Communities and Equalities
2pm The Scrutiny Committee Room, Level 2, Town Hall Extension
Agenda
- This meeting will be webcast – see www.manchester.gov.uk/webcasts
- Download the Agenda (28.47 KB, PDF)
Reports
- 5. Central Library and Archive Plus (331.03 KB, PDF)
- 6. Community Safety Overview (82.86 KB, PDF)
- 7.Domestic Violence and Abuse Strategy (884.24 KB, PDF)
- 8. Overview Report (39.39 KB, PDF)
Thurs 21st July
“Resources and Governance”
10am The Scrutiny Committee Room, Level 2, Town Hall Extension
Agenda
- see-www.manchester.gov.uk/webcast
- Download the Agenda (28.94 KB, PDF)
- Download the Revised Agenda (26.41 KB, PDF)
- Download the Supplementary Agenda (24.25 KB, PDF)
Reports
- 5. The Refurbishment of Manchester Town Hall and Albert Square: ‘Our Town Hall’ (74.28 KB, PDF)
- 6. Accommodation Scrutiny (68.14 KB, PDF)
- 7. ICT Strategy (531.82 KB, PDF)
- 8. ICT Update (24.99 KB, PDF)
- 8. REVISED ICT Update (27.53 KB, PDF)
- 9. Implications of Brexit (39.88 KB, PDF)
- 10. Council approach to budget settingReports (34.44 KB, PDF)
- 11. Overview Report (131.21 KB, PDF)
Health
2pm The Scrutiny Committee Room, Level 2, Town Hall Extension
Agenda
- This meeting will be webcast – see www.manchester.gov.uk/webcasts
- Download the Agenda (81.32 KB, PDF)
- Download the Supplementary Agenda (24.22 KB, PDF)
Reports
- 5. Manchester’s Locality Plan – One Team care model (219.96 KB, PDF)
- 6. Manchester’s Locality Plan – Single Hospital Service (348.64 KB, PDF)
- 7. Health and Wellbeing Update – Part 1 (22.76 KB, PDF)
- 7. Health and Wellbeing Update – Part 2 (35.93 KB, PDF)
- 8. Overview Report (99.59 KB, PDF)
