Tories accused of playing with power in Shropshire Council scrutiny row

At a Shirehall meeting yesterday a new structure for the authority’s scrutiny committees – panels tasked with analysing plans, processes and council performance – went before a full meeting of all members for approval.

But the council’s Labour and Lib Dem opposition groups were not impressed, accusing the ruling Conservative administration of trying to control how it is scrutinised, and not involving opposition councillors in drawing up plans.

Lib Dem leader Roger Evans said opposition party members had been “presented with a fait acompli, saying “this is how it’s going to be”.

“The scrutiny and overview committees haven’t even met yet but the chairmen have already been decided,” he said.

“Scrutiny is owned by all members, not by the ruling administration. Our members are being treated as second class citizens,” he said.

Labour leader Alan Mosley moved for the plans to go back to the drawing board. He said 18 months ago there was talk of a wide-ranging overhaul, but described the new plan as more like a continuation of the current structure.

He said: “We’re not opening up the system to give rise to more challenge, we’re not giving rise to a more flexible structure – we’re reinforcing a discredited structure.”

Harry Taylor, Labour councillor for Belle Vue, added that none of the selected scrutiny chairmen were opposition councillors, and Hannah Fraser, Lib Dem councillor for Abbey, said: “Effective scrutiny cannot be undertaken by someone who is not willing to cause some embarrassment to the administration – or can be influenced by the administration in inappropriate ways.”

But Gwilym Butler, Conservative councillor for Cleobury Mortimer and enterprise, and growth scrutiny chairman, stressed there was not time to go through more bureaucracy.

“We’ve got business to do, we’ve got thinking to do and we’ve got to move this council forward for the people of Shropshire,” he said.

Karen Calder, councillor for Hodnet and health scrutiny chairwoman, agreed, adding committees needed to “hit the ground running” and she expected all members, of all parties, to work hard.

On the scrutiny chairs Peter Nutting, leader of Shropshire Council, said: “I did take care to choose the right people for the right job.”

He said the make up of the council was predominantly Conservative, so of course scrutiny committees were going to have a high proportion of Conservative members.

“What I’m hearing here from the opposition is ‘let’s turn back the clock, let’s not make a decision,” he said.

He added that if the process was delayed, instead of reviewing the situation in 12 months to see how it was working, they could still be waiting to set things up.

He said he hoped the new structure would “refresh” council scrutiny, particularly by focussing on things before they happen rather than just in retrospect.

The new proposals to create two scrutiny committees for ‘performance management’ and ‘health’, and three ‘overview committees’ for ‘people’, ‘place’, and ‘communities’ were passed, though the vote was split down party lines.