To further celebrate the 20th anniversary of the law bringing scrutiny into being... what legal powers does local government scrutiny have? WELL! (1/)

Scrutiny has powers to look at anything affecting the area or the area's inhabitants. It can do this by calling other councillors or senior officers to attend meetings and give evidence. It can also require the production of information to support its work (2/)

Scrutiny councillors have particular, wide-ranging powers to get hold of information held by the council. Pretty much anything (even some commercially confidential information) can be accessed by a scrutiny councillor for the purpose of scrutiny work (3/)

Scrutiny can also require responses from the council to recommendations it makes. Responses must be provided within 2 months of being made and they must be in a form set out by scrutiny. So you don't have to accept it when Cabinet says recommendations are "noted"! (4/)

Scrutiny has a range of powers in relation to other local organisations. The most high profile is health scrutiny; the core power here is that when an NHS body proposes a "substantial variation" to a service provided to local people, scrutiny plays a ole in the consultation. (5/)

There are also statutory powers relating to community safety partnerships, and some relating to flood risk management. (6/)

The kind of scrutiny we work on doesn't just happen in individual councils. Some councils can set up joint committees for scrutiny (often on health matters). Police and crime panels, and scrutiny cttees of combined authorities, are also part of the same landscape (7/)

The last two decades have seen a gradual extension of scrutiny's powers - none coming with much fanfare but all adding up to quite a lot. More powers would of course be welcome - and may be necessary if we get further, meaningful devolution (8/ends)