Opposition parties should head up panel scrutinising council, says Labour leader

Councillor Danielle Stone also said that public trust in the council had been eroded due to the Sixfields loan saga, but did praise progress since 2016 in attempting to make the borough council more ‘open and transparent’.

But speaking at a full council meeting last night (September 14), she said there was more work to be done.

Addressing her colleagues, Councillor Stone said: “We know that trust took a terrible knock over the Sixfields fiasco. We live with decisions made in that era that were just plain wrong. Selling Sekhemka, pedestrianising Abington Street, putting buses in the Drapery, a dysfunctional bus station. This was the era of three-minute cabinet meetings.

“More recently in the borough things have moved on and have improved. We have invested more in governance, audit receives reports on governance strategy and issues and we have an independent chair of audit. Cabinet meetings last longer, full cabinet reports are received, we receive full corporate performance reports and portfolios’ make themselves available for questions and comments. All good. So what is left to do?

“It is just plain common sense that the administrations cannot scrutinise themselves. The Max Caller report of 2018 into the county council made a point of highlighting that as a failing. Our scrutiny function should be headed up by the opposition and we should be making far more use of pre-scrutiny.

“We have been calling for a long time now for proper financial scrutiny. On audit, we keep being reminded that audit is not scrutiny. That is true, one is backward-looking and one is forward-looking. However, because there is no finance scrutiny we are understandably anxious.

“Why are we raising these issues now? Local government reorganisation gives us the opportunity to start over with a new social contract with our residents. We need to develop trust in local politics.”

Currently, the scrutiny committee at the borough council is made up of 15 councillors, of which eight are members of the Conservative administration, including the chairman Councillor Jamie Lane. According to the latest annual report, the committee was recently praised by the Centre for Public Scrutiny as an example of ‘good practice’.

Responding to Councillor Stone’s comments, Conservative leader of the council Jonathan Nunn said: “I think there’s a recognition there of a lot that has happened. As Councillor Stone has alluded to, it was December 2016 when PwC published their initial report on previous problems with the football club loan, and I think we’ve come a long way.

“You’ve mentioned things like longer cabinet meetings, and I think generally if you get more people involved then you get a better decision that sticks and people get behind. Most of us tend to come to the same conclusion if we’ve had the opportunity to explore it, and that’s partly why I’m a fan of getting decent debate at council meetings and at cabinet.

“I’m reluctant to comment on audit processes. And scrutiny is an area where I don’t think I should make any decisions. I think we do scrutiny well though, so if a few members – along with Councillor Lane who has been an excellent chair of scrutiny – want to come together and look at new processes then I’m supportive.”

Although Councillor Stone said it was important to acknowledge efforts that had been made to improve good governance, she believed the authority ‘needs to go a bit further’.

She added: “Councillor Lane has been a really good chair of scrutiny, I wasn’t criticising him. But I think it’s good practice to have the opposition as the chair of scrutiny and I think we should be looking to do that.”

But, presenting his annual report of the committee just a few minutes after the debate, Councillor Lane said: "Scrutiny here at Northampton works. It's been upheld by the Centre for Public Scrutiny - please do not change its structure."

And Liberal Democrat councillor Dennis Meredith appeared to back that sentiment, saying: "When Jamie Lane was appointed, I was one of his biggest critics. I said it should be a leader of the opposition, but I've changed my opinion on that because he has been a good chair. He has been fair, he has been just and he does his homework."