15th October 2006

A recent Audit Commission report has criticised the Council Administration for its “weak” response to requests from the Council’s own Environment Scrutiny Committee to comment on, and influence, decisions on environmental matters.

Says Green Councillor Sid Phelps, Chair of the Environment Scrutiny Committee; “The Auditor has echoed my own frustrations in trying to get the Council to take  environmental matters seriously. The Committee has repeatedly asked for reports and been provided with them far too late to input into the decision-making process. It is not good enough.”

The Auditor, Steven Shuttleworth, from the Audit Commission wrote:
"Our key concern was that reports requested by the [Environment Scrutiny] committee were too slow to be delivered and did not help the committee to provide timely  scrutiny. In the case of the proposed changes to the waste and recycling service, the committee had been keen to scrutinise and evidently requested a report last October and November, but did not receive it until February - after it went to executive board. Our concern was that the main public consultation on the new recycling proposals was taking place after agreement to the principles had already been made – based on limited consultation at the time decisions were taken. Given the potentially complex service delivery issues, the likely views of service users and the significant financial implications (in terms of both investment costs and impact on value for money), we thought that scrutiny input would have been more helpful in advance of decisions."

Note that the criticism dates back to the previous Labour Administration although there is no sign that the situation has improved since the LibDems took control in May 2006.

Notes:
The Audit Commission report into the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership was
published in Sept 2006. (Appendix 4 gives a summary for the City
Council). The clarifying comments from Stephen Shuttleworth has been recieved more recently.
 

FFI Contact Sid Phelps (Chair ESC, Oxford City) on 07771-504856