Scrutiny Committees will examine major and new policy proposals and investigate specific areas of service delivery. Most Committee decisions are taken under delegated authority although decisions involving the creation of new policy and the setting of the annual capital and revenue budgets will be referred to full Council for approval. Some powers are delegated to Chief Officers so that they can deal with the day to day running of the service without the need to constantly refer matters back to councillors. Meetings are controlled by the Chair, who is responsible for seeing that the business is dealt with properly. Items of business for consideration at a meeting are set out on an agenda.
Most items take the form of an officers report.
The front page of the report summarises what it is about and sets out a list of recommendations. These may or may not be accepted by the Committee. Officers do not have a vote but attend meetings to present their reports or give advice to members. At the meetings an officer from the Committee Service Unit will make a note of issues raised during the discussion and produce a set of minutes, which set the decisions made by the Committee. Once finalised these are available to members of the public.