Overview and Scrutiny

The Isle of Wight Council adopted new political arrangements at its Annual Meeting in May 2005. These arrangements include a Cabinet, Cabinet Secretary, four Policy Commissions, a Scrutiny Committee and an Audit Committee.

These arrangements were formalised as part of the Council’s new Constitution, and in accordance with the statutory provisions contained in the Local Government Act 2000, in June 2005. The Constitution provides for Policy Commissions to be created which have responsibility for policy review and development work.

The Constitution also provides for the formation of a Scrutiny Committee, the purpose of which is to undertake the statutory functions of overview and scrutiny (except health scrutiny and statutory education scrutiny functions, which will sit with the appropriate Policy Commissions).

Each Policy Commission, the Audit Committee and the Scrutiny Committee usually meet on a six-weekly basis. Details of times and venues for meetings together with copies of agendas are available in libraries or on this website.

Procedures at Policy Commission, Scrutiny Committee and Audit Committee meetings are governed by a number of rules which are set out in Sections of the Council’s Constitution. Occasionally confidential or exempt information has to be considered and relevant business may then be dealt with in private session.

Members of the public are actively encouraged to attend meetings, and to become involved in overview and scrutiny investigations. In addition, the Policy Commissions and the Scrutiny Committee would welcome input into their workplans from members of the public. If you would like to suggest an item for enquiry or comment on ongoing or previous enquiries please contact us at scrutiny@iow.gov.uk.

Since May 2005 the Policy Commissions, Scrutiny Committee and Audit Committee have received dedicated, independent officer support from a team comprising:

Overview & Scrutiny Manager, leading on Audit Committee

Overview & Scrutiny Officer, leading on Children & School Results and Scrutiny Committee

Louise Biggs

Overview & Scrutiny Officer, leading on Care, Health and Housing and Safer Communities

Andrea Lisseter

Overview & Scrutiny Officer, leading on Business and Infrastructure (formally Economy, Tourism, Regeneration and Transport)

Please note: these pages contain a number of links to pdf documents which may take a while to download over a standard 56K modem. If you do not have a version of acrobat reader - this can be downloaded via our downloads section.