Lewisham Council have adopted the directly elected mayoral model of governance. Most of the media gaze falls upon the Mayor and the Executive. Equally important but less publicised are those with the immense responsibility for formally scrutinising the work of the council.
There have been many constitutional changes over the years. However, the basic structure of the Scrutiny function remains the same. There is one Overview & Scrutiny Committee and six select committees – sub committees – with thematic terms of reference.
These committees have to be politically balanced that is to say they need to reflect the number of seats held by the political groups on the council according to law. In these specific circumstances, it has been calculated that the Green Party hold 70% of the seats and that the Labour Party hold the remaining 30%.
These rules extend to the allocation of Chairs and Vice Chairs of the committees under the Scrutiny Procedure Rules. In essence this means that 1 Chair, 1 Vice Chair + 1 of either must be given to the Labour Group.
The extract of the paper detailing the membership of the formal scrutiny committees is below. The Green Party’s Cllr Claire Wills will chair the overarching committee and the Labour Party’s Leader of the Opposition, Cllr Ese Erheriene is the Vice Chair.
Interestingly, the chair of the Safer & Stronger Select Committee is not indicated and given the political proportionality rules it will have to be either Cllr Oana Olaru-Holmes or Cllr Kim Powell. Elsewhere on the Council’s website Cllr Oana Olaru-Holmes is named – no doubt the first meeting will resolve this conundrum.
Bellingham Councillor Gavin Moore becomes Vice Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.