Some Changes and Some Haiku

You might have noticed that Overview & Scrutiny in Swansea has changed a bit over the last few months.

We have new meetings, new tools and new ways of doing things – these changes were fueled by the work of the Child & Family Services Overview & Scrutiny Board and by our Improvement Programme. 

Now that all of the new boards and committees have met I though it would be a good moment just to summarise all these changes.  Anyway, here is a presentation I made to most of the boards and committees outlining the new changes and reasons for them (apologies for those councillors who saw it several times – they could probably recite it now!):

Councillors in the different meetings all have their own distinctive takes on the changes – some are majoring on some aspects and some on others.  It will be really interesting to see what works well and to see what can be learnt across the the different overview & scrutiny themes.  In January the Overview & Scrutiny Business Committee will be reviewing how the changes have worked so we will get a good idea then – ultimately they will want to know if there has been improved decision making and improved performance.

Finally, you will see the presentation ends with a Scrutiny Haiku – I’m hoping this particular branch of this noble Japaanese art form will catch on although I appreciate it may be a little, er, specialised.  Here it is again anyway:

Ask the right questions

Investigate and propose

Ways we can improve

Not the worst summary of what overview and scrutiny is in my opinion (although possibly the worst Haiku).