Our Scrutiny Review ensures that you have the right scrutiny arrangements in place to make a positive impact within your authority.

A typical review may consider:

• If your overall committee structure is appropriately aligned to the Council overall

• The value that scrutiny adds and the impact of its recommendations

• If work planning, information sharing and officer support are effective

• Members’ skills and understanding of their role

• The use of Task and Finish groups

• Members’ relationships with one another and with officers.

Our final report will make strong, clear recommendations to strengthen your scrutiny practices.

Our Planning Review is a detailed appraisal of your authority’s planning function. This service includes:

• Procedures – assessing how you manage your application caseload in terms of timeliness and communication with applicants/statutory consultees

• Policies – evaluating policies relating to delegated decisions, call-in, and deferrals

• Committees – a granular analysis of your planning committee structure, the conduct of meetings, and the skillset of committee members.

We tailor the scope of the Planning Review to generate focussed and relevant recommendations.

For consultancy on statutory and non-statutory planning consultations, see the Public Engagement Review tab.

Our Governance Review is a comprehensive exploration of three core areas of your authority:

• Council - considering how to improve your meetings of Council and the rules surrounding them

• Constitution - ensuring you have a modern constitution that is fit for purpose

• Committees - evaluating your committee arrangements and their alignment to authority’s strategic objectives.

For those who operate a Leader/Cabinet model, we explore a fourth aspect:

• Cabinet - improving the decision-making process and the efficiency of the cabinet system.

This is a large scale review which can be delivered in one of two ways:

• Through one-to-one interviews, our observations and a survey to gauge the views of officers and members.

• As part of a workshop series that uses benchmarking research to co-design (with a group of members and officers) a new series of governance arrangements for the authority.

We produce a comprehensive report with evidence-based recommendations at the conclusion of both pathways.

We offer a specialist review of early years provision in your local authority area.

We draw upon local, regional and national data to create a ‘state of early years’ report which measures your authority against regional and national averages for:

• Health visiting

• EYFS

• Disparities by economic deprivation

• Nursery places.

We work beyond the local authority - taking evidence from across the sector - and make recommendations to ensure your council and its partners properly geared up to give every child the best start in life.

We recognise that Councils want to know more about public opinion, but don’t always have the resources or know-how to achieve this.

Our Public Engagement Review supports you to understand the people you serve.

We offer support with:

• Undertaking independent public consultation and providing insights

• Reviewing your approach to public engagement and consultation, to improve governance and practices

• Analysing data you have gathered to tell you the story behind it.

We will identify and apply the right methodology to generate insights that you can trust.

We offer a separate service for those seeking insights into consultations relating to planning applications and Local Plan adoption. Here we explore:

• How you can incorporate creative methods into plan-making and decision-taking processes

• Ways of increasing engagement with pre-application exercises

• The management of public meetings and press releases.

Local government ward boundaries are important in crafting a sense of place. Our Boundaries Review will support you to devise the strongest Boundary Commission submission possible.

We will support you to:

• Make strong, convincing arguments in defence of your warding proposals, in line with the Commission’s criteria

• Strengthen your submission by improving how you communicate your ideas

• Improve the design and presentation of your proposals.

We work with local authorities, political parties and residents groups to make Boundary Commission submissions.