We live in a cynical age in which government, both central and local, all too often gets a bad press.

We hear frequently about the alleged breakdown of trust between the public and their elected representatives. We know that turnout at elections is far lower than ought to be the case in a flourishing democracy. We have become wearily familiar with media exposures of administrative failure or waste, each time calling into question the competence of the particular Government department or local authority.

And although the Audit Commission supplies convincing evidence that local authority performance has improved significantly in recent years, public opinion polls tell a different story.

Why is it that negative perceptions about the way government operates both centrally and locally are so pervasive? In part it reflects the fact we live in a much less deferential age than in the past when, as legend would have it, the ‘man in Whitehall' or the town hall was assumed not only to be right but to be acting at all times with the utmost rectitude.

The 24/7 media environment also has contributed. It is bad news, not good news, that generally sells newspapers and excites broadcasters, so the pressures to uncover alleged malpractice or incompetence are remorseless. Thirdly, there is the impact of rising public aspirations. People do expect the products they buy to be continuously improving, and the same logic applies to public services. So, to an extent, rising performance standards are discounted.

The net result is ever-greater pressure on public authorities to meet stringent performance standards and the likelihood of being pilloried if they make mistakes.

There is no point in complaining about this – it is a simple fact of life in the world we live in. So the question we should be posing is how do we best respond to achieve continuous improvement and minimize the risk of things going wrong?

I have no doubt that effective scrutiny is one of the ways in which we can best meet these challenges. That is why I have recently taken on the chairmanship of the Centre for Public Scrutiny, a small but influential voluntary organisation whose aim is to promote effective scrutiny in both central and local government.

The scrutiny function has been an accepted part of parliamentary life for a very long time, but it is only in recent years that it has begun to assume greater significance in local government. Some are still wary of scrutiny, seeing it as a potential threat rather than a valuable tool to identify weaknesses and so improve performance.

Of course, scrutiny does provide opportunities for opposition parties to score points when particular failings are identified. But any confident and forward-looking authority is well able to take such hits, knowing it is far better to be rooting out problems and remedying organisational or political weaknesses rather than trying to brush them under the carpet. Hoping that problems will never see the light of day, or simply go away with the passage of time, is not only a counsel of despair, it is also bound to fail in a 24/7 media-driven society with Freedom of Information legislation on the Statute Book. So I have absolutely no doubt that scrutiny is here to stay – as an essential element in any well-run public sector organisation. It also has great potential to break down some of the barriers that have traditionally bedeviled public authorities organised into separate departments or silos.

Taking a cross-cutting look at issues often helps to uncover inefficiencies and failings that flow from an over-rigid, silo-driven approach. And with growing scope for partnership working across traditional barriers, this type of scrutiny is likely to be a growth area in the years ahead. Effective scrutiny needs to be undertaken rigorously, with the focus on achieving long-term benefits rather than securing short-term headlines.

The temptation to ‘grandstand' is always there and has, at times, diverted Parliamentary Select Committees away from topics where scrutiny may lead to substantial improvements in performance over a period of time, but where there is little immediate media interest.

So establishing clear criteria for scrutiny committees and resourcing them properly to undertake serious and in-depth investigations into issues of long-term importance, is vital if we are to get the best out of them.

Nick Raynsford is former local government minister