In 2013 the five Somerset district authorities along with Somerset CC won the ‘Working Together' Award category in the Centre for Public Scrutiny's (CfPS) annual Good Scrutiny Awards.
Winning the award was the icing on the cake following a very successful project looking into the issue of significant flooding in Somerset. Anyone who works in a two-tier local authority area will know that working effectively together can be a challenge and we are justifiably proud that the CfPS recognised our achievement in putting aside our traditional geographical and political differences to work towards a
common aim.
Recently, Somerset has been the centre of a national debate about flood prevention and response. We weren't so high profile in 2012 when we faced a similar level of flooding devastation.
Following on from the floods in late 2012 and early 2013, many of the Somerset local authorities wanted to meet with key agencies to assess what could be done to improve the situation in the future for flood affected Somerset authorities.
Initially, each authority planned individual reviews, but it became quickly apparent that the agencies involved simply did not have the capacity for six scrutiny reviews.
South Somerset DC's scrutiny manager suggested a joint county-wide review that she would facilitate, in which all five districts and the county council would be very much equal partners.
A cross party steering group was established with elected members representation from all six authorities – they quickly decided that a key aim of the review should be to gather evidence from all those involved in the flooding incidents – from the statutory agencies such as the Environment Agency and the lead local flood authority, to those communities and individuals who had their homes and businesses affected and the blue light response services.
The Steering Group decided to arrange the Somerset Flood Summit which was held in March 2013 – just six weeks after the first meeting of the steering group.
The group felt, rightly so, that it was important to meet whilst the issues were still fresh in everyone's mind.
Over 150 people attended the Summit including three local MP's, community groups, parish councils and the business community – the morning session of which consisted of presentations from key local agencies including the Met Office, Environment Agency, internal drainage boards, lead local flood authority and the Country Landowner's Association.
In the afternoon, delegates were invited to attend one of four workshops based on their particular interests of experience – each workshop was asked to identify a series of actions that could be a) taken locally and b) needed to be taken forward at a national level.
The actions, along with consideration of the evidence gathered helped form a 14 point action plan – which has been used as source document for the recently produced 20 Year Somerset Levels and Moors Flooding Plan commissioned by Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) secretary of state Owen Patterson.
Locally, the whole scrutiny process was viewed very positively, we managed to bring all the key people together in a very short space of time and reassure our communities that all the Somerset local authorities were working on their behalf to try and address the very real and significant impact of flooding on their lives.
Working within such a tight timescale was challenging, but it helped focus the mind and meant we couldn't procrastinate! The whole process also showed one of the key strengths of local government scrutiny – it can be flexible enough to work outside of the more traditional local government practices and can be truly issue led – gathering evidence in innovative and effective ways and making credible recommendations based on sound research and evidence.
For some of the members involved, this was the first time they had engaged with scrutiny in such a way and they were rightly proud of what they had achieved as well as realising the potential influence scrutiny can have on important policy areas.
Winning the award has helped raise the profile of scrutiny in general, and winning the ‘Working Together' category has been particularly beneficial in proving that all the local authorities can work well together whilst respecting their differences.
The work of the Joint Flooding Scrutiny review is on-going and as members of the Joint Scrutiny Steering Group we are actively involved in developing and monitoring arrangements for improved water management in Somerset.
Emily McGuinness is scrutiny manager at South Somerset DC
The Centre's Good Scrutiny Awards for this year are now open. The awards champion and publicise examples of good governance and scrutiny that impact on the way local authorities work and the services residents experience.
