As chair of the Centre for Public Scrutiny, I was asked to deliver its annual lecture last month. It provided the opportunity and incentive to consider how to ensure effective scrutiny of government at national, regional and local levels.

I set out a number of suggestions for improving the way parliament scrutinises legislation, and also posed some issues relating to regional and local scrutiny. 

Regional scrutiny has benefited from the inclusion of other partners, including the business community and voluntary sector, and a more consensual approach. The danger is that, with the ending of current arrangements following abolition of regional assemblies, scrutiny at a regional level could revert towards the more adversarial style, in which party divisions and a desire to win the argument often tend to prevail over the less partisan search for the best solution.

Most commentators would accept that experience to date of scrutiny in local government has been patchy. There are some good examples of imaginative and effective work, but other cases where the local authority has not properly engaged with the process. 

There is still a lingering opposition to the division of councillors between executive and scrutiny roles and a misplaced nostalgia for the supposed benefits of the old committee system.

I believe the overview and scrutiny functions can and should more effectively contribute to policy development.

Interestingly the development of partnership working with other local bodies, of Local Area Agreements and Multi-Area Agreements, and the scrutiny of outside organisations all provide real opportunities for much more constructive engagement.

The experience of health scrutiny, to date, provides some excellent examples of this. By extending the canvass to cover a wider range of activities than merely those discharged directly by the local authority, there is greater opportunity to influence services that impact on the local community, and the chance to learn from how other organisations approach their responsibilities.

One of the strongest conclusions I drew from my period as local government minister was the degree to which the high performers were, almost without exception, authorities open to new ideas and eager to learn from others' experience and good practice. The scrutiny function, particularly in the context of cross-boundary and inter-disciplinary activities, holds out huge opportunities for distilling the experience of others and learning lessons which can be applied to good effect in one's own authority. 

The enemy as always is narrow-mindedness, an unwillingness to accept that lessons can be learned from others, the ‘not invented here' syndrome, and the traditional adversarial culture which seeks to reject any proposal that does not emerge from within the ruling ‘tribe'. 

There is a great deal of evidence, most recently highlighted by Jane Roberts' Councillors' Commission, to show that the public's disenchantment with the political process reflects a perception that politicians will always put personal or party interests first and are not in it for the public good.

Demonstrating that this is not the case and trying to ensure people with a diverse range of skills and backgrounds are able to work together in the common interest is one of the ways in which we can hope to overcome the dangerous and pervasive cynicism that colours perceptions of contemporary politics and government. 

Effective scrutiny has, I believe, a vital role to play in raising public confidence in how we are governed.

Nick Raynsford is a former local government minister and chair of the Centre for Public Scrutiny