Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the scrutiny of the role, remit and performance of public service boards and outline any assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the current scrutiny arrangements?
The scrutiny arrangements for Public Service Boards (PSB) are a matter for each local authority to determine within the parameters of the Well-being and Future Generations Act (“the Act”). This requires local authorities to designate one of its Overview and Scrutiny Committee to review the governance arrangements of the PSB as well as its review or scrutinise the decisions made or actions taken by the PSB and make reports or recommendations to the board regarding its functions or governance arrangements.
In collaboration with the Centre for Public Scrutiny, we issued Guidance to local authority Scrutiny Committees on the scrutiny of Public Services Boards in August 2017.