The Scrutineer: The Impact of Overview and Scrutiny on Councillor Roles

Abstract

Over a number of decades academics have sought to devise categorisations of the roles that councillors perform. The advent of new political management arrangements has challenged these categorisations, with some academics - and practitioners - proposing the emergence of a new ‘scrutineer’ role (Sweeting, 1999; Wilson & Game, 2002). This paper seeks to explore and elaborate the nature of such a role. Examining the development of overview and scrutiny to date reveals that ‘the scrutineer’ is faced with performing an almost bewildering range of tasks. Indeed in teasing out this role, the authors found it most appropriate to analyse the key generic councillor role types and ask: ‘which of these roles are either supported or undermined by councillor involvement in overview & scrutiny?’ The paper also identifies three new roles - lobbyist, policy analyst and challenger- which are emerging as a result of the development of overview and scrutiny.