Why scrutiny matters

Written by Sally Hamwee and published in IDEA on Mon 24th Mar 2003

How to define success in scrutiny – that has been one of the challenges facing the London Assembly. Of course, the criteria for success depend on who you are.

The Assembly is a part of the Greater London Authority, elected for the first time in 2000. We have the statutory duty of keeping under review the exercise by the Mayor of his functions (with a useful power to investigate matters which we consider to be important to Greater London), and a non-statutory enthusiasm to act as a critical friend to the executive arm of the GLA, the Mayor; whether criticism or friendship is the real target also depends, to some extent, on who you are.

I had not realised just how hard it would be to balance competing concerns. We are in the unusual position of having a Mayor who is not a member of a political party, though his relationship with one party – or some members of it – is much closer than with others, and members who come from four parties and all the time have at least one eye on party politics. The Assembly received particular praise for an early report on the (then) proposed congestion charging scheme, a successful piece of work because the concerns of the scheme's supporters to ensure the best possible scheme, and of its opponents to pick holes in it, happily coincided.

That report was successful in the eyes too of those who say that scrutiny is not successful unless it achieves a degree of media coverage. That's not a view I fully share, but I understand it. If the big issue in politics today is civic engagement, it's no use doing great work if the citizens don't know about it; or, as a member put it, media coverage is an external audit of the relevance of scrutiny.

Without shared objectives, it is hard to achieve the best. At Mayor's Question Time (two and a half hours every month, as well as a good many other public sessions) questioning sometimes takes off, with members following up on others' points without regard to party. But we're still so new that anxiety to get a proportional amount of "air time" puts artificial constraints on the process. And as for how to ensure that Question Time promotes the scrutiny body rather than providing a convenient platform for the executive – well it would take a less articulate Mayor than we have now, not a one-man walking PR machine.

Of course, if you're the focus of scrutiny you may never admit to its being successful. Now that the Assembly has the experience of a series of sessions with the same people (including those at the top of the transport and police services), I hope we can explore the benefits of scrutinising the development and implementation of policies with which we agree. It must be uncomfortable being questioned, but not all questioning is hostile. In this new world of scrutiny, one of our tasks must be to convince the scrutinised that sometimes we want them to provide us with ammunition to help promote what they are doing, not to destroy it.

And as for the majority of stakeholders (horrid word), the public – well, no doubt those with a particular connection with the issue may enjoy some cut and thrust, but for most what matters is executive action getting better and better, day by day. We may not get the credit, and we will never know whether the Mayor or his officials stop and think: I'd better not do that; the Assembly will give me hell. But I won't forget the advice of the Chief Executive over a Mayoral reply: Put that in your handbag. You never know when it may come in useful.