Decision transparency
All local authorities are required to publish a Forward Plan of key decisions. These are decisions of a high financial value and/or with a significant effect on communities – and must be published at least 28 days before the decision is due to be taken. The Forward Plan provides openness and accountability in terms of the Council’s decision-making processes. Timely publication of key decisions in the Forward Plan helps to ensure that public, members and select committees have the opportunity to question, challenge and scrutinise these decisions.The Council has four select committees which carry out the scrutiny function, a key element of which is ‘previewing’ executive decisions.
Whilst the legal requirement is to publish key decisions in the Forward Plan at least 28 days in advance of the decision being taken, setting a target to publish 2 months in advance is to encourage greater transparency and openness and to support robust engagement and scrutiny.
March 2021 performance
The target
for decision transparency is to achieve 75% of decisions having been in the
Forward Plan for two months or more before being published, by March
2022. The figures from 2020/21 show that this target was met in quarter
one but has fallen below in the other three quarters, so the year has finished
with an average of 66% decisions having been in the Forward Plan for two months
or more.
There will
always be the challenge of urgent decisions - exacerbated this year by the
ongoing effect of the Covid-19 pandemic – which will have an impact on the
overall figure.
Democratic Services will continue to support services to ensure that key decisions are listed in the Forward Plan for at least two months and it is hoped that support and training provided by the service will see the target of 75% being achieved consistently by the target date of March 2022.