Case Study – Aberdeen City
Principle 1: Focus on Outcomes
Scrutiny Model 3: Elected Member Only Scrutiny
Key Contact: Ciaran Monaghan, Head of Service, Office of Chief Executive, Aberdeen City
Council (cmonaghan@aberdeencity.gov.uk) and Duncan Smith, Area Manager - Aberdeen
City (duncan.smith@firescotland.gov.uk)
Introduction
The purpose of the Aberdeen City case study is to illustrate how the elected member only
scrutiny model has been adopted and is being put into practice, and to focus on how
outcomes can be achieved through using the example of the Local Fire Plan (i.e. Principle 1
of the Collaborative Statement of Good Scrutiny and Engagement). The case study was
created through a series of interviews with the Head of Service at the Office of the Chief
Executive at Aberdeen City Council (Ciaran Monaghan), the Fire and Rescue Service LSOs for
Aberdeen City (Duncan Smith) and Aberdeenshire (Davy Rout), the Chief Inspector for
Support at Aberdeen City Police Service (Martin Mackay) and the Leader of the Council and
Chair of the Community Planning Partnership (Councillor Barney Crockett).
Background and local context
Late in 2011, the Head of Service at the Office of the Chief Executive at Aberdeen City
received an email from the Scottish Government inviting Aberdeen City to put itself forward
as a Pathfinder for the new Local Engagement and Scrutiny (LSE) arrangements. The Head of
Service was keen to become a Pathfinder, given the high level of partnership working that
was already in place across the North East agencies (Aberdeen City Council, Moray Council,
Aberdeenshire Council, the former Grampian Police and former Grampian Fire and Rescue
Service). However, he wanted to avoid a ‘one-size fits all’ approach for the respective
councils, given their unique local circumstances. The North East Pathfinder for the new LSE
arrangements therefore went forward with separate local authorities and the Head of
Service, Ciaran Monaghan, leading the Aberdeen City arrangements.
The local elections of May 2012 saw Aberdeen City move from being SNP-led to being
Labour-led. New joint boards for the Police and Fire and Rescue Service were established at
this time following Royal Assent of the Police & Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012, and the
Head of Service for Aberdeen City was tasked with ensuring that the Local Authority could
discharge its new duties under the Act.
Model of Scrutiny
In September 2012, the Head of Service proposed to an existing committee of the Council,
the Corporate Policy and Performance Committee (CPPC), that their Orders of Reference be
altered to give them responsibility of discharging the Local Authority’s responsibilities under
the 2012 Reform Act. The CPPC agreed to this, and subsequently full Council agreed to this
extension of the CPPC’s remit. Through extending the Orders of Reference for the CPPC, it is
charged with acting on behalf of the Council in fulfilling the Council’s duties under the
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Reform Act. The scrutiny model adopted in Aberdeen City is therefore elected member-only
scrutiny.
There were four primary reasons for extending the CPPC’s remit as a way to meet the Local
Authority’s duties:
1) The CPPC already had responsibility for scrutinising the Community Planning
Partnership, which meant that committee members were well acquainted with the
existing processes, structures and agencies involved in the new arrangements:
‘they understood working in partnership across blue light agencies’ (Fire and
Rescue Service interviewee)
2) There was no additional budget attached to the new arrangements under the
Reform Act therefore the costs of setting up a new structure would have been borne
by the Council;
3) Extending the remit of the CPPC was deemed to be a simple arrangement that
provided clarity across the three organisations (Local Authority, Police and Fire and
Rescue).
4) The Reform Act is clear that the responsibility to report and submit to scrutiny sits
with the Local Authority, rather than the Community Planning Partnership and the
Head of Service did not want to ‘hive off responsibility to do it third hand through the
Community Planning Partnership’.
To support the implementation of the new arrangements, the Area Manager/Head of
Operations at Grampian Fire and Rescue Service and the Police Chief Superintendant
arranged briefing sessions for the members of the CPPC which included presentations on
the respective interim Local Plans (Police and Fire and Rescue) and discussions on potential
issues (e.g. resolving differences between the respective organisations). During the
Pathfinder process, the Police were keen to connect the Local Police Plan with community
safety partnership work and use the Local Police Plan to respond to the Community Safety
Strategic Assessment (CSSA). The CSSA was used as a starting point for identifying the Police
priorities in the Local Plan and for identifying the priorities in the 13 Multi Member Ward
Plans. This process resulted in roughly 15 iterations of the Local Police Plan and three drafts
being shared with the CPPC – something which the Police interviewee said illustrated the
‘level of change, consultation and making it accurate to our local community.’ Members of
the CPPC were invited to visit the Police Headquarters which was important because,
‘A lot of engagement had been happening at executive level but at divisional
command level it was more ad hoc and built around issues as opposed to a cohesive
structured relationship.’ (Police interviewee)
The CPPC were also invited to the five LSE events organised by the Scottish Government’s
Local Scrutiny and Engagement Network, which several attended.
To date, the Local Authority is meeting its requirements under the Reform Act: there is a
Local Commander and a Local Senior Officer in place; the Local Police Plan and Local Fire
and Rescue Plan have been agreed; it has responded where necessary to national level
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information from the Scottish Government; and they are working in a collegiate way with
colleagues.
Strengthening the link between services and communities
A key aim for the LSE reforms is to increase the connection between Police and Fire and
Rescue Services and the communities that they serve. On the former Grampian Fire and
Rescue Board there were six elected members for Aberdeen City, six for Aberdeenshire and
three for Moray. Now there are 15 elected Members on the CPPC for Aberdeen City: this
increased membership means that more locally elected ward-based politicians sit on the
CPPC and the Chair of the Community Safety Partnership now sits on the CPPC and bring a
wealth of expertise and knowledge to it. The new scrutiny arrangements were felt by Fire
and Rescue interviewees to have dramatically changed the scrutiny role of Members:
‘The scrutiny process has increased by 120%. It’s Local Authority-specific and not
tripartite – it’s stronger from a local democracy perspective and it also strengthens
the link to community planning.’ (Fire & Rescue interviewees)
Through improving the level and nature of scrutiny of Fire and Rescue and Police services,
local democracy is enhanced because the respective Local Plans (i.e. Police and Fire &
Rescue), which were both based on community consultation, and associated KPIs are being
monitored. This should enable stronger accountability to make sure that agencies deliver
the actions set out in their Local Plans. The CPPC structure supports this scrutiny function of
the Local Authority because there are dedicated agenda items and allocated time for Fire
and Rescue matters and Police matters, embedded within the structure of the CPPC, for
example through mandatory reporting.
The Chair of the Community Planning Partnership and Leader of the Council noted that
under the new arrangements of a centralised Police and Fire & Rescue Service, scrutiny may
be increased but only for the elements that the Local Authority has responsibility for. The
real questions about control and resourcing in moving from regional to central
arrangements remained:
‘... the questioning will be what the power of the Local Authority will be...A lot of it
will be about the relative resourcing of Fire and Police...’ (Leader of Aberdeen City
Council)
Delivering outcomes through the Fire and Rescue Service
Fire and Rescue Service interviewees believe that the national reforms have led to a better
use of specialist resources and knowledge, consistency in approach and efficiency savings in
the Fire and Rescue Service, as well as strengthening partnerships at a local level.
Moving from eight regional services to one national service means that resources that can
be drawn down on a specialist national basis and expert teams can now be deployed across
the country. For example, Fire and Safety Enforcement now has a specialist team for
enforcing safety in different types of environments such as hospitals, which are often
complex buildings. The Police Scotland Local Authority Liaison Officer met with NHS
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Grampian Head of Security in July 2013 and reported that they welcomed this new approach
in respect of their properties.
Having one national service means that certain regions can draw in national expertise rather
than being confined to a regional team, for example the regional Fire Investigation team is
based in Aberdeen and has been deployed into the former Highlands & Islands and Tayside
areas. This in turn better informs the local LSO which can lead to them making changes
which impacts on outcomes:
‘The Island Group have benefitted from a highly skilled, expert team going in. This
better informs the LSO in Orkney. This impacts on outcomes.’ (FRS interviewees)
Standardisation of other FRS functions such as Fire Investigation and Training & Skills
supports efficiency savings as there is less duplication of effort.
At a local level, the Aberdeen City Fire and Rescue Service Local Plan was highlighted by the
Scottish Government as being exemplary for the way in which it focused on outcomes. The
Fire and Rescue Service interviewees explained that the Local Fire & Rescue Plan takes a
‘whole systems approach’ by linking with the key partnerships (e.g. Community Planning
and Community Safety) and key strategies such as the Community Safety Partnership
Strategic Assessment and the Aberdeen City Single Outcomes Agreement (SOA). Fire and
Rescue interviewees described their role as being beyond community safety, and as
connected with key SOA themes of children, older people and health and wellbeing as the
following diagram, taken from Aberdeen City’s draft SOA January 2013 illustrates:
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Objectives within the Fire & Rescue Local Plan are linked to wider policy areas including
antisocial behaviour and public safety as well as the environmental impact of fire business,
and of reducing demand on the FRS through raising educational awareness about fire safety.
Alongside this strategic approach is one that is firmly grounded at neighbourhood level
through the City Hub, which provides a co-located base for a range of City agencies. For
example, the Hub has an embedded Fire and Rescue Officer working alongside colleagues in
the NHS, social work, housing and Police. A daily tasking and coordination meeting shares
intelligence across agencies and feeds upwards to a monthly tasking and coordinating
meeting at tactical level. This tactical meeting analyses the data coming from daily tasking,
measures and scrutinises it against the annual Community Safety Plan.
Through being co-located in the Hub, community safety colleagues from across different
agencies can informally share knowledge and expertise. This sharing of intelligence
supported by close working relationships is delivering better outcomes. For example, the
Fire and Rescue Service shared their risk profile map (created using MOSAIC and FSEC, the
Fire Service Assessment Toolkit) with the Local Authority Housing service to help them
target the homes they prioritised to retrofit smoke detectors in – they adapted their
approach and aligned it with the intelligence shared by the Fire and Rescue Service.
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As the Fire and Rescue interviewees noted,
‘Partnership working was already in existence so rather than creating something
new, we have consolidated all Fire and Rescue data and objectives within the Local
Plan but with the full awareness of other partners’ objectives and priorities as well,
for example through the development of the City Hub, awareness of vulnerable
adults through social work, and our changing approach to adults at risk.’
Key success factors
The model of scrutiny for Aberdeen City is straightforward to replicate elsewhere in that it
requires a relatively simple process of extending the Orders of Reference of an existing
scrutiny committee to take on the Local Authority responsibilities under the Reform Act. The
CPPC was well established and embedded within existing scrutiny arrangements of the Local
Authority:
‘The CPPC seems a logical route of scrutiny. It’s a solid platform established in
Aberdeen City and a credit to Ciaran Monaghan and the Pathfinder process’. (Fire &
Rescue interviewees).
The Head of Service and local Members are of a view that they have inherited a very good
Fire and Rescue Service and a very good Police Service, but that the structures are there for
dealing with things if they need to. Importantly though,
‘. . . there is no burning imperative to get out there and tackle poorly performing
services.’ (Head of Service)
Similarly, a key success factor of the Aberdeen City model was the solid partnership working
already in place:
‘The one year interim FRS and Police Plans are based on mature relationships with
neighbourhood and partners.’ (Head of Service)
The ongoing process of engagement and briefing of elected members as to their new role
and responsibilities under the Reform Act has been critical to getting the new processes in
place. Throughout the Pathfinder process and implementation of the new arrangements,
the approach of the Head of Service has been fundamental to its success: he took time,
contextualised the Local Authority’s responsibilities and took a measured approach and was
keen to tell the CPPC and FRS and Police colleagues, “we’ll keep this under review” and “if
there are things to do differently, we will make changes”, and that the costs of discharging
the duties would also be kept under review. The Head of Service wanted to be very clear
about what the Local Authority was actually responsible for, as there was potential for
colleagues and Members to ‘race off and think they need to start making their own [Police]
plan’.
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Key Challenges
The key challenge to the ongoing successful implementation of the Reform Act will be
developing additional information and clarity about the respective roles and responsibilities
of the key players. The role of the Scottish Police Authority and local scrutiny arrangements
was felt to be a little unclear:
‘I don’t think their roles are quite sorted out. Things in there [the Reform Act] like ‘the
local policing commander will be appointed in consultation with the local authority’ –
but is that the CEO, LEADER of the Council or the scrutiny board? What if any or all of
these groups don’t like the commander that has been given to them? This applies to
the priorities in policing plans in equal measure.’ (Police interviewee)
A similar view was expressed by a Fire and Rescue Service interviewee who would like to see
more direction for the Commander and the LSO through adding more information and
clarity to the Orders of Reference for the CPPC.
A further potential challenge will be embedding the new roles and responsibilities of the
CPPC:
‘We need to get over an issue of what Members used to get – they were used to
getting in depth info regarding the appointment of Officers, the purchase of vehicles,
etc. This will be removed from their scope – it will just be about gauging the
effectiveness of policing.’ (Police interviewee)
Looking ahead
The Head of Service is content that the Local Authority no longer has to deal with crossborder issues and that there is a single point of contact for Police, and a single point of
contact for Fire & Rescue. He believes that the clarity of the arrangements allows everyone
to make best use of available resources. There is a structure in place for resolving
contentious matters in the future, as the Head of Service can take a Police or Fire and
Rescue Service matter to full Council, and there is also the opportunity for the CPPC to refer
to full Council too. However, given that the CPPC meet regularly, the Head of Service
thought that there shouldn’t be ‘too many surprises (leaving major unexpected incidents
aside)’.
It is, however, still relatively early days, with the CPPC having met only four times with its
new responsibilities. The first opportunity for the CPPC to scrutinise and monitor
performance against the Local Police and Local Fire & Rescue Plans will be in September
2013 when they will be presented with the first set of KPIs. Establishing these KPIs and
ensuring that information isn’t duplicated is important, and the KPIs will need to reflect the
role of the Local Authority in the new arrangements, which is to scrutinise the outcomes
delivered by the Police and Fire and Rescue Service:
‘. . . the Local Authority isn’t managing the Police Force and therefore it doesn’t need
to look at performance data on HR or Finance, for example. I don’t want 80 Police
KPIs coming to the CPPC, but hope that some are susceptible to ‘informed scrutiny’ at
a local level by local Members.’ (Head of Service)
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