Councillors who oversee Edinburgh City Council's financial and risk management have branded their own committee "toothless" in a scathing end of term review.
Members of the Governance, Risk and Best Value Committee (GRBV) called into question the effectiveness of their work, which involves scrutinising the council's governance structure, reviewing internal audits and looking at how public funds are spent.
And in a perfect example of the problems they themselves were discussing, they agreed, after a debate, to note the content of the report - and to produce a report on the committee's shortcomings for the new members expected to make up the committee following the elections.
They met on Tuesday (January 18) to review findings from a self-evaluation workshop councillors took part in last October, which sought to "assess current political management arrangements (PMAs), committee effectiveness and lessons learnt from this council term".
A report noted some members feel the GRBV Committee is "toothless", adding it is "difficult to identify situations where changes in direction or action had been forced".
Whilst the review concluded it is fulfilling its "core remit" of overseeing internal and external audit processes, the report's author Stephen Moir, Edinburgh City Council's Executive Director of Corporate Services, wrote there is an "opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of the scrutiny the committee performs and the impact it can achieve".
Members agreed there is a "long way to go" before the committee's oversight of risk management and the council's operational performance can be considered "fully effective".
They were also in agreement that "improvements can be made" in their oversight of audit processes and effectiveness of scrutiny.
However, councillors failed to reach a consensus on the effectiveness of training for GRBV members or whether the composition of the committee and number of people sitting on it is appropriate.
One point made during the workshop in October was that 11 members is "too small for appropriate scrutiny", whilst a differing view argued political groups would struggle to resource larger committees if the number of members was to increase.
Members also called on officers to produce "better written reports" for the committee, highlighting the need for a "reduction in jargon".
At Tuesday's meeting, Provost Frank Ross complained of a lack of commitment to act on recommendations listed in the review, calling for something "more purposeful" than simply "noting" them.
He said: "I remember going through the exercise and notice everything we've done here and I notice that the recommendations here are purely to 'note' what we did and I'm just wondering have we missed a trick? Should there not be an action to potentially implement or give guidance? Just to note seems that we've come to a dead end."
The council's Head of Legal & Risk and Monitoring Officer Nick Smith responded: "My expectation is that following election 2022 once we know the shape of the council and have followed appropriate consultation at that stage then we'll formulate a plan."
Members agreed that a report presenting findings of the GRBV effectiveness audit should be produced for the new council. They will request that the next GRBV committee takes these into consideration when planning its political management arrangements.
