Enfield Council has defended a staffing restructure that will affect the committees designed to hold the administration to account.
The council said the shake-up will “ensure adequate officer support is provided” to a range of new scrutiny panels that were established last year.
Opposition Conservative councillors claimed the restructure would reduce staff support for scrutiny, weakening other councillors’ ability to hold cabinet decision-makers to account.
The Tories said it was hypocritical to claim savings needed to be made when funds could be found for a cabinet support officer and an increase in councillor allowances.
Conservative leader Cllr Joanne Laban (Highlands) said “The Labour administration clearly does not like being held to account. It may have created more scrutiny committees, but what good is that if they are not resourced!
“There is plenty of money to pay more Labour councillors and bolster support for the leadership of the council, but not enough it seems for its scrutiny.”
A shake-up of the scrutiny function was agreed by full council in July last year. It saw the creation of seven new panels focusing on separate topics, such as crime, housing and finance.
A £36,000 increase in special responsibility allowances (SRAs), which are awarded to councillors because they have extra duties, was also agreed at the July meeting. This increase was mainly made up of SRAs for the heads of the new scrutiny panels.
An Enfield Council spokesperson said: “Following the resolution at the Enfield Council annual general meeting on July 1, 2020, a new, enhanced scrutiny function was agreed, which provides more specified departmental focus.
“As such, structural changes are being undertaken across the organisation to ensure adequate officer support is provided to these scrutiny panels, in line with the changes agreed.
“This includes providing additional support directly from relevant service areas and additional management resource in the chief executive’s department.
“This approach is in line with the recommendations made by the scrutiny review that which was completed in June 2020 and is similar to the approach taken by many other local authorities.”
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