Asking the right questions
Scrutiny, questioning skills and the Three Lines Model.
A half day on asking the right questions: the foundations and process of scrutiny, questioning skills, public involvement, applied scrutiny, assurance against reassurance, the Three Lines Model and internal control.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 5 hours
- Where
- Serving the public
- Price
- £129
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Scrutiny and audit committee members, councillors, board members and the officers who support them
Overview
The questions asked in a committee room decide whether public money and trust are protected. This first half of Holding to account starts with the foundations of overview and scrutiny, from the Local Government Act 2000 and the Beecham Review to the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny's four principles, then the scrutiny process and the craft of questioning through Schein's four inquiry approaches, Avanti's staged interview and Warrington's Best Value inspection. Public involvement and a comparison of Newham and Warrington follow. Last, it looks at assurance: the Post Office Horizon scandal, the Three Lines Model and Barings Bank, and internal control, with Carillion as a warning.
Aims
Its purpose is to strengthen the people who hold public bodies to account, so that they focus scrutiny on what matters to residents, plan and sequence questions that test evidence rather than simply note papers, and can tell real assurance from comfort when it matters most.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Plan a scrutiny work programme and a line of questioning using Schein's inquiry approaches and the six stage staged interview.
- Compare the Newham and Warrington cases to explain why the same statutory tools produced opposite outcomes.
- Assess the evidence your board receives using the strength of evidence pyramid, the Three Lines Model and COSO's components of internal control.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Explain the purpose of scrutiny, drawing on the Centre for Public Scrutiny's definition and its development from the Local Government Act 2000 and the Beecham Review.
- Select an appropriate way of working for a scrutiny issue, from task and finish groups to site visits, matching the method to the task.
- Distinguish good scrutiny questioning from political attack by purpose, structure, tone and follow through, and recognise the risks of both passivity and partisanship.
- Identify the points in a scrutiny cycle where the public can take part, and explain why advocacy, evidence and accountability make public involvement necessary.
- Apply the test of whether scrutiny actually holds anyone to account to a real decision, drawing on the full scrutiny toolkit.
- Explain the difference between reassurance and assurance, and define control and oversight precisely.
- Describe the roles of the governing body, first and second line roles, internal audit and external assurance providers in the 2020 Three Lines Model.
- Distinguish between the design and the operation of a control, and classify controls as preventive or detective, manual or automated.
Built from 8 modules.
5 hours of learning.
- 01Foundations of ScrutinyEffective Scrutiny42 min
- 02Running the Scrutiny ProcessEffective Scrutiny39 min
- 03Scrutiny SkillsEffective Scrutiny39 min
- 04Scrutiny and the PublicEffective Scrutiny41 min
- 05Applied ScrutinyEffective Scrutiny40 min
- 06Why Assurance Matters: Knowing, Not HopingAudit and Assurance36 min
- 07The Three Lines ModelAudit and Assurance36 min
- 08Internal Control and the Annual Governance StatementAudit and Assurance38 min