Chairpersons' Liaison Group
Strengthening Committee Scrutiny
The Report of the Independent Public Inquiry into the Non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme identified “limitations inherent in [the Enterprise, Trade and Investment (ETI) Committee’s] role” and found that “reasons for this included its own limited resources and its dependence on the Department for information and analysis to allow it to perform its challenge function robustly”.
As a result, the Inquiry’s report made recommendations around strengthened Assembly Committees to increase scrutiny and help ensure that systematic changes are made and sustained; and that the Assembly considers what steps are needed to strengthen its scrutiny role, particularly as conducted by Assembly Committees, in the light of lessons from the RHI.
The Inquiry recommended that such a consideration might include “significantly increasing the resources available to statutory committees and, generally, identifying what steps are needed to improve the effective scrutiny of Departments and their initiatives, whether in Assembly Committees or in the Assembly Chamber itself”. Relevant extracts from the RHI report are included at Appendix A to this report.
As a result of the above, the Chairpersons' Liaison Group (CLG) agreed to review committee scrutiny with a view to identifying how the recommendations of the RHI report might be implemented to strengthen the scrutiny role carried out by committees, particularly in relation to the scrutiny of legislation by statutory committees.
Read the CLG Report on Strengthening Committee Scrutiny
