A CRITICAL friend is one who gives an honest answer to the question: Does my bum look big in this? It is also someone willing to scrutinise local government, according to the Centre for Public Scrutiny (CfPS).

The centre has launched its online “Overview & scrutiny self-evaluation framework” which poses self-evaluation questions based on the “four principles of good scrutiny”: providing a critical-friend challenge to executives; reflecting the voice and concerns of the public; leading and owning the scrutiny process; and making an impact on the delivery of services.

But let’s be honest, the public sector is overflowing with worthy but dull frameworks, so what’s special about this one? Rather in the way that Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, is updated by thousands of users every day, the framework is edited, improved and personalised by local authority users. The CfPS says it undertook the project “in response to popular demand . . . but didn’t want it to end with a glossy publication that went out of date in a few months”. “Instead we have created this editable, online version of the framework so that professional scrutiny practitioners can collaborate in its development without having to travel all over the country attending seminars,” it says. The CfPS admits that it may be a recipe for anarchy — now there’s a thought.

www.cfps.org.uk/improvement

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