The Overview and Scrutiny Committee of Westminster Council met on Thursday 16 July 2026 to discuss its work programme, receive updates from other Policy and Scrutiny Committees, and consider key council strategies and processes. Decisions made included approving the scope for a new task group on the Pimlico District Heating Undertaking, endorsing a strengthened process for making scrutiny recommendations, and approving the Annual Report of Policy and Scrutiny Activity for 2025/26.

Work Programme 2026/27

The Committee discussed its draft work programme for the upcoming municipal year, noting that formal meeting dates had been scheduled for 15 October 2026, 15 December 2026, and 23 March 2027. Councillors also considered potential future items for scrutiny, including a review of the revised Policy and Scrutiny structure once new arrangements had been implemented. A key discussion point was the importance of reviewing the Council's budget engagement exercise after it had taken place, focusing on resident engagement, the representativeness of responses, and lessons learned for future resident engagement activities. The Committee agreed that the Annual Report of Policy and Scrutiny Activity for 2026/27 would consider the work of the scrutiny function and its informal processes within the new structure.

Policy and Scrutiny Committee Updates

The Committee received verbal updates from the Chairs of various Policy and Scrutiny Committees:

• Growth and Planning and Children's and Education Policy and Scrutiny Committee: Councillor Elizabeth Hitchcock reported on a substantive item concerning the correlation between school attendance and young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET), particularly for 16 and 17-year-olds. The Committee had made achievable and trackable recommendations. The work programme for the early part of the year would focus on the Growth and Planning portfolio, including the City Plan and Regent Street, before shifting to the Children and Education portfolio.
• City Management and Housing and Regeneration Policy and Scrutiny Committee: Councillor Ed Pitt Ford provided an update on the Committee's first meeting, which examined housing regulation and legislation and the preparedness of the Housing service. A key recommendation was made regarding the recording of regulatory breaches. The next meeting would focus on the billing, metering, and charging of heating systems within Westminster.
• Adults and Health Policy and Scrutiny Committee: Councillor Selina Short reported that the Committee had recently considered homecare mobilisation and its progress. The next meeting would include a report from the Integrated Care Board.
• Enforcement and Resident Services and Civic Pride Policy and Scrutiny Committee: Councillor Melvyn Caplan, Chair of this Committee, noted that enforcement had been the focus of their first meeting, aligning with the new portfolio's priorities. The Committee would monitor progress against key enforcement priorities and alternate its focus between relevant Cabinet Member portfolios, with the next meeting considering the leisure contract.
• Value for Money and Transformation Policy and Scrutiny Committee: Councillor Rachael Robathan updated the Committee on the overview of the portfolios of the Cabinet Member for Value for Money and Finance and the Cabinet Member for Innovation. The Committee's substantive item was the Capital Programme, leading to recommendations for improving the challenge provided by the Capital Review Group and strengthening the finance team's oversight of capital receipts. The Audit and Performance Committee would examine capital receipts in depth on 3 September 2026. The Fit for the Future programme would be considered at the Committee's next meeting.

Leader's Update

Councillor Paul Swaddle OBE, Leader of the Council, provided an introduction to his Cabinet Update report, thanking Members for their scrutiny work and congratulating Westminster's primary schools on their SATs results. The Committee raised several questions regarding:

• Major Contracts Review: The scope, value threshold, consideration of pre-2022 contracts, transparency, and scrutiny by the Value for Money and Transformation Policy and Scrutiny Committee.
• Key Worker and Intermediate Housing: Whether existing schemes would be reviewed to increase intermediate housing and the impact on the housing waiting list if social housing supply is reduced.
• District Heating and Individual Electric Heating: The sharing of the Leader's letter to the Minister for Energy and the direction of travel towards individual heating systems.
• Live Facial Recognition: Clarification was sought on discussions with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner regarding its use for public safety and targeting criminals.
• Data-Led Enforcement: Success measures to demonstrate improvements in safety beyond deployment patterns.
• Thames Water and Flooding: Whether insurance had been discussed with Thames Water, particularly for residents affected by flooding.
• Water Supply and Infrastructure: Concerns about poor water supply in areas like Fountain Court and how Thames Water's pipe replacement programme might alleviate this.
• Surface Water Management: The potential use of permeable materials on pavements and roads to reduce run-off.
• Dockless Bikes: The need for an effective reporting mechanism, including outside core hours, and the importance of enforcement in bringing operators to the table.
• Illegal Short-Term Lets: The use of data and AI to identify and tackle unlawful short-term lets in Council-owned properties, data-sharing agreements, and the focus on high-profile cases.
• Illegal Longer-Term Lets: Whether longer-term illegal subletting by Council tenants was comparable to short-term lets and if it would receive similar attention.
• Governance, Risk, and Root Cause Analysis: Consistent recording of legislative breaches, root cause analysis, centralised risk management, and controls examined by the Audit and Performance Committee.
• Candy Stores and Similar Businesses: Updates on the proliferation of such businesses, the issue of phoenixing, the need for a coordinated multi-agency approach, and whether other local authorities faced similar issues to strengthen lobbying efforts.
• People Services: How the Leader remained sighted on People Services and workforce issues, given its placement within the Cabinet Member for Value for Money and Finance portfolio, and its importance to the Fit for the Future programme.

The Committee resolved to receive a copy of the Leader's letter to the Minister for Energy, information on success measures for the enforcement reset, and information relating to the enforcement of candy stores and similar businesses.

Looking Ahead: Pimlico District Heating Undertaking Programme Task Group

The Committee considered and approved the draft scope for the Looking Ahead: Pimlico District Heating Undertaking (PDHU) Programme Task Group. The Task Group will examine the key principles underpinning the future delivery of the PDHU programme, including engagement, deliverability, and transparency. It was noted that this would be a backbench Member-led process operating independently and would run in parallel with any work undertaken by the Cabinet Member for Housing and Regeneration. Councillor Ed Pitt Ford was nominated and appointed as Chair of the Task Group.

Corporate Strategy

Councillor Paul Swaddle OBE and Sophie Shore, Director of Strategy and Intelligence, introduced the report on developing Westminster's Corporate Strategy. The Committee raised questions regarding:

• Participation across the organisation: How officers, services, and the Executive Leadership Team would participate in strategy development, especially given potential priority choices and officers' experience in collaborative strategy and delivery planning.
• Financial context: The strategy's reflection of unprecedented financial challenges, its development alongside the Fit for the Future transformation programme and budget setting, and its informing by work on delivering services within financial envelopes.
• Resident engagement: How residents' views, ideas, and priorities would be incorporated, including engagement with harder-to-reach groups, managing timeframes, the drawbacks of holding budget engagement during the school summer holidays, and how resident feedback would be included.
• Place-based delivery: The meaning of this term in the strategy's context and its relation to the Fit for the Future programme.
• Emerging outcome areas: How the night-time economy, private renters, housing associations, wider social and economic inequalities, cost of living, ecology, and biodiversity should be included.
• Crime and antisocial behaviour: The distinction between antisocial behaviour and criminal matters, and the need for the strategy to reflect this.
• Strategy measures: How residents could judge the strategy's success through appropriate performance metrics and measures.
• Statutory responsibilities: How the strategy reflects statutory duties in housing, adult social care, and children's services alongside political priorities.
• Managing expectations: Concerns that a high-level strategy might set unachievable ambitions in the current financial context, and the need for a foreword to caveat priorities.
• Budget engagement: The importance of involving residents in the Council's challenges and difficult decisions, and how to encourage participation to avoid a poor response rate.
• Deliverability and usefulness: The need for the strategy to be practical and clearly linked to budget priorities, Fit for the Future, and delivery arrangements.
• Future review: The importance of reviewing the budget engagement exercise to identify lessons learned for future engagement.

The Committee recommended that the Leader of the Council consider including references to the night-time economy, private renters, housing associations, cost of living, ecology, and biodiversity, and distinguish between antisocial behaviour and criminal activity in the Corporate Strategy by October 2026. They also recommended that the Leader include a foreword detailing the Council's challenging operating environment to manage expectations. All Councillors would be briefed on the final approach to the budget engagement exercise.

Policy and Scrutiny Recommendation Process

The Committee noted that the report outlined a strengthened process for developing, responding to, and monitoring scrutiny recommendations, aiming to ensure they are focused, evidence-based, proportionate, and capable of implementation. Key changes include discussing potential recommendations at the end of an item for a sense check with Cabinet Members and senior officers, circulating draft recommendations for refinement, and formally monitoring implementation and impact beyond the initial response. The use of SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely) recommendations was discussed. The Committee agreed that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee would review the overall recommendation process annually. The Committee endorsed the strengthened process and encouraged Policy and Scrutiny Committees to apply it consistently, maintaining a Committee Tracker for recommendations, responses, and implementation updates.

Annual Report of Policy and Scrutiny Activity 2025/26

The Committee reviewed the Annual Report of Policy and Scrutiny Activity for the 2025/26 municipal year. Clarification was provided that the report listed Committee Members rather than substitute Members who had attended individual meetings. The Committee approved the Annual Report and resolved that it be forwarded to Full Council for information.