The Grenfell Support programme, running from 2024-2028, will see the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council’s Grenfell Partnerships Team provide support for bereaved and survivors and the immediate local community near Grenfell Tower. Collaborate CIC and Involve were appointed to act as the Independent Scrutiny Function, tasked with providing scrutiny of the programme’s delivery and to support the Grenfell Partnerships Team to share its learning with the wider Council, so that the programme’s learning has a wider impact.
Scrutiny
The scrutiny role of the Independent Scrutiny Function is focused on helping to ensure the Grenfell Support programme is being delivered transparently and effectively in the interests of community members. It provides oversight, external scrutiny, and independent challenge to the delivery of three programme strands: support for bereaved and survivors, support for the immediate local community, and dedicated education and training support for both.
This scrutiny exists to address concerns about the Council ‘marking its own homework’ and to help to ensure the voices of bereaved and survivors, and immediate community members, are heard in the delivery of the programme. Collaborate CIC and Involve previously worked in partnership as the External Scrutiny Team in 2023-2024 to provide review of, and challenge to, the consultation led by the Council to design the support programme.
Scrutiny here means assessing whether the Grenfell Support programme is:
- Being delivered in line with agreed plans
- That reporting is transparent
- That delivery is being adapted as required to improve impact
- That the process of delivery and monitoring centres the perspectives and experiences of community members
- That the Council exercises its power in delivering the programme appropriately and restoratively
To do this, Independent Scrutiny Function monitors programme delivery data on a quarterly basis (or termly, in the case of the education and training strand), and publishes scrutiny verdicts following this. Alongside this, the Independent Scrutiny Function convenes community members and the Council to come together to make sense of the data collected by the Grenfell Partnerships Team, to identify changes needed to the programme and beyond. Outside of this, community members can also reach out to the Independent Scrutiny Function via a dedicated inbox and phoneline. Following each year’s delivering of the programme, the Function will also publish an annual report.
To see the Independent Scrutiny Function’s verdicts, visit: https://linktr.ee/independentscrutinyfunction.
Independent Scrutiny Funtion's verdicts
Learning and Capacity Building
During the previous consultation period, it was recognised that the delivery, monitoring, and scrutiny of the Future Grenfell Support programme might identify issues that are beyond the scope of the programme to change. Therefore, the Independent Scrutiny Function was also given the role of supporting the Grenfell Partnerships Team to share learning from its work to have maximum impact and a lasting legacy.
The Independent Scrutiny Function will take a test-and-learn approach following the first year of the programme, working with the Grenfell Partnerships Team, wider Council teams, bereaved and survivors, and immediate community members to understand how and where the Council can build its capacity to act restoratively with residents, and residents can build capacity for collective influencing.