As foreshadowed in an earlier posting, the county borough’s social care, health and housing scrutiny committee repaired to Ysbryd y Mor on Aberavon seafront yesterday to quiz invited witnesses about their experiences and views on the future of community health councils (CHCs). The exercise was prompted by proposals from Edwina Hart(pdf), WAG’s health minister.

Considering this was a new experience for many of us (including myself), I thought we acquitted ourselves pretty well. We elicited a good body of evidence which Neil, one of our scrutiny officers, is thrashing into shape as the basis of our report to cabinet. It would be inappropriate to comment in detail until that report is published as part of council papers, so I’ll restrict myself to two comments. First, that we did not have any really hostile witnesses yesterday, so we didn’t have to work too hard. With that introduction behind us, I would expect our questioning to be more incisive when necessary in future investigations. Secondly, it was a rewarding day, but deceptively draining. I slept easily last night!

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