Council Commissions Eight-Month Review of Whether Current Reviews Are Taking Too Long

Bedfordshire County Council has launched a landmark efficiency initiative this week, announcing the commissioning of an eight-month independent review into whether its existing portfolio of reviews, audits, and consultations is taking too long.

The Review of Review Processes — formally titled the Independent Strategic Assessment of Temporal Resource Allocation in Council Scrutiny Mechanisms (ISATRAC-SM) — will be carried out by consultancy firm Greystone Ballantyne Associates at a cost of £140,000. It is expected to report in February 2027.

"We take the efficiency of our decision-making processes extremely seriously," said Councillor Nigel Worthing-Smythe, Cabinet Member for Continuous Improvement. "That's why we felt it was important to conduct a thorough, methodologically rigorous, properly independent assessment of whether we're being thorough enough — and whether being too thorough is, paradoxically, making us insufficiently thorough overall."

Asked how long the review of reviews would itself take, Councillor Worthing-Smythe acknowledged the apparent tension but said the eight-month timeline had been "carefully calibrated to avoid setting a precedent of rushing things."

The decision follows growing public concern about the length of time the council takes to reach decisions on everything from planning applications to bin collection schedules to the proposed renaming of a roundabout near Ampthill. A 2025 audit found the council had forty-three separate active reviews at any one time, with an average age of fourteen months.

The previous response to this audit was to commission a six-month review into the audit's methodology, which concluded in March 2026 that the original audit was largely sound, but that its findings required further contextualisation before any action could be taken.

That contextualisation exercise is currently ongoing.

Greystone Ballantyne Associates — whose clients have previously included three English county councils, a water authority, and what its website describes as "a major international hospitality group requiring comprehensive stakeholder engagement facilitation" — confirmed they were delighted to be appointed.

"Our approach will be collaborative, evidence-based, and deeply respectful of the complexity of the question," said a spokesperson. "We would normally expect to be in a position to provide an interim scoping note by month three, a draft framework by month five, and a final report by month eight, subject to any emergent need to extend the project timeline, which we would of course flag at the earliest opportunity."

Several council officers quietly noted that the firm's standard contract included a £12,000 extension clause.

The announcement was received with mixed reviews from residents. Dave Halliwell, 58, a retired postal worker from Kempston, said he had been waiting twenty-two months for a response to his complaint about a broken street light. "I assume this review will prioritise the lighting issue," he said. "Or at least commission a preliminary assessment of the possibility of doing so."

The council confirmed that Mr Halliwell's complaint was currently "under active consideration" and that a response was anticipated "within the planned review timeframe, or shortly thereafter."

Meanwhile, the council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee has scheduled a hearing in September to examine whether the ISATRAC-SM review ought itself to be subject to scrutiny — a process which, sources suggest, may take several months to agree terms of reference for.

A date for that hearing has not yet been confirmed. The terms of reference have not yet been drafted. It is not yet clear who will draft them.

The council thanked residents for their continued patience and understanding.

All names, organisations, quotes and events in this article are fictitious and created for comedic purposes. Any resemblance to actual council proceedings is purely coincidental.