TOO many reviewers and not enough doers was one East Hampshire District councillor's verdict on its overview and scrutiny committee.

And last week Ferris Cowper admitted to being "desperately confused" by what the committee was supposed to be doing.

Members were looking at EHDC's street care best-value improvement plan with its 45- strong list of suggested improvements and their progress to date.

Mr Janes told members he believed it was the committee's job to check the system was working and in cases where action had not been carried out to find out why and make sure they were put back on track.

"Our role," he told committee members, "is to say that these things have been identified for action by the council and when we next review them in six months time we really want to see progress."

But Ferris Cowper told Mr Janes he found the committee "desperately confusing".

"There are too many reviewers and not enough doers. We have the corporate management team and the delegated hierarchy below them who are all reviewing things, then there is the cabinet and the working party panels reviewing things and also the overview and scrutiny committee.

Members are however keeping a close eye on grass cutting throughout the district after falling behind with the service last summer when hot weather resulted in overgrown, grassy areas around East Hampshire.

Councillors aim to take the issue to area committees asking members of the public for their views on the grass cutting service and where greater efforts should be applied.

Anna James told fellow councillors she believed the issue should be discussed with the public when they were most likely to have an opinion - in June or July at the time the grass was growing fastest.

Councillors agreed the matter should go to committees in June and October .

Members were also concerned that a survey on roadside benches throughout the district which was scheduled to be complete 15 months ago, had not even been started yet as it was judged of "comparatively low priority".

A scheme to try and persuade town and parish councils to adopt benches where ownership was unknown had also been put on the back burner. It was supposed to be completed by the start of the year and had not yet been started .

A litter education programme aimed at schools and local organisations was also supposed to have started a year ago.

But councillors were told the programme and the content still had to be completed and it was hoped to start next year.

And half yearly reports were planned to be presented to area community committees so that members of the public could air their views on street-care services. The first reports were due to go to committees in mid 2002 and did appear in February 2002, but had not been produced since due to "major staffing and organisational change".

The committee was told it was hoped to reintroduce the reports to all area community committees later this year.

Strategic manager Mark Read told councillors they should bear in mind the pressure of the heavy workload many officers at the council shouldered.

He said street care manager Brian Turner, the officer responsible for taking the improvement plan document forward, had had the huge responsibility of driving through the new street-care contract single-handedly. "Some authorities have whole teams of street care officers to do this," he pointed out.

And Elizabeth Cartwright told the committee she believed councillors had to be smarter when they wrote the improvement plans in the first place. "With the best will in the world, everyone gets terribly carried away and hurls everything they can think of into the improvement plans with totally unrealistic time scales.

"We knew the street care contract and best value was coming up and we should therefore have made everyone aware that the officer was going to be very occupied with it and this applies right across all the best value reviews and improvement plans. We really have got to get smarter and be realistic."