Interview with:

·  Councillor Chris Garland, Leader of the Council;

·  Roger Adley, Head of Communications; and

·  Vronni Ward, Marketing Manager (Hazlitt Arts Centre and Corporate Marketing).

The Chairman welcomed the Leader of the Council, Councillor Chris Garland, the Head of Communications, Roger Adley, and the Marketing Manager (Hazlitt Arts Centre and Corporate Marketing), Vronni Ward, to the meeting and asked them to outline the Council’s approach to consultation.

Mr Adley stated that the Council’s approach to consultation was still influenced by the 2001-02 Strategic Leadership Overview and Scrutiny Committee report on consultation mechanisms; particular emphasis was given to the need to have a clear purpose for consultation and feeding back results, and there were objectives to improve the coordination of consultation.  The principles of consultation were that it should be: inclusive; open; impartial; informative; involving; understandable; appropriate; strategic; joined up; resourced; professional; timely; and listened to.  Mr Adley highlighted that the forward plan outlined forthcoming key decisions and the consultation methods that would be used in relation to these.

Mrs Ward then presented a series of slides (attached at Appendix A) outlining the reasons for consultation, levels of involvement and techniques for consultation.  Key points raised included:

·  The importance of knowing what people thought, empowering them and giving them the opportunity to make a difference;

·  Establishing what could actually change as a result of consultation;

·  ‘Empowering’ people, such as by giving them a budget, was much more engaging than, for example, informing people;

·  Resources needed to be taken into account, for example holding a focus group cost around £2,000; and

·  A combination of consultation techniques generally worked well, for example to gain a broad view followed by more in-depth information.

Mrs Ward then showed Members a demonstration of a new online form that would be used to coordinate consultation carried out by the council.  The form would be completed by officers to show what the aims of consultation were, what activity had been carried out and how the information had been incorporated into a final decision.  Such a system would usually cost a significant amount to be produced, however this had been created by the Council’s own IT department.  Mrs Ward would work with officers to help them to complete the form.

Mr Adley then explained that a number of improvements were being made to the Council’s consultation, including improvements to the website, producing an annual report on consultation, using MOSAIC to gain better customer insight, and including “you said, we did” sections in the Borough Update.  The Government had also indicated that all councils should provide participatory budgeting by 2012, so this was being investigated.

A Councillor asked how it was decided whether consultation was carried out in-house or by external consultants.  Mrs Ward explained that this depended on how strategic the consultation was and what finance was available.  External consultants were also used where comparison with other authorities was required.

A Member suggested that it was difficult to find contact details for councillors on the website.  Mr Adley stated that the website followed national guidelines, however he met with the IT department regularly and he would raise this issue with them.

With regard to government consultation with the Council, Mr Adley stated that the Head of Legal Services usually distributed these to the relevant Heads of Service.  The Senior Overview and Scrutiny Officer also explained that the Policy and Performance Team maintained a database of consultation received and responded to by the Council.  This was shared with the Overview and Scrutiny team to ensure that committees could take part in consultation where appropriate.  With regard to the short timescales frequently allocated to Government consultation, Councillor Garland agreed that this was a problem, with urgent decisions sometimes needing to be taken in order to ensure a response was made by the deadline.  However, consultations were filtered down to the relevant committees wherever possible.  It was agreed that ensuring that the Council responded to relevant consultation was vital and this needed to be coordinated.

In response to a question, Councillor Garland stated that there was rarely a financial incentive attached to Government consultation.  The only exception was the consultation on free swimming, whereby funding was available to provide free swimming for two years to children, however the Council had rejected this as it was unsustainable.

The Chairman thanked the officers and the Leader for their attendance.

Resolved:  That a coordinated approach to responding to Government consultation be developed.