Agenda item

(Director of Governance) To consider the attached report.

The Select Committee received a report regarding the Consultation Register 2015/16 and 2016/17 from the Consultation Officer.

The District Council had a statutory duty to provide responsive, value for money services, in which effective public consultation and engagement was essential for the delivery of these services.

A list of consultation, planned and carried out, by the authority, was published on the website and brought to the attention of the Governance Select Committee, to meet the general duty and best practice guidelines. All consultation and engagement exercises undertaken by the authority complied with the provisions of the Council’s Public Consultation and Engagement Strategy and Policy. As part of the strategy, a Consultation Register had been included in the annual business planning process since 2006/07. It set out the issues on which we would be consulting residents and customers during the year. The register incorporated the results of consultation exercises undertaken during the preceding 12 months. It summarised the purpose, start and finish dates, the directorate undertaking the survey and where the results were published.

There were some consultation exercises which were excluded from the register such as Housing Satisfaction Surveys or consultations carried out in relation to a specific planning application.

1.            Community Engagement and Involvement

The authority had carried out a wide range of community engagement and involvement activities. There were nine statutory surveys and ten carried out at the discretion of the service. Some of the surveys carried out by the Council in the last 12 months were:

(a)          The Homelessness Strategy Survey.

(b)          Revised licence conditions for holidays sites.

(c)          Waltham Abbey and Epping Upland Neighbourhood Plans.

Of these consultations carried out, eight had an interactive/online element, two were focus groups and used workshops, four were paper based postal surveys and two used meetings.

2.            Local Plan

The Council’s most important and largest consultation for this coming year was the Draft Plan – Preferred Approach. Two major phases of engagement had already taken place on the new Local Plan.

The Draft Plan – Preferred Approach stage of formal consultation would commence in autumn 2016. This set out the sites and policies that the Council thought were most appropriate, taking into account previous consultation responses and the Evidence Base. This would be a six week statutory consultation and was open to anyone to participate.

3.            Internal Consultation

Human Resources had carried out further employee “Pulse” consultation to compare and measure staff attitudes with previous survey results.

4.            Cost

All consultation had a cost whether in officer time, postage or other materials. The majority of the Council’s public consultation was carried out in-house, costs were therefore kept low and within current budgets. Total cost of consultation within the current register was £114,450.

5.            Transformation

A range of desk based research and small scale survey work was being carried out as part of the Transformation process. The Council was currently consulting members, staff, service users and Essex County Council on information services being facilitated via the county libraries. Consultations were being carried out testing public recognition of services provided by the District Council and a  third internal staff survey was being developed to measure staff readiness in undergoing change.

6.            Tenant Participation

This was an important area of consultation, especially in areas where tenants and residents needed to feel engaged or involved.

Members felt that a bridge was needed between the consultation and the result, they felt that currently there was no clear relationship between consulting and change. Although could look at this greater detail it was advised that the end result of consultations were made clear in final reports on the project with appropriate actions to be taken.

RESOLVED:

That the Consultation Register for 2016/17 setting out issues on which public consultation is undertaken and those consultation exercises completed during 2015/16 be noted.