Agenda item

6.00 pm - Community Engagement Briefing attached.

The Cabinet Member for Governance and the Assistant Director of Policy and Communications presented a report on community engagement service improvements following the 2015 findings of the Queen’s Park Sports Centre scrutiny project group and other related community engagement and consultation scrutiny discussions.

The Council’s Community Engagement Strategy, which had been approved by full Council in October, 2014, incorporated community engagement standards and included a set of guiding principles informing how the Council carried out community engagement activities, in order to avoid legal challenges. The standards were attached as an appendix to the report.

The community engagement group, which was chaired by the Cabinet Member for Governance and included representatives from all relevant service areas, was the custodian of these standards for the Council and supported the co-ordination of community engagement activity.

The report outlined the process to be followed for each community engagement project, including:

·        Stakeholder analysis to determine who could be affected and which people or organisations had an interest in or influence on the policy, proposal or service;

·        Development of a community engagement methodology and communication plan, including pre-consultation dialogue with key stakeholders for large scale consultation and engagement activities, such as for the tenancy agreement changes;

·        Identification of the appropriate type of community engagement - information giving, community consultation, community involvement or devolved responsibility;

·        Use of tools, techniques and technology, including ‘activote electronic voting system, electronic and paper surveys, focus groups and informal meetings, the mobile housing office, the Council website, online petitions, the Council’s Comments, Complaints and Compliments system and social media.

It was noted that the Community Engagement and the Internal/External Communications strategies were due for renewal in 2018/19, with the aim of combining these into an overarching strategy to continue to improve the combined engagement and communication offer.

Arising from Members’ questions and comments it was explained that consultation methods were tailored to be appropriate for different groups to seek to achieve responses from a representative proportion and that responses could be weighted if this was not achieved. Where necessary to encourage participation, especially by ‘hard to reach’ groups, appropriate prizes or incentives were offered relevant to the subject. Consultation events were arranged at the most appropriate times for the target audience, including daytime and evenings.

It was noted that reference was made to it not always being possible to fully meet expectations arising from consultation, and that information was provided within the annual consultation on setting Council Tax to show that only a minority of the bill was for the Borough Council – it was suggested that this could be shown by visual graphics.

Members were pleased to note the progress which had been achieved in respect of the recommendations from the Queen’s Park Sports Centre scrutiny project group in 2015, which were included on the Scrutiny Monitoring Schedule.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member and the Assistant Director of Policy and Communications for their contribution to the meeting.

RESOLVED –

(1)         That the report be noted.

(2)         That the possibility of including the review of the Community Engagement and Internal/External Communications strategies scheduled for 2018/19 in the Scrutiny Work Programme for 2018/19 be considered at the annual scrutiny work programming days.