Contact: Karen Mann/Keith Kerslake, ext 6751/7317

1 Introduction.

1.1 At the meeting of the Culture and Communities PRC in September 2006, members were given a presentation on the progress of the Best Value Review of Community Engagement (consultation). Following that meeting, members have asked for more information on 3 issues. These are:

· Is there an overall picture of what is spent on consultation at Hampshire County Council?

· How much does each department spend on consultation?

· Is our approach to consultation effective and do we have evidence that it provides value for money?

2 Spend on Consultation within Hampshire County Council.

2.1 The Best Value Review of Community Engagement recommended that further work was carried out by Treasurer's Consultancy on how much was/is spent on consultation within the organisation. It became clear as their investigations progressed that apart form the Corporate Consultation budget, and some research consultancy work in other areas of the organisation, this was the only work captured in a formal way, under a cost heading. There remained a great deal of research that was undertaken by staff in- house across the authority . This is not monitored formally and officer's time is not added into the cost of consultation projects . Treasurer's Consultancy estimated this cost of officer time involved etc to the authority was `significant, running into many thousands'. Following this feedback the Environment Department agreed to run a pilot costing for 2 consultation exercise: the Winchester park and Ride scheme and the Minerals and Waste Development Framework. The Environment Department was selected because of the volume of consultation undertaken each year, and the potentially large investments they effect. The following figures are for money spent on corporate consultation and for the pilot exercises monitored in the Environment Department.

· The budget for Corporate Consultation is currently £132k per year

· The costs identified for consultation on the recent Winchester Park and Ride were £109k for 2006/07 and a total of £170k for the lifetime of the project. This included staff time, exhibition venues, printing stationery, etc.

· The costs for the Minerals and Waste Development Framework was £31k, including staff time, printing etc.

2.2 These examples of expenditure on consultation are illustrative of the levels of money spent on consultation across the authority from the work undertaken for the Best Value Review. Harnessing these costs under a cost heading would give a more accurate picture than exists at present of the sums of money involved in this work.

3 Consultation spend per department.

3.1 As outlined in paragraphs 2.1 and 2.2, apart from research consultants costs that are accessible across the authority, costs for consultation work are not available. There is a great deal of consultation activity within departments. Evidence of this was gathered for the Best Value Review. Departments were asked to map all the consultation undertaken over the previous financial year. Departments were unable to respond to requests for the spend on consultation as this was not monitored if it was undertaken in-house by staff. Officer time is not considered a cost unless it is being re-charged to a project or department. This mostly applies to the professional fees for solicitors, engineers etc. However, many of the consultation projects are undertaken by staff who are not research professionals and the work is additional to their role. This poses questions as to the quality of the consultation and if the authority is really getting value for money. Furthermore, it also raises the issue of whether important policy decisions are being made on robust information gathered from the consultation exercises.

3.2 Departments who have contracted research out to professional organisations for specific projects may spend £15-20k over a year. However, that is not the case every year. PBRS and the formerly named Education Department spent around £30k each on consultation using research agencies over the financial year in 2001/02 . For PBRS this was for an exercise carried out amongst head teachers on their satisfaction with school maintenance. For Education, the exercise was on the proposed changes to a six term year. Interviews were carried out amongst teachers, parents, business and school transport providers to ascertain views and implications to the changes in term and holiday periods. Again these are examples that were made available to the Best Value Review Team in 2003/04. It is illustrative of the kinds of levels of spend on consultation over a relatively short period. The conclusion the Best Value Review Team reached was that there was some compelling evidence that there were considerable sums of money being spent by the authority on consultation.

4 The effectiveness of the County's approach to consultation and value for money.

4.1 The Best Value Review's main recommendation included an officer post that would coordinate all the consultation taking place in the organisation, including that undertaken corporately to ensure that consultation in the organisation was more effective and at the centre of decision-making. Evidence was pointing to an uncoordinated, sometimes badly managed approach towards consultation in the authority. The role would have the following in its remit:

· To gain an understanding of what consultation activity is undertaken across the authority.

· Develop a website to list all corporate and departmental consultation

· Determine the costs to the authority of consultation- in house or contracted out.

· To look at ways of ensuring all consultation is necessary, timely, coordinated and disseminated both from the centre to departments and vice versa.

· To develop a consultation strategy for the County Council.

· To develop expertise within departments on consultation through best practice guidance and training.

· To ensure that consultation is used for service development and improvement throughout the organisation, ensuring the customer is at the heart of policy making.

4.2 Since the Best Value Review the Corporate Communications team has funded a part-time temporary post to progress many of the recommendations of the Best Value Review. This post has been funded from the Consultation Budget. The officer in post has made the following progress:

· Establishment of a consultation website that hosts consultations for the whole authority.

· Set up mechanisms for monitoring the costs of the 2 pilot exercises in Environment.

· Developing a best practice guide for consultation

· Providing advice to departments on specific projects

· Developing a consultation strategy.

4.3 Consultation gives value for money if residents are more satisfied about the services the County Council provides. Without finding out the positives and negatives from service users, services will not move in line with people's expectations. Obtaining residents' views on service delivery issues such as council tax communications, the role of County Councillors and Council image will allow the authority to resource areas of weakness and, most importantly, have evidence to support it. Consultation is important to the authority and in the main it does respond to the consultation findings. However, there are sometimes instances where responses to consultation findings are slow or not followed up, or where consultation is poorly executed and therefore the findings are flawed. That is when consultation does not provide value for money.

Conclusion.

4.4 Members will be aware from the presentation given in September 2006 on this Best Value Review that consultation coordination in Hampshire County Council was highlighted as an area for more work by the CPA full inspection in 2002. In subsequent interviews with the Audit Commission in the Summer of 2006, the pace of progress since 2002 was raised as an issue. The authority will be assessed again in May 2007 with a full CPA inspection and consultation and listening to the community will be high on the agenda. It is vital to the reputation of the authority that the issue of improved and more cost effective consultation is addressed.