Archived decisions
Culture and Communities Policy Review Committee
Item 9: Attachment
BEST VALUE REVIEW OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (PHASE 1 - CONSULTATION). REVIEW OF PROGRESS
The need to improve co-ordination of public consultation activities across the County Council was identified in the Audit Commission's Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) Improvement Plan in 2002. Whilst noting HCC's `impressive array of methods of communication and consultation with users and partners', the CPA inspectors recommended that the authority reviewed its practices to:
· Ensure that consultation is undertaken early enough to enable the results to influence outcomes
· Make better use of existing consultation mechanisms
· Better coordinate the organisation's consultation to inform actions
· Improve the mechanisms for disseminating the findings of consultation to ensure they inform policy and service development across the organisation and between partners.
A Best Value Review in 2004, which examined the situation in all departments in more detail, confirmed the CPA findings and produced an Action Plan for Improvement. In May 2006, Lesley Atkinson, a social researcher, was engaged as a Research Co-ordinator on a part-time, temporary basis to progress the Action Plan.
The key actions identified in the Best Value Review, and the progress made to date (27 March 2007), are listed below:
RECOMMENDED ACTION |
PROGRESS TO DATE |
Develop better mechanisms for capturing views and opinions from the public electronically |
Consultation website set up - http://consultations.hants.gov.uk. This will be a central `hub' for information on all HCC's consultations and contains a facility for including on-line questionnaires to capture views electronically |
Increased access to information gathered from research exercises |
Results of consultations will be available via the consultation website Consultation Best Practice Guidelines have been produced. These make clear the importance of disseminating and sharing the information gathered from research exercises |
Identify staff within departments who undertake consultations and ensure regular communication between them and the centre |
Staff have been identified in all departments. Regular email and face-face communication is being undertaken |
Corporate centre and departments to work together to assess the consultation requirements for each department for the year ahead |
A Consultation Strategy has been produced. Key Action no 3 states `consultation plans for each department to be drawn up at the start of each financial year, as part of the service planning process' |
Corporate and departmental plans to be linked to ensure the objectives are consistent with the corporate priorities |
This is also covered in the Consultation Strategy. Statement of Objectives no 2 states that `consultation will be clearly linked to the priorities set out in the Corporate Business Plan' |
Consultation to be considered at an early stage of any review, policy change, before decisions are made or strategies are planned |
This is also covered in the Consultation Strategy. Statement of Objectives no 3 states that `consultation will be clearly linked to decision-making and take place as early as possible in the decision-making process' |
Write a protocol for research dissemination |
The Consultation Strategy (statement of objectives no 8) states that `results of consultation will be widely disseminated' Methods of dissemination are included in the Consultation Best Practice Guidelines |
Establish mechanisms to demonstrate that policies and decisions are evidence based |
The administration form for the consultation website captures details about key decisions linked to each consultation. A Decisions Website is being set up by the Policy Unit. This is due for completion in May 2007.
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Gather names of partners and stakeholder organisations who should be regularly involved in consultation on specific issues |
This has been dealt with by the Policy Unit, who have set up a Partnership Portal (http://intranet.hants.gov.uk/partnerships.htm) containing guidance on contacting partners and stakeholders and a contact database. This is linked to the market research page on Hantsnet The COMPACT agreement (http://www3.hants.gov.uk/compact) provides guidelines on consulting with the community and voluntary sector. This is also linked to the Consultation Best Practice Guidelines |
Develop a mechanism to monitor when and how these organisations are consulted |
The administration form for the consultation website captures information about which organisations have been consulted and when |
Ensure that DMT level officers are informed of corporate and departmental research findings |
Research findings will be available on the consultation website |
Encourage members and officers to observe relevant research exercises to hear resident's concerns at first hand |
This is being dealt with by the Policy Unit, under the HATs programme |
Put in place training and support to develop consultation skills in departments |
The Consultation Best Practice Guidelines are available on the intranet and are intended to be an easy to use `toolkit' for all HCC staff. The Consultation Strategy states that training courses on consultation methods and best practice will be run twice a year (Key Action no 10) and that assistance on consultation methods and best practice will be available from the Market Research Manager (Key Action no 11) |
Promote and encourage the use of the approved market research contractor list and advise on the most suitable agency |
Use of approved contractors is covered in the Consultation Best Practice Guidelines. A link to the contact details of the 5 approved market research contractors is included as an Annex and is also linked to the Market Research intranet site |
Monitor overall spend on consultations |
No action yet |