Agenda item

The Committee agreed to hold a single meeting review to hear further information about the Council’s Consultation Arrangements. It heard a detailed presentation from the Community Engagement Manager.

The Terms of Reference for the review were:

1.    To investigate the Council’s Consultation Arrangements as requested by motion in (initial discussion at Select Committee in October).

2.    To review how the voice of our diverse communities are heard working together towards geographical parity.

3.    To make any necessary recommendations to Cabinet based on the Committee’s findings.

The Committee heard about  the Council’s Customer Engagement website which was a page on the Council’s Sharepoint accessible by all employees. This page was an information hub on how to undertake consultations, different consultation methods, who to contact for support and the general process for the Council’s consultation and surveys.

The different types of consultation and engagement methods included:

v  Face to face meetings

v  Virtual meetings / discussions

v  Surveys (online and paper-based, telephone / postal methods)

v  Hybrid sessions

v  Information shared on noticeboards

v  Social media comments / feedback

v  Estate-based events

v  Engagement with community and faith leaders

v  Engagement with residents’ associations, tenant groups etc.

v  Assemblies (e.g. older people)

v  Forums (e.g., carers, young people etc.)

The Committee was informed that a form was available for employees to complete which was then reviewed by a  member of the Engagement team to review ensuring it was fit for purpose. The form asked for information such as proposed timings, whether it was a statutory consultation and whether it was a statutory consultation. The final consultation was then shared with the WebPage team for comment before making it available for residents. The consultations were promoted by the Corporate Communications team through different channels such as social media, Hillingdon People magazine and internal communications. Once the consultation was live weekly downloads of response were sent to the relevant team to track progress.

Good engagement needed to be meaningful, timely, a fair representation and honest  to provide an overall positive response. Hearing, physical and learning disability factors all needed to be considered when devising consultations.

Members were told that there was a real focus to reach those hard to reach or hidden communities as part of consultations to gain a fair representation. Consultations were tailored and adapted on relevant topics as some may be better through face to face/ virtual hearings, surveys, hybrid sessions, engagement with Community Leaders and resident associations.

An overview of 18 + census data which provided insight into ethnicity, religion, disability and age was provided to the Committee. Key statistics were highlighted through the demonstration of various charts and graphs. It was noted that 18 plus residents were more likely to complete surveys and engage with the Council.

Members were provided with an analysis of consultations comparisons over the space of three years. Three examples were given in library services, budget and ULEZ consultations. These results had been analysed and a common trend was that there had been more consultations over the years which demonstrated the positive effects of the different methods used. It was clear that responses to consultations were dependent on peoples interests at the time. An example was given of the libraries consultation where a majority of people that responded were female and 65+ plus as they were the main service users.  

A data comparison was provided from Harrow and Brent as these boroughs had a similar population to Hillingdon.

Areas of recommendation and ideas for the future included widening the provision for hard-to-reach communities, incentives where it was deemed fit, increase in partnership working, increase in engagement budget, increases in youth engagement, engagement with councillors and sharing engagement activity across services.

The Committee heard that the Community Engagement Manager attended a meeting with partners and different services to discuss strategies for driving engagement and participation among young people. The idea of organising a youth assembly, similar to assemblies for disability and older people was proposed. Working closely with Councillors to improve resident engagement and sharing knowledge was also key.

During Member discussions, it was noted that  there was a great deal of work that was put into community engagement and officers were commended. Members welcomed the initiatives of speaking to people after they had completed surveys and engaged with services.

It was noted that the spirit behind the motion to Council was in relation to specific postcodes that were engaged throughout surveys and how this engagement could be improved across the Borough. Although surveys were completed based on interest, there was a keen focus to ensure that the Borough’s voice be heard overall. It was agreed that Councillors and officers would need to go beyond the normal of accepting that certain areas engaged and do more to see how all residents were impacted.

Observations made to improve engagement included the length of surveys to make them more appealing reducing them to a few short questions lasting less than a minute. More work could be done on social media to raise awareness such as following up comments left by residents on the Council’s Facebook page. Working closing with Councillors and Youth Council to increase engagement in hard-to-reach communities.  Members welcomed the use of pop up auto boxes after using services to get feedback and follow up text message services.

It was noted that there had been real success in the older peoples’ assemblies where there were a significant number of people across the Borough with different demographics. Other ideas to improve engagement included road shows as these had worked well particularly for the NHS.

When consultation information was shared in Hillingdon people customer engagement numbers were also provided so that residents could contact the Council and request documents. There were a number of language translations available and this also sometimes prompted further engagements with residents. There was ongoing work with the Youth Council to increase their involvement in consultations. The Communications team was responsible for the Council’s website and engagements.

A suggestion was made to improve the ‘my Hillingdon account’ as there were already a number of users and having a live consultation tab would be useful.

Overall, the importance of teamwork and collaboration for successful community engagement within the Council was emphasised.

The Committee thanked officers for their attendance and agreed to send any recommendations to Democratic Services.

RESOLVED:

That the Finance and Corporate Services Select Committee:

1.    noted the evidence heard at the witness session.

2.    agreed to send any potential recommendations to Democratic Services.