ITEM CA9
CABINET – 20 MAY 2008
ASK OXFORDSHIRE CONSULTATION STRATEGY 2008-2011
Report by the Associate Director for Change Management and the Cabinet Member for Change Management
The Purpose of this Report
1. The purpose of this report is to set out the Council’s approach to consultation, to introduce a new consultation strategy for the Council, and to establish a new framework for the delivery of first-class consultations across the Council in which the people of Oxfordshire can have confidence.
2. A new consultation strategy is required for two reasons. First, a review by consultants Peer Group revealed weaknesses and inconsistencies in the way we conduct consultations as an organisation. Second, a new Duty to Involve comes into force on 1 April 2009 with which we need to be compliant. This arises under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.
3. A summary of the conclusions of the Peer Group report has been discussed with the Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee, as has the approach taken in this report.
4. All councils have a statutory duty to consult on major policy decisions and specific areas of activity or service delivery. Oxfordshire County Council has made a commitment to make consultation an important part of the way it plans, manages and delivers its services.
5. The aim of the framework for the full strategy as set out in this report is to ensure the Council consults better with Oxfordshire’s communities, businesses, and, voluntary sector and other organisations.
Introduction
The Role of Consultation
6. Since 1997 there has been a massive increase in public consultation in the UK; it is now conducted in unprecedented volumes. In 2004, the Consultation Institute estimated that in the public sector alone consultation was already costing in excess of £100 million every year.
7. Both government and organisations such as the Consultation Institute have seen the drivers of this as four-fold:
· achieving greater transparency in national and local government decision-making; · ensuring that decisions are evidence-based. Consultation has been seen as a legitimate form of evidence with which to underpin decisions; · engaging with local groups as a means of drawing them within the political process particularly as they have become increasingly professional as campaigners; and · demonstrating consultation as a part of a move to increased partnership working across the public sector.
8. Despite its growth, the definition of what constitutes consultation remains imprecise. It is loosely used to cover a wide spectrum of interactions with the public from Citizens’ Panels; focus groups; questions in relation to specific local schemes; and forms of consultation which in reality are no more than communication. We take the opportunity of this strategy to clarify what constitutes consultation within an Oxfordshire context.
9. In addition, there has been a broad diversification of the ways in which consultations are conducted with a plethora of new consultation tools many driven by advances in electronic communications and a range of consultation toolkits. Each of these has their own advantages and disadvantages. Those that are appropriate for use by the Council will be set out as part of a recommended toolkit.
10. There is no widely accepted set of standards for consultation and little evidence for evaluating the effectiveness of individual consultations and the tools used. Both the government’s Code of Practice and the Consultation Institute’s own Consultation Charter are couched in general terms which do no more than highlight the generic values of good consultation such as transparency; visibility; and integrity. Not surprisingly, there has been growing disenchantment by the public with consultation and considerable confusion over its role within the decision-making process.
11. Despite the volume of consultations undertaken nationally there is little empirical evidence on the extent to which they have had a positive impact on decision-making or led to better policy. There is, therefore, concern as to whether consultation can demonstrate that it provides value for money.
12. We aim to address both of these problems by means both of a Customer Charter which is specific about what the people of Oxfordshire can expect from the Council and the setting of appropriate annual targets which are can be measured and monitored.
13. Criticism nationally has also focused on the way in which consultation has too often been used as a substitute for political decision-making and on the risks this poses to good leadership and accountability.
14. This criticism has also drawn attention to the way in which consultation can undermine representative democracy (i.e. elected bodies such as councils) replacing it with what is often called consultative or participative democracy. The approach set out in this report recognises the Council’s commitment to representative democracy and the advice provided by the Audit Commission in its 1999 publication ‘Listen up, Effective Community Consultation.’
“The results of consultation are an important input to decisions, but having consulted the public it does not free authority officers and members from their duties to offer advice on, and to make, decisions. Authority members need to consider a range of factors when making decisions, and the outcome of consultation is only one of these factors, albeit an important one.”
15. A failure to be specific about the scope and use of consultations has, within the public sector as a whole, led to unfulfilled expectations about the role consultations will play in the decision-making process. Taking a decision which is contrary to the results of a consultation is often caricatured as undemocratic. In fact, as the Audit Commission confirms, it can reinforce the democratic process.
16. The approach outlined in this report takes account of these weaknesses and set out a clear framework for consultations undertaken or managed by Oxfordshire County Council.
The Duty to Involve
17. In addition to the need for the Council to follow best practice in the way it consults, the new Duty to Involve, which is due to come into force on 1 April 2009 will place a legal requirement on the Council to take steps to involve its communities and other interested parties in the exercise of its functions, where it considers it appropriate so to do.
18. The Duty to Involve specifies the three ways of involving which need to be part of the Council’s strategy. These are:
· providing information about the exercise of a particular function; · consultation about the exercise of a particular function; and/or · involving in another way.
19. For the Council, in the context of consultation, this will mean providing genuine opportunities for communities to get involved including formal (including mandatory) consultations, satisfaction surveys, as well as enabling direct dialogue with people through activities such as discussion days or citizens juries.
20. In order to fulfil this duty the Council will need to consider:
· accessibility (using appropriate methods); · proportionality (balancing the benefits of consultation with the significance of the issue); · partnership working (to engage the community); · coordination (ensuring consultation activities are part of an integrated approach across the area); · timing (when to consult). Oxfordshire and Consultation
21. Oxfordshire County Council has considerable experience of public consultation and uses a wide number of different methods and approaches. The Council has made a commitment to make consultation an integral part of the way it plans, manages and delivers services.
22. This consultation strategy will provide the Council with a formally agreed approach as to how it consults and listens to Oxfordshire’s communities, businesses and voluntary sector organisations.
23. This will help:
· communicate our clear commitment to consultation; · have a single, coordinated approach to consultation; · uphold clear and consistent consultation standards; · ensure our consultation exercises are accessible and inclusive; · seek opportunities to join-up and work in partnership with others; · make better use of consultation and provide clear evidence of how consultation influences outcomes; · make the best use of our resources, skills and experience; and · continue to learn from past experiences, best practice and innovation.
24. The key elements of the draft new strategy are set out below.
Providing a Clear Definition and Role for Consultation
25. The new strategy establishes an identity of substance – Ask Oxfordshire – for all consultations conducted by or on behalf of the Council.
26. By ensuring that there is a robust framework for the approach, content, conduct and feedback of the Council’s consultations the Ask Oxfordshire identity is expected to become a recognised quality mark.
27. In addition, Ask Oxfordshire will be the main web portal for accessing the Council’s consultations and the feedback on them.
28. A Customer Charter will set out the clear expectations which members of the public can expect from each type of consultation undertaken by and for the Council. This will differentiate between statutory consultations, legitimate consultations (i.e. when the public expects to be consulted) and discretionary consultations. It will also consider the scale and the significance of the issues subject to consultation and differentiate accordingly.
29. This will ensure that inter alia consultations are explicit about the purpose of the consultation, set out how the results of the consultation will be used in the decision-making process and the weight which will be given to them, identify a named officer as the contact point, and, set out how appropriate feedback will be provided to those consulted.
Setting the Strategic Context for Consultation at Oxfordshire County Council
30. The Council already operates a web-based consultation tracker once consultations have commenced.
31. The new strategy will integrate consultation planning into the business planning process. This means using our business plans to allocate support to key consultations and in turn making best use of consultation outcomes to inform our business planning. It will also ensure, for the fist time, that there is a Council-wide consultation plan.
32. Through this, the Council will also be able to monitor the impact of consultations on individual locations and communities within the county. One aim of this is to reduce the feeling of ‘consultation fatigue’ expressed by many consultees.
Setting out the resource, coordination and management arrangements to enable delivery
33. Staff managing consultations (whether internal to the Council or external consultants) will need to be formally accredited through a consultation skills training programme in partnership with Shared Services. This will ensure that those conducting consultations understand and will comply with the Ask Oxfordshire framework.
Consultation on the Content of the Strategy
34. The development of this strategy has been shaped by feedback from the Audit Commission, the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, the Consultation Code in the Oxfordshire Compact and an independent review of our consultation arrangements. The latter included over sixty in-depth interviews with internal and external stakeholders and benchmarking.
35. Initial discussions have already taken place at the Council’s Customer Service Improvement Boards, Corporate Governance Scrutiny Committee and at the Social Inclusion Reference Group.
36. Dialogue will take place within the Council to ensure that the Ask Oxfordshire framework is applied, in proportion, to the scale and significance of the consultations undertaken. Consultation will also take place with interviewees from the consultation review, key partners, other appropriate organisations and members of the public.
Meeting our Change Objectives
37. The strategy meets the following change objectives:
· Change Aim 2: We need to be an organisation that prioritises, is able to make hard choices and says no when necessary; · Change Aim 4: We need to be an organisation centred on customers and their experience; · Change Aim 5: We need to be an organisation that acts as one team for the benefit of its customers; and · Change Aim 6: We need to be an organisation that makes effective use of technology for the benefit of its customers.
Governance
38. The implementation of the consultation strategy will be a work stream within the 21st. Century Customer Programme and as such will be monitored by the Change Management Board.
Timetable
39. The emerging action plan for the strategy is set out in Annex A (download as .doc file) to the Summary Strategy document attached as Annex 2 (download as .doc file), and details when individual actions will be delivered. The new approach to consultation will be fully implemented from 1 April 2009. Financial and Staff Implications
40. Annex 1 (download as .doc file) to this report presents the financial plan for implementing the Ask Oxfordshire Consultation Strategy.
RECOMMENDATION
41. The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:`
(a) note the draft Summary Ask Oxfordshire Consultation Strategy 2008/11;
(b) endorse the approach to consultation and formulation of the full Strategy document, noting that the Cabinet Member for Change Management will be asked to approve the final Strategy as a delegated decision on 15 July 2008; and
(c) submit to the Change Board, for its approval, a Project Initiation Document setting out how the implementation of the Strategy will be achieved.
STEVE LORAINE Associate Director for Change Management
COUNCILLOR JOHN HOWELL Cabinet Member for Change Management
Contact Officer: Carole Stow, Consultation & Marketing Manager, Customer First Tel: (01865) 815445
May 2008
|