Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Business Partner – Communities and Partnerships.

The report was introduced by the Cabinet member for Customer, Culture and Community Engagement who gave his thanks to the officers involved in the large piece of engagement and welcomed the scrutiny of the committee.

The presentation set out how the arrangements for the big conversation were made, the rationale behind the places visited, the expected level of attendance and engagement and how that compared to the numbers achieved and what were the factors that were considered to show an events success.

This led to a discussion on the impact of the engagement, the decisions made and lessons that could be taken forward with points raised in the following areas:

·       The representation of areas and events chosen across the county and how that decision had been informed by officers and in consultation with the cabinet member for Customer, Culture and Community Engagement.

·       There was a lengthy discourse around the impact of areas not being included in in-person events and the feeling of disregard felt by certain areas in the North and east of the county

·       The limitations and constraints in terms of capacity and time were shared in relation to the scale of activities undertaken and it was reinforced that this was a starting point for continuous engagement not a one and done exercise

·       The selection of free entry high footfall events for the face to face sessions was used to create a buzz and reach as many people as possible given the time constraints.

·       It was reinforced that this was informal engagement and not an official consultation and should be considered in conjunction with the manifesto.

·       The parish events had varied success and lessons should be learned and taken forward into future engagement events.

·       Although it was recognised that higher engagement would have been desirable it was the quality of the conversations had and the insights gathered that provided the value from the engagement

The Business Partner for Communities and Partnerships took away an ask in terms of costs to run the engagement for the committee to consider the outputs in terms of value for money and advised the setting of clear and predetermined success parameters for future engagement events.