Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
PHIL HOPE
AND MR
ASHLEY POTTIER
8 MARCH 2005
Q280 Chairman: No. I understand that
shooting seagulls is a major political difficulty.
Phil Hope: I think local authorities
are much more engaged. If you look at the surveys now, I think
something like 70% of local authorities, over 70%, now have active
processes of consultation with their communities—whether
it be through traditional methods, which I think are peaking—this
is the turning up to meetings and so on—or more focus groups,
surveys, e-surveys, questionnaires, panels, citizens' juries,
citizens' panels. We list the variety in the written evidence
we have submitted to you of how many councils are engaging. We
are looking at hundreds of councils now taking on board these
new approaches to consultation and doing so very successfully.
I would say, far from saying I cannot find a single example, most
authorities are doing something. Some are doing a combination
of methods, which really do add up to a comprehensive and effective
system of consultation. Others, as I said at the beginning, are
not, and it is those we are going to need to develop.
Mr Pottier: In my previous role,
if you want some concrete examples of some I have used, there
was a community strategy where we invited 70 local residents in
for a day, with the mayor, to assess the right priorities for
the locality, and not only the right priorities but the right
sort of targets we should set for revision in five and ten years
time. A slightly different example was that our housing team wanted
to put out a leaflet to inform people how they were going to change
the housing service. They did not expect the group of 20 people
we brought together to come back, but they turned round and said,
"This leaflet, not only is it unclear, but we think elements
of it are unfair to sections of the community, and bits of it
balance on . . ." it was not quite racism, but there were
comments in there which they did not quite like. They basically
said, "Go back, re-write it and come back to us in three
months time." So residents do quite happily engage in those
sorts of techniques and if you go to most local authorities you
will find those examples happening day-in and day-out.
Q281 Mr Clelland: I am not sure if that
answers the question. Why was that particular theme chosen? How
will it help local authorities improve their performance in their
areas?
Mr Pottier: Quite why the theme
was chosen, I do not know. In terms of the benefit, one thing
we are clear about is that some local authorities do consultation
very well and there are others who clearly do not. There is good
practice that can be spread and the key message for the Beacon
theme is actually about helping local authorities learn from each
other. So there are people doing it well. They apply and get a
Beacon award, then they have that for a year and their task is
to disseminate the good things they are doing to the weaker authorities.
We have seen over four or five years now that there is quite a
benefit that comes from them.
Phil Hope: Could I answer the
question about why we chose the theme, Chairman?
Chairman: I am a little worried, that
if we are going to get through all the questions we will need
shorter questions and answers.
Q282 Mr Betts: Local authorities very
often want to reinvent the wheel and devise their own forms of
consultation, which are not new because other authorities have
already done them. To what extent are we getting good practice
transferred from one authority to another? Could you give one
or two examples where you have been successful.
Phil Hope: I share the concern
that people do that. A lot of local authorities do need to learn
from each other. Are we encouraging that process? The IDeA, for
example, is one of the organisations the ODPM funds to try to
promote best practice between local authorities. Indeed, the Innovations
Forum that the ODPM established is another arena where local authorities
that are excellent come together to share good practice. Those
are two of the mechanisms that we have put in place and are funding
to get local authorities to talk to one another and share good
practice as to how they go about many things, including good practice
in consultation. There is a slight difficulty, in simply lifting
an example and saying, "They did it in Sheffield this way,
let's do it in Bristol identically." Simply transferring
it across like that has merit, but I think it is also important
that the process is owned, because the doing of it itself engages
the council in the process, in genuinely owning and being genuinely
committed to doing it. Modifying and tweaking the methods, the
combination that is right for you in your authority, is an important
part of the process in itself, so that it is not a mechanistic
experience; it is a genuine process that is being used. But I
think there could be more done between local authorities to share
good practice, and, as I say, I have mentioned two methods that
are used to promote it. The Beacon scheme that we have just been
describing is of course another.
Q283 Mr Betts: We have had two different
types of evidence given to us. One is that there ought to be clearer
guidance from central government, maybe with a mandatory code
of practice on consultation for local government, in the same
way that it has for central government departments. On the other
hand, sometimes the individual consultation requested, not necessarily
just from ODPM but from other departments, is far too prescriptive
and not the right way to go about it.
Phil Hope: At the moment we are
not minded to issue, as it were, statutory guidance and make it
the law that a council must consult in this way. The statutory
guidance you have been referring to is there—indeed, it
is binding upon central government to conduct in that way. We
think it is the best practice and we would like local authorities
to conform to it. That is only prescriptive in the sense of the
six main features of a good consultation process which I have
been describing earlier, about being clear about the purpose of
the consultation, clear about the process for undertaking it once
the results are back in, feeding back what the consultation says
and then showing how it has influenced the decision-making. That
is good practice. The relationship between central and local government
in this regard has to be one of guidance rather than direction
because this is an important area. The reason that Closer to
Communities was chosen as a Beacon theme is because we believe
that is the right way for local authorities to go in terms of
meeting local needs and delivering better services.
Q284 Mr Betts: Do you have any monitoring
to ascertain how far that has been taken up?
Phil Hope: The guidance itself
says the local authorities should monitor. The Comprehensive Performance
Assessment is the major method we use for councils to be assessed
on their performance and the corporate governance part of that
will include user focus and diversity. That is a reference to
how local authorities are or are not being successful in consulting
and working with a whole raft of different types of groups and
individuals.
Q285 Mr Betts: Looking at the role of
central government, we now have the planning act and the requirement
for every local government to come up with effective consultation
for planning methods in their area. We went to New Zealand a few
weeks ago, and, as I understand it, the New Zealand model is that
every local authority now is required to develop a plan for how
it consults those affected on every single decision it takes as
an authority. Each local authority does that. There is a mandatory
requirement to do so, but in very general terms, and then how
it is done is left to every local authority. They actually have
to show how they are doing it.
Phil Hope: In the planning system
in this country, as we know, there is now a requirement in law
for a statement of community involvement in the plans that the
local authority draws up, so in that area of the council's activity
it is a statutory duty. The Housing Act, for example, insists
that tenants are properly consulted and there is a lot of guidance
on things like tenant participation in compacts and other things
you will be familiar with, that ensure that there is good practice
in terms of tenant involvement and participation, leading to better
services, more cost-effective services. Local strategic partnerships
is another arena where there is guidance for the local strategic
partnerships, not only in the way that they consult their partners
and work with their partners but also in their community strategies—we
are calling them sustainable community strategies now—and
the way that they are developed and need to go out to consultation.
So within certain aspects—I have mentioned, planning, housing
and the community strategy—there is built-in requirement
to consult the community.
Q286 Mr Betts: You would not want to
go further and make them a general requirement?
Phil Hope: Whilst we wish to see
councils develop their best practice in this regard, I think there
is that balance between central prescription and local flexibility.
I think we have got that balance right at the moment.
Q287 Mr Betts: Central prescription is
simply that others have to develop a planning framework consultation.
It is not something the government would like to do. It seems
good practice being written into a statutory requirement.
Phil Hope: As I have said, in
elements of the council's responsibilities there is prescription.
In other elements there is guidance. The "how" is for
local flexibility to determine. Should there be an overarching
code on everything the council does to consult in the way you
are describing in New Zealand? At this moment in time I am not
persuaded that is the right route to go because of the importance
of local flexibility.
Mr Pottier: Rather than central
government needing to prescribe it, I think many authorities have
started to go down this route of their own will anyway. Some of
them are producing consultations.
Chairman: Perhaps we had better move
on to the fact that there are people who are not carrying out
best practice and something needs to be done about that.
Q288 Chris Mole: It has been suggested
to us that the Government itself does not always adhere to high
enough standards where it is asking local councils to carry out
consultation reports. Are there any procedures in place to ensure
that procedures and guidance set out by the Government for consultation
to be conducted by local authorities is of the best quality?
Phil Hope: We have put together
a number of different processes to encourage local authorities—prescribing
some examples, in the way I was just describing, Chairman, in
terms of planning and the Housing Act, but, in others, good practice
guidance. We have the National Code that the Government adheres
to. That is advisory to local authorities and we would like the
local authorities to take it forward. The Audit Commission have
published their five critical success factors. We hope local government
would listen to that. We have introduced things like the Beacon
scheme, which is a competition to highlight best practice and
then to share that best practice. We fund bodies—I have
mentioned the IDeA and the Innovations Forum as two examples where
best practice can be shared.
Q289 Chris Mole: Clearly the local councils
are being told, in some circumstances, by other government departments,
"You must do this consultation this way" and they are
looking at it and saying that this does not affect them.
Phil Hope: I do not know whether
Mr Mole is referring to the DfES Children Survey.
Q290 Chris Mole: I was coming on to that.
Phil Hope: Why did I guess that,
Chairman.
Q291 Chairman: I hope you were warned
that we have had many discussions about what a shambles that was.
Phil Hope: It is obviously a matter
for the DfES but I understand there was full consultation with
local authorities about how they would undertake both the survey
and the census, that local authorities did have an opportunity
and did actively participate in the designing of both those activities
by the DfES.
Q292 Chris Mole: But when the decision
was made.
Phil Hope: As we know, we make
a distinction between consultation and decision-making, Chairman.
Q293 Sir Paul Beresford: Alconian eyesight,
again, is it?
Phil Hope: And genuine consultation—views
were understood and listened to and taken into account—and
the decision then was made about how to undertake that. As I say,
this is a matter for the DfES. It is a difficult area because
surveying the needs of children in care who are at risk is a difficult
task to undertake anyway, so there was inevitably going to be
some room for discussion and debate about the process.
Q294 Chairman: I do not think there is
any room for discussion and debate. Some of these proposals are
just appalling. If you were a foster parent, you would be shocked
if your child received a questionnaire from the local authority
without your knowing that that questionnaire was going to be sent
out.
Phil Hope: I am not in a position
to make a comment on how the DfES have conducted this survey.
Q295 Chairman: It is not how they have
conducted it; it is how they have insisted, if you like, local
authorities—for which you are responsible—have been
asked to conduct it. The local authorities in many cases wanting
to have a good consultation process have said, "We don't
want to do this."
Phil Hope: I think that illustrates
why there is nervousness and anxiety about, as it were, there
being a prescriptive process for government as a whole in insisting
that local government consults in certain ways on the whole of
its remit. Which is why there are particular areas—and we
have mentioned housing and planning—where there is an activity
by one government department, because it is very keen to understand
what is happening with a particular client group, asking local
authorities to undertake a consultation in a particular way. The
design of that consultation and survey was based on consultation
itself with local government and local authorities. As I say,
I cannot answer for the DfES's final decision about undertaking
this, but that it did consult very thoroughly I am assured did
take place before it made its decisions—and I am again emphasising
the difference between the consultation—
Q296 Chairman: So, if you consult, that
is an alibi for taking a poor decision.
Phil Hope: No, it is not. Consultation
is a genuine effort to find out the best way of doing something
and then a decision has to be made based on the consultation and
all the other factors coming into that process about what is the
right way forward.
Q297 Mr Clelland: We have been discussing
how spreading best practice between local authorities might improve
standards in consultation. As we know, they can vary greatly,
but there is also a difference in standard often within the local
authority between departments. Are these methods which we have
been discussing going to improve standards across the board?
Phil Hope: Yes. I would hope—and
again other members here have served on local authorities—that
elected officers and senior officers who can see something working
well in one department might well say that we could apply that
to other parts of the process.
Q298 Mr Clelland: Do we have examples
of this happening in practice?
Mr Pottier: Good question. One
example of which I am aware is in fact in Lewisham—one of
the groups you spoke to last week—where they have pulled
a number of people into a strategic consultation group, so that
they can look across the piece as to what is happening in the
local authority, to try to ensure best practice in all departments
and pull together all the consultation they have done to get the
strategic messages out of it.
Q299 Mr Clelland: Is that the best practice
we would like to spread to other local authorities? What mechanism
is there for doing that?
Mr Pottier: Certainly it is something
we would welcome, but whether it will necessarily work in every
locality I think is an interesting question. One of the things
for Lewisham is that they have a directly elected mayor which
is a little bit different. Local authorities need to come up with
an approach which works for them. That is one example which has
been brought forward. But, again, I would not want to be prescriptive,
but, yes, I think that is an element of good practice, particularly
the bit where you can pull together consultations from across
an authority and pull out the strategic messages, because with
departments working in silos you can risk that not happening.
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