Memorandum by Daventry District Council
(LGC 07)
1. All consultation undertaken within and
on behalf of Daventry District Council is within a consultation
strategy and guidelines, which aim to ensure consistent practice
and integrated/coordinated exercises, so that consultation is
focussed and overload avoided for the public. The strategy and
guidelines are attached.
2. Most recently, the Council has begun
working jointly with the Daventry and South Northamptonshire Primary
Care Trust (PCT) Patients Panel on appropriate shared areas of
interest.
3. Progressively over the last three years
Daventry District Council has undertaken public consultation on
its immediate and medium term service and financial planning.
Details of the current process and the outcomes presented most
recently to the Council (16 December 2004) are attached.
The process utilises written questionnaires,
website responses, focus groups, telephone interviews, face to
face interviews and responses via the Peoples Panel. Membership
of this latter is refreshed to ensure representation of age groups
and different geographical areas of the District. The focus groups
most recently aimed to cover general public, businesses and the
74 parish councils.
The outcomes of the annual consultation contribute
to the Member decision-making process in relation to service and
financial planning at the initial and subsequent budget-setting
Strategy Group (Executive equivalent) and Council. Most recently
this occurred at the Strategy Group on 2 December 2004 and Council
on 16 December 2004.
In addition to the formal and information consultation
processes, the Council ensures residents are informed via the
Council's magazine Daventry Calling, distributed three
times a year. The three most recent copies of Daventry Calling
are attached.
4. The Council is making increased efforts
to engage young people across the District by means of a small
Member team, led by the Community Portfolio Holder, who visit
schools across the District to give brief presentations about
Council activity and processes and to respond to questions. In
addition, the Local Strategic Partnership is used as a strategic
sounding board and officers regularly attend the business meetings
of the Daventry Breakfast Club and engage those members in constructive
dialogue.
5. On matters of District-wide importance,
or which affect a significant population within the District,
public meetings have been convened to ascertain local views. Such
issues have included the proposed airport near Rugby and the Daventry
Town Centre Vision.
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