Joint Statement of Intent
Consultation
Hambleton District Council is committed to involving local people in planning and decision-making and to seek their views. To this end, the Council has developed a consultation strategy, of which the following is an extract:
Strategic Aims
Our Consultation Strategy aims to respond to the needs, vision and values of residents and other stakeholders. We aim to consult and encourage interest and involvement in local issues in ways that meet the Council's political principles and the requirements of our statutory duty to promote public involvement.
Principles
- The Strategy will lead to a systematic and thorough approach to consultation with customers, residents, employees and stakeholders.
- We will consult with our partner agencies and engage them in the consultation process where relevant.
- We will promote the use of innovative and creative methods of consultation.
- Approaches chosen will be fit for their purpose, statistically sound, follow a consistent approach and will incorporate monitoring and evaluation.
- Our methods will respect the diversity and be sensitive to the needs of the local community and will be consistent with the Council's Equal Opportunities Policy.
- We will co-ordinate our consultations to reduce overlap and consultation "fatigue".
- We will train staff engaged in consultation in order to build their ability and skills.
- We will seek and provide evidence that demonstrates where and how consultation has influenced service delivery and future plans.
- We will communicate our commitment to consultation within the organisation, in the community and across all our partner agencies.
- We will value the help of all participants in consultation activity to help plan and deliver services and meet our statutory duties.
Objectives - To co-ordinate thematic consultation across the organisation
- To set quality standards to be included in all corporate consultation activity
- To develop expertise and the sharing of good practice, innovation and lessons learned from consultation
- To include both internal and external customers, citizens, employees, elected members and other stakeholders in consultation planning and implementation.
- To meet our statutory requirements
- To establish a consultation planning tool kit to enable best practice and the achievement of our vision.
- To secure value for money
- To demonstrate our commitment to consultation
- To ensure that consultation is an inclusive process - that we use methods that reach out to all sections of the community
- To research and establish a co-ordinated network for consultation with special interest groups.
The full text of the current consultation strategy is available here. Opens in a new window
