Consultation criticism

Contributions are often ignored!

Chilton Parish Council has written an excellent and very considered response to the recent consultation on Babergh’s Statement of Community Involvement.  It is a letter that really reflects the level of frustration that many people feel about local and central government's failure to engage with the people it serves.

In my experience there are two sorts of consultation.  The first is driven by a genuine need for help and guidance, organised by a local authority faced with making difficult policy decisions.

A good example of this is the recent exercise that the County Council has undertaken in respect of the provision of Home Care.  The current system is no longer fit for purpose and policy choices need to be made.  Officers have gone out in a spirit of genuine enquiry to discover what clients, carers and providers want out of the service in the 21^st century.

Babergh’s consultation on the way our services are to be delivered in the future, carried out a year or so ago, was also a genuine attempt to understand the opinion of the community, and the subsequent discussions around future strategic priorities were influenced by the public’s responses.

Sadly, the other sort of consultation is much more common.  Often obliged to ‘consult’ by Government, officers have no intention of changing the way they plan to do things as a result of the obligatory exercise.   At a more local level, objectors to planning applications, particularly large ones, feel that their voices have simply been ignored and that the process makes such an outcome inevitable.  Community involvement in strategic planning policy is another concern (and this is felt by councillors too!)

This is the main point made in the Chilton letter, which I understand is the hard work of Chairman Peter Clifford and councillor Val Hart.

The letter starts: ‘ In general the experience of Chilton Parish Council is that while Babergh District Council professes to be in favour of community involvement, practical experience shows this to be a hollow statement’

Reflecting particular frustration about consultation process in planning issues, Chilton’s is a really heartfelt response, written from the perspective of those who have had plenty of experience over the years.

Let’s just hope that the consultation on the Statement of Community Involvement is a genuine rather than a phantom exercise, and that officers and ‘leading councillors’ will take note.