Agenda item
Improving Resident Engagement
- Meeting of Online 'Virtual' Meeting, Overview & Scrutiny Committee, Monday, 23rd November, 2020 6.30 p.m. (Item 7.3)
- View the background to item 7.3
The Committee to receive a presentation on Improving Resident Engagement.
Minutes:
The Committee received a detailed presentation on how the Council is Improving Resident Engagement by Mayor John Biggs; Sharon Godman, Divisional Director for Strategy Policy and Performance; Andreas Christophorou, Divisional Director, Communications and Marketing and Emily Fieran-Reed, Senior Strategy and Policy Manager. In addition, the Chair informed the meeting that Claire Harding from the Centre for London was in attendance – to share an external perspective on community engagement. An outline of the discussion is set out below:
The Committee noted that:
- Communications and Marketing Team have a Bengali Press Officer who is tasked with making pitches to the Bengali media including Channel S (which has an audience of 500,000 British Bangladeshis) all the time and produces a media report every week to the Bengali media. The Team also (i) produces a Bengali Newsletter; (ii) works closely with Mosques across London including work specially on Covid-19 with the East London Mosque); (iii) works with Housing Association’s; (iv) advertises in community languages; and (v) provides translated material in community languages.
- 62% of people in the last residents survey indicated that they felt involved although this could be improved upon and there is the potential to get a lot better. This works on a number of levels as whilst a good consultation hub is important LBTH also needs to have an accessible website and introduction of the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 is intended to ensure that public sector websites and mobile applications are accessible to all users which are all local authorities and public sector organisations have to abide by. Whilst LBTH is working to improve accessibility all the time the pandemic has prevented the face-to-face element both through the Council and partner agencies. For example, LBTH held a Community Day last year with 300 people in attendance and it is the mixture of (i) digital; (ii) face to face; (iii) partnership work; and (iv) targeted work that can give access to a wider audience.
- With regard to the “Seldom-Heard” or the under-represented it is the responsibility of agencies to reach out to such excluded people, ensuring that they have access to services and that they are heard by service professionals and decision-makers. Accordingly, it is important to find out how to reach them and often it will be (i) partner organisation; (ii) the resident route; (iii) or that they already part of a certain community that is the best way to get the content out. The Council recognises that there are others with closer links to “Seldom-Heard” communities.
- Consultations can be too narrow and directive and excluding participation from a wider audience to share views and ideas e.g. a technical issue with the SEND/SLS consultation which made it difficult for residents who are not parents/carers to respond. [NB: Subsequent to the meeting this has now been rectified and the Service confirms that this is an open consultation to which anyone can respond.]
- Even in the Bengali community the Communications and Marketing Team found that adult children have been able to feed information back to their parents and into discussions in their communities. Therefore, whilst the Council would want to somehow get into those conversations it does not need to be LBTH doing that first. In addition, it is important to work with different community groups and to listen and try and find out how people want to be involved; if they want to be reached; and if they want to contribute. Which is important because ultimately that is the only way the Council is going to build trust and have a two-way dialogue.
- In principle the Council’s Consultation Hub is a useful tool in this because it sets a number of checkpoints before LBTH undertakes a consultation by making sure that you know the design of your consultation to meet the needs of people that you are targeting in that consultation on this you might want to target a specific group e.g. you might want to focus on the people who will be affected by a service change. Also, if LBTH use reputable survey methodologies and companies for the bigger consultations then they are bound by regulatory standards that their industry follows. Therefore, LBTH needs to make sure the quality of targeting is good and whilst you will never achieve perfection you do need to give people the opportunity to express themselves.
- How to get real engagement is a difficult one and it is easy to get people to say what they want to spend money whilst it is very hard to get them say what they do not want to spend money. Therefore, it is important to be honest and to ask where residents want Tower Hamlets to be in the next few decades and what are the trade-offs that are involved.
- Regarding the Council’s online presence, it is important to understand what people are interested in by noting the newsletter subscribers and the proportion of visitors to the web site who follow a hypertext link to a particular topic. For example, the proportion of visitors to the Council’s Facebook Page in Q2 reached was over 800,000; with 2.3m impressions on Twitter in Q2 (i.e. total tally of all the times a Tweet had appeared in a followers timeline or as a result of someone liking the Tweet). Whilst over the same period there was 80 engagements on Twitter (i.e. the number of times that a given Tweet was for example retweeted, hashtag clicks, mention clicks and media views).
- The Consultation Handbook provides tools for officers to really think through who they are engaging with and how they need to engage and the different types of methods (e.g. thinking about the types of questions being asked) because unless it is a two way conversation then there is little point in saying that this is a consultation. Also, officers are not limited to the kind of questions used or the methods to engage residents about current and future provision.
- There is a lot of creativity in the community and local community engagement should be about empowering councillors to seek residents’ ideas and opinions. A genuine consultation process ensures that the Council has considered the impact of its policy options. This is likely to lead to better outcomes and greater acceptance in the community, particularly among any stakeholders who may be adversely affected by the policy.
- The Council is committed to involving residents in everything it does and strengthening its relationship with the people who live in or work in Tower Hamlets. It’s key that the Council listens to the views of residents, businesses and partners to shape the design of local services, develop policies; and focus on those issues that are of concern to them and the communities that the Council seeks to serve.
- The extent to which residents feel informed and engaged by the Council, and the trust that they place in them, directly affects their views about Tower Hamlets and the services they receive. This in turn impacts on their levels of satisfaction and ultimately, the Council’s public reputation.
In conclusion, the Chair:
1. Thanked the Mayor John Biggs; Sharon Godman, Andreas Christophorou, Emily Fieran-Reed and Claire Harding for their presentation’s and contributions to tonight’s meeting; and
2. Indicated that there be a progress report on Resident Engagement in the new year.
Supporting documents:
- OSC cover page - 23 Nov- Engagement presentation, item 7.3 PDF 128 KB
- O and S Engagement and Consultation, item 7.3 PDF 559 KB
- TH_CommsStrategy_2019, item 7.3 PDF 6 MB