Post by Bartonite on Mar 4, 2016 10:51:10 GMT
I received an email from Amy Jones of Gloucestershire County Council yesterday, asking me how 'engaged'I felt, as a member of their People's Panel. This is my response, sans her own text, which is 'strictly confidential and intended for the addressee only':
Hi,
The one panel meeting I have attended, have actually been invited to attend for that matter, was in November of 2014. The front doors to Shire Hall were locked, as were the side (disabled access) doors, and eventually, by a process of elimination, we all made our way to the back entrance, at the top of twenty or so steep steps (certainly NOT disabled access, and some panel members, while not disabled, struggled). No directions about entrances were provided with the invitation.
Streetview of back entrance
This made us late, but still not as late as the person chairing the 'consultation'. We had to wait another twenty or so minutes for him. When we eventually started, on the subject of how welfare services might be improved (that is, made cheaper), this fellow asked if it was OK for him to record the discussion on a voice recorder, to which we all assented.
Now, although his brief was clearly to push the panel to explore what services might be reduced to serve the council's desire to get its 'economy savings', the panel, from the outset, resisted this approach. They, and one lady in particular, couldn't have made it clearer that they rejected this first premise, and the meeting never really strayed from this position, much as 'yer man' might have preferred otherwise.
Nevertheless, when a summary of the discussion was sent to me by Joan Harvall, of ER, in May, seven months later - togetherwecan.gloucestershire.gov.uk/next-steps/ - none of our objections were referred to. For this reason, I requested a transcript of the discussion. I didn't get it. I did get a promise from Joan Harvatt (CC'd to Hester Hunt and Emma Burchill) to forward my request to the project managers at the council, who would be in touch. Neither of those included in the CC has done so, almost a year later.
I have to wonder if most, if not all, of the consultations conducted for this report were dealt with in a similar manner, so that the council can do what it actually wants to do, regardless of what residents think.
Therefore, this is an official complaint to Gloucestershire County Council that our views on that evening were dismissed out of hand by the compilers of this report, and a call for our input to be acknowledged forthwith, even if it is then still ignored completely.
But perhaps you're talking about a different panel, since you refer to a newsletter, and your online survey. I have to say that online surveys are even worse than face to face consultation, in that they circumscribe the range of responses quite savagely, and with the same aim as suggested above. Stan Waddington's extremely limited incinerator 'consultation' being a prime example. I still await the appearance of a survey which looks like the council really wants to know what we think, and not what they'd like us to think instead.
Joe Kilker
Hi,
The one panel meeting I have attended, have actually been invited to attend for that matter, was in November of 2014. The front doors to Shire Hall were locked, as were the side (disabled access) doors, and eventually, by a process of elimination, we all made our way to the back entrance, at the top of twenty or so steep steps (certainly NOT disabled access, and some panel members, while not disabled, struggled). No directions about entrances were provided with the invitation.
Streetview of back entrance
This made us late, but still not as late as the person chairing the 'consultation'. We had to wait another twenty or so minutes for him. When we eventually started, on the subject of how welfare services might be improved (that is, made cheaper), this fellow asked if it was OK for him to record the discussion on a voice recorder, to which we all assented.
Now, although his brief was clearly to push the panel to explore what services might be reduced to serve the council's desire to get its 'economy savings', the panel, from the outset, resisted this approach. They, and one lady in particular, couldn't have made it clearer that they rejected this first premise, and the meeting never really strayed from this position, much as 'yer man' might have preferred otherwise.
Nevertheless, when a summary of the discussion was sent to me by Joan Harvall, of ER, in May, seven months later - togetherwecan.gloucestershire.gov.uk/next-steps/ - none of our objections were referred to. For this reason, I requested a transcript of the discussion. I didn't get it. I did get a promise from Joan Harvatt (CC'd to Hester Hunt and Emma Burchill) to forward my request to the project managers at the council, who would be in touch. Neither of those included in the CC has done so, almost a year later.
I have to wonder if most, if not all, of the consultations conducted for this report were dealt with in a similar manner, so that the council can do what it actually wants to do, regardless of what residents think.
Therefore, this is an official complaint to Gloucestershire County Council that our views on that evening were dismissed out of hand by the compilers of this report, and a call for our input to be acknowledged forthwith, even if it is then still ignored completely.
But perhaps you're talking about a different panel, since you refer to a newsletter, and your online survey. I have to say that online surveys are even worse than face to face consultation, in that they circumscribe the range of responses quite savagely, and with the same aim as suggested above. Stan Waddington's extremely limited incinerator 'consultation' being a prime example. I still await the appearance of a survey which looks like the council really wants to know what we think, and not what they'd like us to think instead.
Joe Kilker