Consultation

Goal 1:Consultation

Consultation in the City of Stirling.... where to start and why?

Fundamental to representative Governance - if Council is to properly implement the needs and wishes of the Community, then we must be unambigoulsy clear in what those needs and wishes actually are. I have been highly vocal in petitioning Council on Ratepayer concerns with the way consultation is 1) undertaken and 2) interpreted by the City - many consultation procedures at the City can appear capricious or haphazard. This is something a Consultation Charter would address.

What is a Consultation Charter?

A Consultation Charter is an agreement between Council and ratepayers to provide a simple, clear set of commitments to all stakeholders on what they can expect from the Council during consultation, details on how the results would be interpreted and to include detailed guidance for officers relating to setting out the key requirements and commitments the City is expected to uphold.

In the UK it is common to base consultation requirements under the so called 'Sedley Principles'* which in brief are that;

1. consultation must take place when the proposal is still at a formative stage;
2. sufficient reasons must be put forward for the proposal to allow for intelligent informed consideration and response;
3. adequate time must be given for consideration and response; and
4. the product of consultation must be conscientiously taken into account.

Consultation must be consistent, it must be transparent and it must be unambiguous in intent and provide enough information to allow those consulted to be able to make an informed decision. It should be balanced and should not guide participants to a preferred outcome (push polling), it should not as per point 1 above be undertaken after a decision has already been substantively made.

Interpretation: Without guidelines the interpretation of the outcomes of consultation are pliable and subjective. For example I have heard it stated at meetings across the Metro area that when consultation has a low response rate that a default assumption might therefore be that those who have not taken part in the consultation must by fiat agree with the ultimate or stated premise of the question, I find that problematic given the many potential reasons that uptake of such engagement might be low.

Garbage in Garbage Out

Results can be skewed by the quality, detail and intent of unfit-for-purpose consultation.

A real world example: consultation was undertaken for an application to park a commercial vehicle on a residential property in line with the requirements of the Planning and Development Act and relevant local policies.

Neighbouring residents and landowners who were consulted however were NOT told was that the commercial vehicle in question was in fact a sewerage truck, of the type pictured and I do not know about you but that is something that I would have expected to have been informed of, a sewerage tanker is indeed a commercial vehicle by any other name, but the smell may not be so sweet.

The effects of this unfit-for-purpose consultation were twofold, 1) those consulted did not have all the information required to make an informed decision and 2) Councillors consequently made a decision based on unsafe consultation results given those results would quite probably have been wildly different had ratepayers had been provided all the relevant information.

The example above could be seen as pure oversight, a lack of common sense but could even be perceived as bias. A Charter between the Community and the City underlining the quality and expectations of procedurally fair consultation would protect both residents and Councillors from misunderstanding and accusation.

Given the importance of consultation in most all decisions that affect the Community, betterment of consultation practices in the City is a core goal of mine should I be elected to Council be that via a Charter or increased structured oversight.