The Council has less money to spend; the inquiry panel’s assumption was that this would diminish levels of consultation and engagement with the public, staff and interested groups. In the end, it found that capitalising on, and making improvements to existing mechanisms would improve engagement without the need to spend more money.
The panel made quite a few recommendations in its final report around things like the National Principles for Public Engagement, demonstrating how Swansea Voices influences policy development, opening up the Local Service Board, retaining and improving opportunities for engagement through a variety of media, regularly engaging staff and councillors and making some changes to the Consultation and Engagement Strategy. You can read a full copy of the report here with all the panel’s conclusions and recommendations.
Councillor Joe Hale who led the inquiry will attend the Scrutiny Programme Committee on Monday 29th September to present the report before it goes to the Cabinet Member for a response.
Leave a Comment