Time to make up your own minds
Todmorden
I could not agree more with the views expressed by Geoff Evans on the recent mayoral ‘consultation’ fiasco.
During my 10 years on Calderdale Council, I always tried to influence any ‘consultation’ by saying that for fair, meaningful and worthwhile consultation the commissioners need to be really clear themselves about exactly what they are trying to achieve by the consultation exercise ie it could be more or less a referendum, soliciting opinions in order to shape services, a PR exercise, a ‘ticking the box exercise’ - because auditors/inspectors have told them to ‘consult’, or an exercise in obfuscation etc etc.
If the consultation is carried out with a genuine ‘Everyone different, Everyone matters’ motivation, really wanting to find out what the ‘customer/voter’ thinks and requires, then the commissioner should also be transparently clear with the consultees about how their input/comments/preferences will be taken into account.
For example in an election, we may not like the system, but we do know that the candidate with the most votes cast will ‘win’ so that if we vote for the ‘winner’ our vote counts, and if we don’t, it doesn’t.
Also sometimes in a referendum at least 50 per cent of all eligible voters must vote a certain way to change the status quo, or it could be 70 per cent of those who vote must agree in order for change to happen.
If the consultation is just to elicit general views which will not necessarily be taken into account at all, then this should be clearly explained too (although it might make you wonder why they were cutting down so many trees, spending on paper, printing and postage, design and analysis).
In the case of the mayoral ‘consultation’, customers weren’t told what difference their views would make to the outcome, although ‘reasonable’ people may have assumed that a majority voting a certain way would influence the cabinet’s decision.
I think readers can make their own minds up as to the clarity of the commissioners’ purpose in this case.
CLARE TOWNLEY
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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