- be part of it

Rob Beresford gave a presentation to the forum on Wirral Council’s new consultation process Wirral’s Future: Be a part of it! Copies of the questionnaire were available to forum members on their chairs and they were also invited to take part by filling them out and returning them by post, to any one stop shop or that the questionnaire could also be filled in online. The closing date is 31^st October 2010.

Rob explained that this consultation is seeking the views of all Wirral residents, businesses and community groups regarding the council’s future budget priorities. Wirral council are actively engaging with the community by visiting shopping areas, community centres and community groups.

The main headlines included:

o  The front part of the questionnaire is a general section and then it splits into 4 key themes: Living in Wirral, Children and Young People, Adult Social Services and Economy & Regeneration.

o  Questionnaires were formed on the recommendations of independent task forces for each of the key themes.

o  All views and suggestions will be presented to Cabinet for consideration in December and will sit alongside the budget process.

The public had the following questions:

Member of public: The problem with the deficit is that the council needs to generate wealth. Cllr Holbrook and Cllr Green should take a visit to Edinburgh where a scheme has been rolled out to charge motorists who wish to park on town centre roads between the hours of 9am-5pm. Also, lots of people are still not aware of this consultation.

Rob Beresford: The consultation has been promoted through the local press, staff have been taking roadshows around Wirral and online using every method so far 30,000 copies have been distributed. If there are any suggestions of how else we could engage please let us know and we will take them back to the team.

Member of public: I concur with the previous question; however I think that a copy should have been provided inside the Wirral News for people to send back.

Member of the public: Is it correct that some of the members of the task force will benefit from some of the decisions made in the questionnaire. 

Rob Beresford: No. The people on the task forces are independent and there is a process of accountability and set principles which the council must follow for any decisions it makes. This is a genuine attempt to seek the public views.

Alan Dollery: The questionnaire is a bit too long to fill in – could have been shorter this might help get a higher number of responses. Also, a pre-paid envelope would be a good idea for elderly people who cannot get out to return it.

Cllr Holbrook stated that previous budgets have not been consulted on so this is a change in approach. The scale of the budget challenge means that we can implement small efficiency savings but ultimately it won’t be enough. This method means we are involving public right from the start instead of at the end. The council is still accountable and this is why the task forces were set up to ensure that people do not assume decisions have already been made and this process will get better over time.

If a recommendation is for a service to be outsourced there are legal obligations the council must fulfill for commissioning etc which are very strict so the public can be assured that the services will still be delivered to a high quality standard.

Sarah Goulding: The questionnaire is too long, half of the population have been missed, the ‘joe blogg’ demographic not been engaged, young people not engaged, and it is not available in different formats.

Rob Beresford: The Youth Forum will be consulted with to engage young people and the positioning of roadshows in supermarkets and shopping areas will mean we can reach residents of all demographics, with different formats of the report available on request.

Member of the public: I would have liked an invite to the task forces. Paper at all meetings, why? There are 22,000 stakeholders to this consultation and only 10 are here tonight where was the promotion about this meeting.

Chair: We try to advertise the meeting as much as we can but we welcome any ideas you may have to raise awareness of the meetings

Member of public: Will the consultation process inform capital budget?

Cllr Holbrook: Yes, because even though the consultation focuses on service delivery now ultimately this will have an impact on how much money/resources is allocated in future years.

6