Agenda item

The Board was asked to consider and approve the draft Scrutiny Report on LTP4 Consultation Successes, following which it would be circulated to all Cabinet Members to inform future consultations and the Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Transformation and Commissioning to specifically respond to the Report's recommendations.

On 7 November 2017, the Board discussed the Local Transport Plan for Worcestershire 4 (LTP4).  During the discussion the Board complimented the effectiveness of the consultation process for the Plan and it was agreed to carry out a short Scrutiny Review of the consultation process, to learn about and share good practice.  The Review was led by Councillor Paul Middlebrough.

Councillor Middlebrough introduced the Report and in doing so reminded the Board that the Scrutiny had been about the learning points from the Consultation process not the Local Transport Plan 4 (LTP4) itself.  He also explained that the Team under taking LTP4 consultation had the good fortune through personal knowledge to have had access to the public consultation toolkit. Unfortunately, this was no longer available. It was in some ways dated but had helped to develop a framework.

The recommendations in the Report were:

·       Recommendation 1: Officers preparing to consult should check the legality of their plans with the Council's Legal Services.

·       Recommendation 2: Investigate any proprietary consultations templates which could be made available corporately.

·       Recommendation 3: Inform all groups within the Council about the impending consultation so enabling them if appropriate, to have input at an early stage.

·       Recommendation 4: Prepare a Consultation Plan including resources costed timeline and share it with all groups who may be needed at the earliest opportunity.

Discussion points:

·       It was suggested that a further Scrutiny should be carried out to look at the presentation, content and readability of consultation documents.  It was noted that the public and parish councils had been interested in the LTP4 Consultation but it was a very bulky document and difficult to read and navigate. 

·       The Board further discussed how because of the presentation it was not obvious to the reader which policies the Consultation referred to eg the Street Furniture Policy.  A key role for Scrutiny was pre-policy Scrutiny, which should be carried out routinely for all key Council policies before they were signed off.

·       In response to a Members suggestion that there should be a 5^th recommendation that all transport policies should be refreshed as a result of the Consultation process, Councillor Middlebrough reiterated that this was outside of the terms of reference of the Scrutiny.  It was however, pointed out that at its meeting on 27 September, Cabinet would be discussingPackage 1 of the overall A38 Bromsgrove Major Scheme works, which was critical in supporting the objectives of the Bromsgrove Development Plan (BDP), the Redditch Local Plan and the LTP4 and that the Economy and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Panel would also be discussing theLTP4 as part of its Work Programme too.

·       The point was made that sadly the County Council had a poor reputation in respect of its approach to consultations and the public often believed that the Council consulted post decision making and therefore it wasn’t worthwhile responding to consultations.

·       The local member role was very important in promoting public consultations.

It was agreed that:

·       An additional Recommendation 5 should be added to the Report to the effect that where the subject of a consultation involved policy changes or potential policy changes, the changes should be highlighted separately in the consultation document for ease of reading and understanding.

·       Recommendation 3 should also highlight the role of the local member in promoting public consultations in their communities.

Subject to the agreed changes being made to the Report, it would be sent to all Cabinet Members to inform future consultations and the Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Transformation and Commissioning would be asked to specifically respond to the Report's recommendations.