Issue - meetings

The Chair took the report as read and opened the floor to questions.

The Strategic Director – People and Communities responded to questions from Members as follows:-

·         there would be opportunities for Councillors to input into the consultation and engagement strategy to be produced in 2025;

·         results of all consultations are published on the Exeter City Council website;

·         with the recruitment of a Consultation and Engagement Manager there will be staff resources to better analyse consultation feedback and report on the impacts on council decision making and service improvements;

·         it was possible to report on the costs of consultation; as an annual consultation plan was developed, ECC would be able to consolidate some consultation exercises into single processes such as an Annual Residents Survey;

·         if relevant, environmental impact assessments of undertaking consultation exercises could be conducted in a similar way to Equality Impact Assessments; and

·         it was not appropriate for the Council to provide guidance to other organisations on their consultation activity.

Councillor Read wished to formulate a recommendation about ensuring that outcomes and complaints would be published; however, the Monitoring Officer felt that this would not be relevant as it had already been established that publication would take place.

Councillor Moore stressed the importance of the output of any consultation and remarked on a line in the report about the publication of complaints about consultations. The Chief Executive advised that Exeter City Council accepted that it had not been compliant with regard to the publication of complaints about consultations, adding that these would be published.

Members were unanimously satisfied with the report and answers provided by the Strategic Director – People and Communities and the Chief Executive.