Issue - meetings

Councillor Dave Wood, Deputy Council Leader (non-statutory) and Cabinet Member for Council Priorities & Delivery, introduced the item (officer support Jon Poole)

Panel members made the following points and asked the following questions:

Councillor Hodge stated that it was good to be able to scrutinize this and asked what actions would arise from it. She stated that it was useful to see the sort of thing people are concerned about and asked if we are communicating our positive outcomes widely enough. She added that the majority of responses being on paper may indicate the demographic of most of the respondents.

Councillor Hounsell stated that there are some good messages, and it is hard to see why satisfaction levels are not as high as we would expect. He suggested that the social media put out by the Council have comments switched off as anyone with a positive message is pushed off by negative comments and hectoring.

Councillor Treby asked about next steps.

Councillor Blackburn noted that the majority of responses were on paper which it telling as most of our consultations now are online and would not allow for this facility. He asked if the drop in the belief in engagement (20% to 11%) could be linked to consultation processes. He noted that a lot of the responses on services are good but feedback on the general direction of the Council is not so positive.

Councillor MacFie asked if there were any major differences in responses between the Bath area and North East Somerset area. The Cabinet Member stated that this can be fed into future voicebox surveys.

Councillor Hodge stated the need to dig down further into the responses (for example on walking and cycling) before criticising. She added that she would like to see more of a breakdown and reasons in future voicebox surveys so that some working points can be pulled out. The officer responded that we know certain demographics respond differently and we use ‘weighting’.

Councillor Hounsell stated that in quality control, if there is an extreme result, it is sensible to look at the cause but not make any change in the production line. It is better to look for trends.

Councillor Hodge stated that a lot of people did not know about Discovery Cards, maybe information could be put out with Council Tax Bills.

Councillor Moss commented that there would be different views in the Bath area and in North East Somerset especially with things such as walking to work (rural area and city area). He suggested the possibility of incentivising responders. He stated that 72% have not responded so there needs to be caution. There is a section of society that are totally disengaged 

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member and officers.