Agenda item

The forum are asked to provide ideas on how best these meetings can serve the residents of Bath with meaningful and relevant discussions around how we can make the city a better place to live.

The forum is looking for ways to improve the communications to residents so they have better awareness of the issues that are being discussed and that they understand that we want them to be involved in the meetings.

The Terms of Reference may need to be revisited so that they are relevant and show clearly how the forum will operate and how it will make things happen.

The forum will be asked how they wish to move forward and if they wish to hold a broader conversation on this topic.

A public request to address the forum on Community Engagement has been received from Luke John Emmett. The Chair will invite Luke to speak after introducing this agenda item.

Luke John Emmett, requested to speak to the forum about community engagement (the full speech is included in the minutes papers).

Luke said 90 per cent of the B&NES residents are white and British and that most of the forum members are “white, male and middle class”.

He asked whether the remaining 10 per cent of B&NES residents were properly represented, and called for a series of mock council meetings so people who might find them intimidating could get used to them.

Cllr Dine Romero asked how the Forum meeting tonight felt compared to other Council meetings.

Luke felt that politics had been kept out of the meeting tonight which was a good thing. The room setting is very formal and could be intimidating for those people who are not used to such a set up. Luke suggested that if the venue were to be made available for open days which would allow barriers to be broken down.

Cllr Dine Romero wondered whether there might be a cost barrier to mock council meetings.

Rosie Phillips suggested that forum members had links in the community and there were other ways of reaching out to the community to show them how they can get involved more.

Cllr Colin Blackburn explained

·  The forum wants community member to come along and take part.

·  The point of the forum was to make Bath a better place to live and work. 

·  Personally he felt he needs to do more to tell his constituents about the work of the forum.

·  Funding recommendations that we deliver aim to improve the City.

·  We need to get better at the way we communicate.

Cllr Shaun Stephenson-McGall said it was more difficult to get community engagement in a big community like Bath without having parish councils.

Shaun felt that the forum should not beat ourselves up too much over the problems we’re facing, it will be difficult to solve the community engagement issues with a small budget.”

Shaun added that Bath has in the past tried other formats, different venues and other membership models which have all had issues of their own. There are other places such as Bristol and South Gloucestershire, who also struggle with similar issues of engagement, 

Cllr Joe Rayment said there was a lot of talk about people resigning from the forum because it was too political. Joe felt that if that’s the case, then issues shouldn’t be sent to the forums that are contentious because people are political beings and bring their political beliefs to the table. If the forum supports parishing in Bath then we need to have a proper discussion.

Joe added that the diversity is an issue, very few councillors are under forty, very few are full time workers and not many have to rent their home.

Jeremy Boss felt that the acid test is what we do. The forum discussions tend to be dominated by councillors because they were better informed, but councillors need to keep in mind that discussions must suit lay members as well to keep them engaged.

Cllr Colin Blackburn said he would like to see more topics brought to the forum that residents are interested in. The scale of how moving to a parished Bath model needs to be explored and explained.

Jeremy Boss felt there has been very little appetite in his community for a parished Bath.

Cllr Blackburn closed the meeting and thanked everyone for attending.