Consultation is about asking what people think and feeding back what will happen as a result.
Consultation with the community is important to us, as it is the best way to find out if our services are meeting your needs. This information can then be used to improve the services for you by shaping future policy and feeding into our decision making.
We have a Council Consultation Policy, which provides guidance on what we need to consider and the methods that we should consider using.
We consult on:
How do we consult?
We consult our customers throughout the year on our services. It is really important for us to know what our customers think because it helps us to shape the services to suit you.
We use a variety of methods to consult including:
Carlisle's Citizen's Panel Members
Carlisle City Council's Citizen's panel was set up in 1998 and the demographics have been constantly monitored, in order to keep it representative of the Carlisle population. We ensure that our sample is topped up frequently with citizens from all across the Carlisle district, in order to keep it representative.
In the past we have found it necessary to top up the younger age groups, to recruit more people living in council provided accommodation and to recruit more black, minority, ethnic groups. We have never had a problem recruiting a proportionate distribution from all the areas in the Carlisle district.
We commission market research specialists to replace one third of our panel every year. At every stage we check that the panel is reflecting the demographics of the Carlisle population.
The most recent refreshment of the Panel, carried out earlier this year, selected 2,500 potential members in a systematic random sample of the Carlisle City Council electoral register. These people were sent a self-completion questionnaire and letter explaining the Citizens' Panel.
Numbers of responses were monitored in each ward. Non-responders were re-contacted by telephone. Over 500 citizens' panel members were recruited to the panel, increasing the overall panel size to 800 members.
Please let a member of the Policy and Performance Team know if you are interested in becoming involved in future consultation e.g. focus group or a member of the Citizen's Panel.
Other Consultation
We also have to carry out Best Value User Satisfaction Surveys every three years, the latest one was 2006/07. We are required to do these by the Government (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister).
Cumbria County Council Consultation
Cumbria Council also carry out a range of consultation in Carlisle. You can view this at http://www.consultationfinder.com/cumbria/default.aspx?From=www.cumbria.gov.uk
You can use this to find out about current consultations, register your interest in future consultations and see what happened as a result of past consultations. Where you see a green flag you can also have your say online. Using the search engine you can look for consultations about a specific interest or put in your postcode to see what it going on locally.
Contact us
For further information or if you would like to get involved please contact one of the following members of the Policy and Performance Team:
policy@carlisle.gov.uk
01228 81 7165
People, Policy and Performance
Policy and Performance Team
Carlisle City Council
Civic Centre
Carlisle CA3 8QG
Page updated : 08 August 2007
