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Introduction and Framework
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Using the Bradford Participation ToolThe levels in summary |
This guide has been produced as an aide to managers and others who are aiming to involve the community. This guide is linked to the Community Consultation and Participation Strategy and like the strategy it uses the ladder of participation as a framework to be considered when planning a process of consultation or community involvement. A summary of the Bradford Participation Tool is given below, and more detail is set out in Section B along with details about the sorts of methods it is appropriate to use at each stage. Section A gives some detailed advice about issues to consider when planning your consultation. Section C gives information about existing consultation mechanisms that you may want to use. Section D gives details of various consultation methods that can be used to consult and involve local people. Section E gives details of how to involve socially excluded or hard to reach groups.
Bradford Council has a long history of consultation and participation, with many achievements to be proud of. In particular:
- There are many examples of innovative methods being used.
- There are two particularly innovative district-wide consultation systems in place - the Area Initiative and the Speak Out! Panel.
- There is a rich diversity of methods and approaches.
- There is a particularly well established support system for tenants groups.
- There has been dedicated and skilful work carried out to involve excluded groups.
- There are considerable areas of skills and experience available.
- There are many well established partnerships involving joint working rather than just consultation.
- There is a growing interest in and commitment to participation at both officer and Member level.
This guide aims to build on this past work and equip managers to carry out effective consultation with communities and service users.
The main purpose of this guide is to provide something practical and useable for those wishing to involve local people in decisions about policies and services and to help them choose the most appropriate method, or methods, based upon the experience of others. In particular the guide links to the Council’s Best Value Performance Plan and aims to encourage best practice in consultation and involvement in the context of Best Value. Under Best Value, local authorities need to review and improve services against a framework of the four “c’s”: Challenge, Compare, Consult and Compete. Consultation is therefore one of the fundamental principles underpinning Best Value.
Using the Bradford Participation Tool
The Bradford Participation Tool is based on the work of David Wilcox ‘Guidelines to effective participation’ 1996. The ladder is a starting point when planning the process of community involvement; it is a useful tool to clarify thinking about the stance that is appropriate for any particular issue or situation. In particular by breaking down the potential involvement into five levels it can add greater clarity to the proposed aims and outcomes. Too often in the past resource holders have made attempts to ‘involve the community’ without due consideration of what level of involvement they are really offering and making this explicit.
Although the term ‘ladder’ is used, it is not good practice to assume that ‘higher means better’! It is more a case of ‘horses for courses’ – of choosing the appropriate level. Communities may have their own views on which level is appropriate and where there is a difference this may need to be negotiated at an early stage.
The higher levels of participation as described demand more of participants and require more support and capacity building to enable effective participation.
Level 1: Information
Information giving underpins all other levels of participation, and may be appropriate on its own in some circumstances. The information-giving stance is essentially a 'take it or leave it' approach. However, you are likely to encounter problems if all you offer is information and people are expecting more involvement. It is important to use language and ideas that your audience will find familiar and be clear about why you are just informing rather than consulting.
Level 2: Consultation
Consultation is a higher level of involvement than information giving, and can include researching the needs, attitudes and priorities of communities. In this stance, you may ask for views and perceptions on the problems, offer some options, allow comment, take account and then proceed - perhaps after negotiation. The key point is that you are not asking for help in taking action. Consultation is appropriate when you can offer people some choices on what you are going to do - but not the opportunity to develop their own ideas or participate in putting plans into action.
Level 3: Deciding together
Deciding together means accepting other people's ideas, and then choosing from the options you have developed together. The basics of consultation apply, plus the need to generate options together, choose between them, and agree ways forward. Deciding together can be a difficult stance because it can mean giving people the power to choose without fully sharing the responsibility for carrying decisions through. People need more confidence to get involved at this level and the time scale for the process is likely to be much longer.
Level 4: Acting together
Acting together may involve short-term collaboration or forming more permanent partnerships with other interests. Acting together in partnership involves both deciding together and then acting together. This means having a common language, a shared vision of what you want, and the means to carry it out. To act together effectively partners need to trust each other as well as agree on what they want to do. Each partner needs to feel they have an appropriate stake in the partnership and a fair say in what happens. Acting together is not likely to be appropriate when one party holds all the power and resources and uses this to impose its own solutions.
Level 5: Supporting local initiatives
Supporting independent community-based initiatives means helping others develop and carry out their own plans. Resource-holders who promote this stance may, of course, put limits on what they will support. This is the most 'empowering' stance - provided people want to do things for themselves. They may, quite properly, choose a lower level of participation. Carrying through the stance may involve people in setting up new forms of organizations to handle funds and carry out projects or programs. It is not likely to be appropriate when community initiatives are seen as 'a good thing' in the abstract and pushed on people from the top down, and where time is very short.
The main focus of the methods and techniques outlined in this guide are
those relating to levels 2 and 3 in the ladder, “consultation” and “deciding
together”, which is often an adequate level of involvement when
wanting feedback from residents about particular services. If having read
the summary above you think that you are at the stage of working with
communities at levels 4 or 5 you can obtain advice from the Council’s
Community Development Service. That is beyond the scope of this guide.
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Introduction and Framework Section A Section B Section C Section D Section E |
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