Proposed MPS Consultation and Community Engagement website

Report: 11
Date: 14 October 2004
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report updates members on the MPS Consultation and Community Engagement website currently being developed by the MPS Strategic Consultation unit. The report outlines the proposed 5 phases of the website and activity carried out to date.

A. Recommendation

That members endorse the plan of action outlined in the report

B. Supporting information

Background

1. The MPS is developing a consultation and community engagement website aimed initially at MPS staff and later at the public. The main drivers for the website are the need to provide a mechanism that:

• Feeds the results of consultation activity to decision makers and other interested parties within the MPS, records the outcome, and feeds the result back to the participants and general public. This is a fundamental part of the engagement process but often logistically difficult due to the size of the MPS. The use of a website will enable this process to occur in the least bureaucratic and time consuming manner possible.
• Provides a single point of access for consultation and community engagement information within the MPS and externally to the public. The proposed site will facilitate access to this information for both MPS staff and where appropriate for the public.
• Facilitates the implementation of the draft MPS Consultation Strategy Statement. The strategy statement identified activities that the MPS needs to improve on to provide effective consultation and community engagement. The proposed site will enable many of these activities to be implemented:
• Assists the Safer Neighbourhoods initiative. The Safer Neighbourhoods Unit have identified that there is a need for a non bureaucratic way of communicating their work both within and outside the MPS. Internally this includes; sharing advice and guidance on all aspects of engagement activity; communicating safer neighbourhood policy and procedure; and reporting safer neighbourhood activity. Externally this includes publicising safer neighbourhood engagement activity and making it easy for the public to electronically communicate their priorities to the MPS.
• Furthers the MPS response to the government’s Citizen Focus agenda to provide “a way of working which routinely recognises, understands and takes account of the needs, expectations, experience and perspective of individuals and the communities who are recipients of police services.” (Home Office definition of Citizen focused policing). All the phases of the site (as outlined later in the report) further the MPS ability to achieve this.

Overarching aim

2. In response to the drivers outlined above, the overarching aim of the site is to promote a flow of consultation and engagement information in both directions over a variety of routes:

Central Units Local Units

Central Units Central Units

Central Units Public

Local Units Local Units

Local Units Public

Phases

3. It is anticipated that the website will be developed in 5 phases. This allows for consultation with users at each phase of development to ensure that the product is best developed to meet their needs.

4. The order of the phases allows for the results of consultation to be collated within the MPS and then made available to the public. The suggested 5 phases are:

• MPS response to External Consultation
• MPS Practitioner Information
• MPS Consultation & Engagement Document Archive
• MPS Practitioner Discussion Forums
• Public Pages

MPS response to external consultation

5. The detailed results from the MPA/MPS public consultation for the 2005/6 policing plan will be fed through the MPS to the appropriate managers and policy makers in the first phase. This will ensure that there is no delay in the results of the consultation being seen and where appropriate acted upon. The process will then allow the comments and actions taken as a result of the consultation to be collated and fed back to the original participants.

6. This facility within the website can be used to feed future consultation and engagement results through the MPS as appropriate.

MPS practitioner information

7. The site will provide a forum for consultation and community engagement practitioner information to be easily accessed by all relevant MPS staff. This will include:

• MPS Guidelines on Planning and Managing Consultation and Community Engagement (accompany the MPS training course of the same name);
• Safer Neighbourhoods Newsletter
• Consultation and Community Engagement Process Selector
• Latest News on Consultation and Engagement Activity
• MPS, MPA, GLA, Home Office and other practitioner guidance, information and best practice

MPS consultation & engagement document archive

8. This will enable central and local MPS units to ‘upload’ the results of consultation activity, i.e. consultation results on specific policy areas or Safer Neighbourhood locally identified priorities. These documents will then be available to download by other central and local units. This information will be useful in a number of ways:

• As a starting place for research on consultation carried out and public concerns/priorities previously identified. This will prevent duplication and enable new consultation activity to start at an appropriate place.
• Enable an audit of consultation results to be done within the MPS.
• Provide a resource from which to collate results to populate the external facing web pages.

MPS practitioner discussion forums

9. These will allow those undertaking community engagement and consultation activity within the MPS to pose questions to other MPS practitioners. Facilitating the spread of best practice and a ‘community’ of practitioners within the MPS.

Public pages

10. These will complete the circle of engagement and allow the public to:

• view the results of past consultation and engagement activity (i.e. those collated via the internal pages) and the MPS response.
• view details of current and upcoming consultation and engagement activity (i.e. specialist consultations or local safer neighbourhood meetings)
• where appropriate allow sign up to new consultation activities (a text box facility would allow contact details to be left to be subsequently forwarded or entered onto a database)
• view local identified priorities and/ or leave details of own priorities (where locally identified safer neighbourhood priorities do not fit with their own they could leave alternative priorities which would be forwarded to their local team).

Link to Strategy

11. The Phase 1 of the website would facilitate the implementation of the 4th and 5th strands of the draft MPS Consultation Strategy Statement:

4. Influencing Decisions “Producing a final submission to decision makers by rationalising consultation responses, integrating this input with the full decision-making processes and recording the output.”

5. Giving Feedback “Meaningful feedback compiled and published from all consultation activities, showing respondents, stakeholders, Londoner’s and MPS staff, how their contributions have been considered in appropriate decision making processes.”

12. Subsequent phases will facilitate implementation of activity to achieve other strands, i.e. Phase 2: to provide MPS practitioner information, Phase 3: document archive and the Phase 4: to provide discussion forums, will assist in the 2nd strand:

2. Ensuring Effective Dialogue “Effective planning and implementation of a variety of consultation styles with stakeholders, using methods that make it easy for stakeholders to contribute having regard to the status of stakeholders and other defined criteria.”

13. Phase 5: public web pages, will assist in implementing the 1st and 5th strands:

1. Building a Consultation Community “Identifying stakeholders including ‘hard-to-hear’ groups. Managing stakeholder relationships and build up-to-date stakeholder database.”

5. Giving Feedback “Meaningful feedback compiled and published from all consultation activities, showing respondents, stakeholders, Londoner’s and MPS staff, how their contributions have been considered in appropriate decision making processes.”

Key to success

14. The MPS see the keys to success of this programme are to ensure

• that all stakeholders benefit from the website.
• all those participating feel the benefits to both themselves and the MPS outweigh the activity required.

15. It is also essential that the website is

• managed and co-ordinated by a central point
• communicated and advertised effectively
• contains relevant and useful information
• kept populated and up to date
• easy to use

16. The website will be a joint project between various MPS units, requiring time and effort at central units as well as at a local level. For example, in Phase 1 MPS managers and policy makers need to participate; in Phase 3 policy makers and safer neighbourhood practitioners will be required to upload information, and in Phase 5 the public will be encouraged to visit the site for information and where relevant contribute information.

17. Commitment from all parties, as well as effective central coordination is vital. Initially the project will be managed and co-ordinated by the MPS Strategic Consultation Unit.

Activity so far

18. Initial discussions with selected key stakeholders to scope: the potential for the website; funding; and resources within the MPS. Discussions have taken place with -

• MPA Community Engagement Unit
• MPS Safer Neighbourhoods Unit
• MPS Policy Clearing House
• MPS Citizen Focus Project Manager

19. Additionally, discussions have been held with service providers to ensure that that proposed product is feasible. Two companies who specialise in sites promoting consultation and engagement activity were approached; Dialogue by Design and Community People.

20. Dialogue by Design were found to be able to provide the best and most cost effective solution and are at present working on the phase one development work as an extension of the 2005/6 Online Policing Priorities Consultation that took place earlier this year.

21. Work is ongoing to ensure the site is compatible with MPS guidelines for sites accessed through the MPS firewall. Access to the site for all MPS staff has been requested.

Next steps

22. The site will be developed by the MPS in conjunction with Dialogue by Design. It is anticipated that Phase 1 will be online by November 2004. This will ensure that the results of the MPA/MPS policing plan consultation are acted on in a timely manner. Dialogue by Design will be adapting their software to meet the specific needs of the MPS as the site develops.

23. Identification of stakeholders and discussions around the scope of the subsequent phases will continue until the MPS is satisfied that all avenues have been explored and the proposed site fits the needs of all stakeholders. It is hoped that subsequent phases will be online by the end of 2004/ early 2005 to fit in with Safer Neighbourhood Unit requirements.

24. Early results will be presented to the next MPA Community Engagement Committee meeting.

C. Race and equality impact

1. The results of the Community Engagement survey indicated that the MPA hard to reach groups are not consulted systematically throughout the organisation. This paper outlines a site that will build on the steps already put in place to address this issue. These steps will further ensure that all MPS staff carrying out consultation are aware of the need to and importance of consulting with all areas of the community including hard to read groups.

2. The public phase of the website will provide a ‘one stop’ access point for the public, community groups and partners to find out about and take part in consultation and community engagement activity carried out by the MPS.

3. It is acknowledged that not all people have access to the Internet. However, it is proposed that the site will be supplemented by other methods of communication and consultation.

D. Financial implications

The project will initially be managed and co-ordinated by the MPS Strategic Consultation Unit. Set up costs and phase one of the project will be met out of the existing MPS Strategic Consultation Unit budget. Subsequent phases of the project will be a joint venture between more than one MPS unit. Funding for further phases will therefore be negotiated with other MPS Business Groups.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Jane Wilkin, Strategic Consultation Officer, Strategic Consultation Unit, MPS Corporate Planning Group.

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback