Public Consultation

The council regularly consults on a wide range of specific matters. We want you to have more opportunities to tell us what you think about the council and its services, and more opportunities to see the results of our consultations. This means we are using a variety of ways to seek your views.

Finding out about current consultations on-line
The Council has a set of web pages on its web-site which you can use to find out about current and recent consultations. In these pages you can find consultation documents and response documents. You can either access them via them image on the web-site home page "Have Your Say on Consultation" or click on this link.

A copy of our Consultation Toolkit provides helpful guidance on how we carry out consultation.

Council Committee Meetings
Throughout the year there are numerous council meetings and various committees covering all aspects of the borough council's work. Please check our meeting services pages to find out what is happening and when.

Customer Surveys
The Council's services use surveys, for example feedback forms, suggestions forms, or short video surveys such as were used in National Customer Service Week 2006 to consult with people about how they experience Council services, to help the Council to improve. You can read about the results and improvements made in response to surveys about the One Stop Shop on this web-site. Some consultations also involve on-line ways of commenting via this web-site, such as the Gender Equality and Play Strategy Consultations in spring 2007. 

Meetings and Workshops to consult on specific issues
One method of consultation used, is meetings to explore particular issues with residents and local organisations. You may see these advertised in the press, or you may see a poster about an event at a community centre, library or other local organisation.

If you complete a survey form as part of a consultation process, you might be invited to a meeting as a further step to give feedback and invite you to be further involved with a particular piece of consultation, such as happened with the Aim 4 Northampton survey in summer 2006 (shown left) or the Corporate Plan.


Neighbourhood Partnerships
Neighbourhood Partnerships are 'partnerships' of the local community, Police, community groups and the Northampton Borough Council. They take a particular interest in local needs and priority issues. Consultation takes place in a number of ways, particularly via Safer Community Teams and at Neighbourhood Partnership meetings. Consultation might be about perceptions of issues and about which ones should be set as priorities for Police and other service attention in 3 month periods or it might be about how a particular service is performing or might be developed in that area, e.g. a proposed residents parking scheme, or a recycling or area development initiative. The Neighbourhood Partnership meetings are a two-way process that provide residents with the opportunity to raise issues and share news too, to consult their councillors and to ask council staff about aspects of service provision.

Neighbourhood Management
In some parts of Northampton there is more intensive neighbourhood working under the new neighbourhood management scheme for Northampton.

Corporate Equalities Scheme
Northampton Borough Council uses the Equality Standard to help it to improve services, seeking to ensure the equalities is mainstreamed to remove discrminatory barriers wherever possible. You can find out more about the scheme on our Corporate Equality Scheme web pages on this web-site.  The Council adopted a Single Equalities Scheme in spring 2008.

Northampton's Community Forums
Northampton Borough Council has forums which through a variety of means including Forum meetings, group emails, workshops at events, and letters, for example, take part in consultations. Some of these are open to non-members and you may see posters or advertisements for them in community centres, libraries, local organisations or in the press.

Consultation via the Forums is usually done as part of a wider consultation process. In our Town Centre Commission activities, the ideas of Forums members were responded to by adding town centre walks to the consultation process to help people show exactly what and where they had ideas for how the town centre could be improved.

Other consultations the Forums have been involved in, along with other people, include the consultation for a Northampton Vision "Aim 4 Northampton" and consultation about how people would like the Council to consult with them (a piece of work undertaken by Councillors from an Overview and Scrutiny working group).

The Community Forums are concerned with Northampton generally, not just Northampton Borough Council's services, so sometimes they also take part in consultations being organised by other organisations or national government.

Sometimes the Forums support the Council by helping with consultation, for example young people from the Youth Forum surveyed visitors to the Balloon Festival in summer 2006, working with the Town Centre Commission and Aim 4 Northampton projects.

The Community Forums are:

• Disabled People's Forum
• Lesbian Gay & Bisexual People's Forum
• Pensioners Forum
• Diverse Communities Equality Forum (which also includes looking at religion and belief)
• Women's Forum
• Youth Forum

Northampton Tenants
Tenants of Northampton Borough Council have the opportunity to be consulted on via the NTACT (Northampton Tenants And Council Together) Forum and publications such as Housing Matters magazine.

Citizens Panel
Northampton Borough Council has worked with Northants County Council to set up a citizens panel, a group of people who reflect the make up of the population of Northampton and can be surveyed from time to time, to help the Council find out about things like how satisfied people feel with the Council and its services.

This page last updated 14 January 2008