I’d heard a rumour that there were to be some big changes to the local councils in North Yorkshire, so I turned to the internet to see what I could find out. On the North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) website I found the heading ‘Let’s Talk North Yorkshire’ which went on to say:
“On the 1st April 2023, the new North Yorkshire Council will replace the eight councils currently delivering your public services across the county.”
North Yorkshire County Council consultation – a frustrating survey …
There are two surveys available on the website, ‘Let’s Talk Local’ and ‘Let’s Talk Money’, though the two, confusingly, overlap so that we are asked not to fill in some of the money questions if we’re ‘talking local’. If we’re to have one council, why not have an all-encompassing competent survey? Nevertheless, I wanted to ‘have my say’ as encouraged on the website so I set about trying to answer the questions.
There are suggestions and tick boxes, all the things we might expect to find in a survey, and extra boxes to add comments, for some of the questions. It is frustrating not to be able to give full answers throughout the survey.
It is the question on priorities that I found particularly frustrating. This asks us to prioritise by putting 11 phrases into rank order The phrases appear to be an almost random selection ranging over ‘jobs and skills’, ‘climate change’ and ‘town centres’.
There is no information about what the new council might do in relation to any of these 11 phrases or what costs might be involved. ‘Value for money’ is a no-cost issue and, surely, important to everyone but it is to be ‘ranked’ against ‘education and childcare’, which accounts for almost £600mn of county council spending.
I wondered what would happen if all the responses rank ‘health and well being’ as the top priority or what North Yorkshire residents will get if ‘town centres’ is a top-ranking issue. These questions are being put to the public with no monetary or practical information, models or consequences.
It seemed to me that the consultation document was merely paying lip service to democracy and that the council are, rather patronisingly, assuming that the public cannot handle the relevant information. In taking an interest in the council I didn’t feel I was being taken seriously. I decided, therefore, to go and ask the executive meeting why this had been presented to the public in this way and how we were supposed to rank these phrases without information.
… and an equally frustrating public meeting
I attended the ‘public questions and statements’ part of the NYCC executive meeting on 29 November to raise the issue of the confusing, poor quality and inadequate ‘Let’s Talk Local’ consultation process currently underway.
I asked why, strangely, adult social care is mentioned in the preamble and as a front line service but is then not listed as a phrase to be ranked. I also pointed out that the survey is a jumbled confusion of issues and, crucially, provides the public with none of the information needed to give meaningful answers about council priorities. I questioned why we were presented with a substandard quiz rather than a proper consultative document.
To my surprise the reply was read out by an official rather than one of the elected councillors and I was told that these phrases are ‘themes’ and that different responses from different areas would enable the new council to work with different communities on the issues of greatest importance to them.
It is bizarre to contemplate that two residents, both with poor health but living in different parts of the county, could end up with different priorities in services, simply because of how their neighbours ranked these ‘themes’ in their survey responses.
It was also said that this was an ‘initial step’, but how much time do we have for further ‘steps’ and results if this is to be sorted by April? Where is the timeline of consultation?
A two-way exchange – what do the councillors think?
This survey – as it is clearly named on the website – is being done in the name of the governing executive councillors of North Yorkshire. I believe that people should not ask others to do something that they would not, or could not, do themselves. On that basis I challenged all the councillors on the executive to address and publish their responses to that part of the survey.
I have emailed each one individually to repeat the challenge to them to engage in the process as they have asked residents to do. Either it is a valid and valuable way to gain people’s views – in which case their views as prominent, civic leaders are of public interest – or it is a meaningless gesture, in which case there is no point in them or anyone else responding.
Saying that they have not published their responses because they want to hear our views is, quite frankly, a cop out as they should be the ones explaining these questions and their arguments/views to us. A discussion is a two-way interchange of ideas, not a tick-box exercise by one party.
Their actions in responding to this challenge will speak louder than any words.
The public don’t know the consultation is happening
I asked four different friends this week if they had heard anything about the consultation and drew a blank. These are not uninterested citizens, but responsible members of our society who have had no say because they had not heard anything about it. It is such a shame that we have not been notified and invited to give our views by individual letters, rather than it being a game of chance.
I would encourage everyone to go to the website, or to obtain a paper copy of the surveys, ‘Let’s Talk Local’, and ‘Let’s Talk Money’, and try giving your answers, as I do believe the voice of the people is important. The closing date for these is 23 December 2022.
If you find that there is a further question, or discussion you’d like to have, then the email addresses of the executive members are on the North Yorkshire County Council website. There may still be some in-person meetings to attend in some areas.
If you would like to view the public meeting of the executive committee, please follow this link.
