Alex Chapman

1

• Introduction to rol
• Customer Consultation in Local Government
• The acknowledge approach
• Demonstration
• Benefits

• Alex Chapman

2
Who are we?

• We work with local authorities, partnerships and
  other local government stakeholders
• Our passion is improving the dialogue between
  councils and citizens and businesses
• We have over a decade of local government
  experience, delivering solutions for
• Community Portals
• Online Consultation
• Citizens Juries
• Single Business Account
• National e-Service Delivery Standards
• Customer Satisfaction.

3
Customer consultation

• Listening and responding to citizens, businesses
  and community groups is fundamental to local
  government
• It enables local authorities to target services
  at what people want and need, and improve service
  delivery
• It many cases it is a statutory requirement to
  consult all those who will be directly affected
  by decisions
• Providing evidence of consultation is a key
  criteria of CPA, and consultation is a central
  theme in the Local Government White Paper
• Good consultation has a wider impact than simply
  on those who are consulted - being perceived as a
  'listening council' can improve overall resident
  perceptions.

4
What are the issues?

• For the community
• People often dont understand local government,
  and may not realise that they can participate
• Even if they are aware of consultation
  opportunities, they may not feel that they are
  interesting or relevant
• They may also be prevented from participating if
  they cannot take part in a way that is accessible
  and convenient for them
• Even if they could participate, people may be put
  off because they dont believe what they say will
  make a difference
• People may also lack the information needed to
  provide informed opinions.

5
What are the issues?

• For the local authority
• Consultation can be time consuming, costly and
  complex
• Effective and efficient consultation requires a
  joined-up corporate approach, covering
• When you consult
• What you consult on
• Who you consult with
• How you deliver consultation
• How you feed back results to the community
• How you keep the community informed of progress
• This is difficult to achieve using traditional
  methods, tools and resources.

6
New approach acknowledge

• acknowledge was commissioned by the ODPM as a
  tool for
• Engaging with the public using a variety of cross
  channel customer-centric consultation methods
• Enabling the effective and efficient corporate
  management of consultation, using a web-based
  platform
• acknowledge meets and exceeds the relevant
  priority service outcomes (R16 and G3)
• Product development is driven by the user
  community, not by third-party providers
• It is open source, so there are no licence fees.

7
New approach acknowledge

• Demonstration
• Administration View

8
acknowledge provides a corporate platform for
managing consultation and engagement
Owner
Wendy Richards
(Delegated to Katy Minshall)
Bob Smith
(Delegated to Alex Chapman)
Alex Chapman
(Delegated to Katy Minshall)
Owner
Alix Cunnell
Owner
Alex Chapman
(Delegated to Bob Smith)
9
from online and offline surveys, to public
meetings, online forums, discussions and debates.
Owner
Wendy Richards
(Delegated to Katy Minshall)
Bob Smith
(Delegated to Alex Chapman)
Alex Chapman
(Delegated to Katy Minshall)
Owner
Alix Cunnell
Owner
Alex Chapman
(Delegated to Bob Smith)
10
The digital dashboard gives consultation managers
instant access to every consultation
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enabling them to monitor whats happening
across the organisation
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including status information such as when a
consultation is due to close or be published
13
and tasks that need completing, such as
publishing consultation results.
14
Each consultation has its own homepage, from
which the whole process can be managed from start
to finish.
15
The Manager can add and update the consultation
objectives
16
and add relevant topics and locations for the
consultation, which will help citizens to
identify the consultations that they are
interested in.
17
The Manager can also add background information
that will help the citizen provide an informed
response.
18
The Manager can create online questionnaires or
surveys that can form part of the consultation
process.
19
Alternatively, if the consultation is being run
offline, copies of postal questionnaires can be
published.
20
The consultation start and close dates can be set
...
21
and if required, the consultation can be
delegated to another internal user to manage.
22
New approach acknowledge

• Demonstration
• Citizen View

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acknowledge can be styled to match your existing
website, and to create a visually engaging brand.
24
Citizens can view consultations by logging in as
a guest, or they can create a personal account
that will enable them to participate.
25
New users can personalise their account by
selecting the topics they are interested in, and
the areas of their community they want to be
notified about.
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The citizen can then view a personalised
homepage, which lists all of consultations that
match their interests.
27
At a glance, the citizen can see what each
consultation is about by reading the summary.
28
To find out more, the user can view the
consultation homepage
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and become informed about the issue by reading
the supporting documentation.
30
Online discussions and polls further add to the
deliberative process, by enabling users to
discuss issues amongst themselves.
31
The user can then provide informed, structured
feedback by completing the questionnaires.
32
Results and the subsequent actions can be fed
back to the community, demonstrating the
difference the consultation has made to local
decisions and democracy.
33
Benefits for the Community

• Relevant citizens can get involved in the
  issues that affect their lives, by registering
  their personal interests in specific subjects and
  places
• Accessible many different consultation
  approaches are supported, both online and
  offline, enabling citizens to participate in the
  way that suits them
• Informed every consultation can include all the
  background information required to facilitate
  structured, informed debate
• Involved citizens are kept up-to-date
  throughout the consultation process, right
  through to the publication of the final results
  and the subsequent decisions and actions.

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Benefits for the Local Authority

• Easy to manage all past, present and future
  consultation activity is managed through a single
  platform. Consultations can be delegated to
  individual departments, whilst still maintaining
  a corporate view
• Comprehensive acknowledge provides all the
  tools needed to run both online and offline
  consultations
• Quick - the whole consultation process is speeded
  up, as questionnaires are quick and easy to put
  together and can be published immediately
• Flexible acknowledge integrates with existing
  survey-building software to bring a robust
  corporate approach to existing consultation
  practices.

35
rol and acknowledge

• rol has been the lead technical partner to the
  Knowledge Management and e-Democracy (now ICELE)
  National Projects in the latest phase of the
  development of acknowledge
• rol offers a comprehensive range of services that
  help local authorities get the most out of
  acknowledge
• Implementation
• Training
• Hosting
• Support
• Consultation Services.

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Contact

• To find out more about how acknowledge can
  benefit your organisation, please contact
• Alex Chapman
• t. 07941 728804
• e. alex.chapman_at_rol.co.uk
• w. www.rol.co.uk