Glen Eira Debates

Once again there has been a very limited consultation process for an important strategic policy. The accompanying two and a half page officer’s report on the consultation is incredibly bereft of detail and once more entirely misleading. The first two pages in fact merely repeat the previous motions, and we get a full page regurgitation of the advertising strategy. The actual results from the ‘consultation’ take up less than half a page and include such generalities as:

“The main message of the consultation process was that it is a step in the right direction but that more could or should be done.”

We are also informed that there were 531 ‘visits’ to the Have your Say link on council’s website. Do not be deceived – this is NOT to the ‘Have Your Say’ online forum, but merely to another webpage where users could fill out a form or email council with their thoughts.

Interestingly, we are told that there were 35 submissions, but only groups are mentioned.

Comments on Officers’ Summary

Our major criticisms relate to appendix 1 – the summary authored by officers of these 35 submissions. Readers should carefully note the following:

• There is no consistent indication as to the respective authors of the various submissions. That is, we are not told whether each point is to be accredited to Resident 1, Resident 2, or Resident 3. Hence there is no way of knowing whether all comments from the 35 submissions have in actual fact been included in this ‘summary’. Council can of course, put our
  minds at rest by publishing the full submissions – as most other councils do!!!!
• Of the 93 individual comments included, 52 resulted in ‘No Change’ classifications, whilst 16 resulted in the comment ‘Note’. This latter ‘action’ was usually in response to complimentary comments! Hence of the remaining 26 points 13 resulted in decisions to ‘advocate’, whilst others included such gems as providing a definition for ‘sustainable’. Note that the entire strategy has been labelled ‘sustainable’!!!!!!!
• Also worthy of mention is the decision not to change anything since the recommendations ‘fall under the ‘Prepare a Walking Strategy Action’. Surely walking must be an integral part of any ‘sustainable transport’ plan?

Our conclusions are obvious. Consultation at Glen Eira remains inadequate in both process and outcome, whilst reporting procedures lack transparency and comprehensiveness. Residents opinions are once again given short shrift and basically ignored!

There’s a wonderful irony, if not straight out hypocrisy, in the just completed ‘consultation’ process on the ‘Community Engagement Strategy’. Last night there was a meeting of the Consultation Advisory committee which considered residents’ Submissions. The official letter of response to these individuals is below –

We point out the following:

• At the last review of the ‘consultation policy’ several years ago all submissions were published
• The submissions were presented at a full council meeting which then ratified the policy

This time, submissions have gone to the ‘consultation advisory committee’ consisting of our favourite little gang – Esakoff, Hyams, Lipshutz and Penhalluriack. Using our imaginations we conjure up the following chain of events last night:

• The submissions were buried under piles of other agenda items
• There was probably only 5 minutes of discussion regarding the submissions
• Councillors on the committee had not read them
• Other councillors have not read them, much less clapped eyes on them
• The ‘outcomes’ will be presented to council via the eventual minutes of this advisory committee meeting.  This means that when voting to accept the recommendations of this committee meeting, the full council will also be ratifying any decisions on the consultation policy. There will be no formal council debate specifically on the question of ‘community engagement/consultation’.

So after so much fanfare about this ‘new’ draft engagement strategy the process fails to adhere to its own recommendations on ‘methodologies, tools, and methods’. Only written comments and submissions were allowed – no use of the online ‘Have Your Say’ forum; no opportunity for residents to address council on their submissions; no really informative letter back – simply the
nonsense of you’ll be informed of ‘outcomes’!

As always, this just goes to show the yawning gap between the rhetoric of this council, and the reality. And as per usual, everything is cloaked in secrecy. We therefore challenge council to mend its ways and to:

• Publish all submissions
• Permit speakers to address council on the issue – but with plenty of notice and advertising
• To account in detail for every resident recommendation that is rejected or accepted

We also extend an open invitation to any resident who would like to forward us their submission. We will put this up anonymously if you request this. In this way, we hope to ensure that if council does not publish the submissions, then at least some of these will be available to the public via this website.

From the Draft Engagement Strategy:

“The advantage of a quantitative approach is that it produces valid and statistically correct data. The disadvantage with the approach is that it does not provide detailed information about how key stakeholders feel about the proposal and does not enable people to suggest alternatives or to become significantly involved in the process.

Qualitative engagement tools allow key stakeholders to be involved in the process to have their say, voice concerns and comment on detailed proposals or possible courses of action. Examples include focus groups, public meetings, forums and information sessions.

Such engagement techniques are valuable for understanding the perceptions and views of the community, generally those members who have a significant stake in the proposal or have strong feelings about it. It is very important to recognise that qualitative engagement techniques do not, however, provide information about the total numbers who support the proposal.

A common error is to confuse the two methodologies and assume that a qualitative methodology has provided quantitative data. For example, because 100 people have attended a public forum and supported a proposal, it can be wrongly assumed that the proposal therefore has community support. Hence a forum can provide information about WHY people support the proposal but provides little information about HOW MANY in the overall community support the proposal.”

AND

“Community engagement processes will be regularly reviewed and evaluated to ensure that they adequately capture community views, that methods are accessible, timely and easy to use for community members and any appropriate improvements be made
to Council processes”.

After 3 years, there is now supposedly a ‘new version’ of the Engagement/Consultation strategy out for public comment. We’ve stated previously that we believe this ‘new’ document is simply a padding out of the existing ‘6 Steps of Consultation’ – with the addition of some motherhood statements, and the attempt to beguile residents with that warm and fluffy feeling that their views actually matter and that things might just have changed a tiny little bit. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In this post we concentrate on PLAGIARISM and the fact that we have senior executives earning mega bucks and all they can come up with is pinching the work of Bayside (uploaded) and other councils. Whilst this may be the highest form of flattery, we suggest that in Glen Eira the intent is far more devious. This selective plagiarism reveals much about the projected outcomes, mentality and corporate ethos at work in Glen Eira. Below is a table comparing the Bayside version (circa 2009) and the current Glen Eira version. We’ve only bothered to explore the first few pages thus far. However, we ask that readers look carefully at what Glen Eira has decided to omit from its pilfering of Bayside’s work and ask themselves, WHY? What has Bayside included in its policy, that might just strike at the heart of the Glen Eira culture and hence has been deliberately left out?

Finally, one can only wonder about the professionalism of the authors. Admittedly, Bayside is acknowledged in the references. But, there is no indication whatsoever throughout the document that passages are being cited verbatim. Instead, most people would assume that this is all the work of council officers. ‘Intellectual dishonesty’ we ask? We welcome all comments.