Originally published 6 February 2007. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
If you’re among the titans of British business - or even merely a Government Minister - your acolytes gather around and solemnly advise that you should hold sensitive meetings on your own “territory”. This, they say, gives you a psychological advantage and makes the others acknowledge your position.
Selecting the right venue can exercise a lot of people. In our new training course, Effective Public Meetings, we often have a heated debate about the best place to hold such events. We all agree about making the occasion as welcoming as possible (though we did recently have a highly experienced civil servant argue that one should on no account smile ….lest it give the “wrong impression”!) but can’t agree about using the most welcoming venues. A plush hotel may not be right for some public meetings; but then, some of our Community halls can be draughty and miserable, and may lack the facilities which disabled people and others with particular requirements may need. Asking organisations to come to meet you in the Town Hall, or your organisation’s head office may be convenient for you - but is it the right place for consultees? Remember that commercial developers or supermarkets, when seeking public support for their schemes, tend increasingly to build an attractive exhibition stand and take it to the City Centre, the Shopping Mall or even to schools. Mobile phone operators devise “drop in centres” to obtain comments on phone mast proposals and enterprising Councils can these days be seen with a stand at the Summer Fete or Carnival.
The trend is firmly towards finding a real place for the debate to take place.
There is still a role for documentary consultation – where the decision-maker sends you a big fat document, and you respond by posting a somewhat slimmer reply. This type of dialogue takes place courtesy of Royal Mail, and lacks the immediacy of the face-to-face variety. Its modern counterpart is e-consultation where the discussion merely inhabits cyber-space.
There is no right or wrong answer and human ingenuity will accommodate innovative ideas in this, as in other aspects of debate. One of the key considerations, however, has to be the comfort and convenience of the consultee. Few of them have to give their time, so we need to make their participation as easy and attractive as possible. This matters even more with special groups of seldom-heard or hard-to-reach communities. Some of these would scarcely consider attending a formal meeting, be it in the local Hilton or the Church Hall. Others just need their unique sensitivities acknowledged.
In all cases, however, a little forethought to the location of the consultation can make a difference, and improve the quality and outcome of the dialogue.
Trigger points
- Compile a list of local venues, and get to know their “ambience”
- Ensure that all venues used for formal meetings with the public conform to best practice standards per the Disability Equality Duty
- Consider these and other aspects of holding successful public meetings at the Institute’s new course, Effective Public Meetings.
This is the 78th Tuesday Topic; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement