Good communication with local people has never been more important.  Without it, we cannot be sure that the services we provide are the right ones or that we are delivering our services in the right way.  Consultation makes a big contribution to the Council by:

• Testing options for service changes
• Targeting services at what people want and need
• Improving the delivery of services
• Improving the take-up of services
• Tracking overall resident and user satisfaction
• Testing public views on conflicting priorities, key choices and resource decisions
• Supporting bids for resources or partnership funding
• Supporting the development and delivery of the community strategy and local strategic partnership

The Council undertakes various consultation projects with the general public, stakeholders and service users.  Our communication and consultation strategy can be viewed from the related information section to the top-right of this page.

Listed below are some of our recent and all of our current consultation projects.  To find out more about individual projects, please see the related links and linked documents on the right.

Recent Consultation

• Customer Satisfaction Surveys 2006/7  - General, Benefits Service and Planning Service (Best Value Performance Indicators) 
• Budget Input Consultation - Council Spending and Service Provision
• Statement of Licensing Policy Consultation - see 'Licensing Act 2003'
• Town Centre Visitor Perception Surveys 2005 - surveys on what visitors thought about Huntingdon, Ramsey, St Ives and St Neots town centres
• 'Annual Consultation' 2005 and 2006 - these surveys were undertaken to find out what residents think about the district and the services the Council provides
• Quality of Life Survey 2006
• Open Spaces Consultation - an Open Spaces Strategy and a Playing Pitch Strategy will be drawn up following this

Current Consultation

• Housing - all current consultation exercises are linked from the 'Housing Strategy and Policy' page
• Planning - consultation on the Core Strategy Preferred Options can be found from the 'Development Plan Documents' link and all other current consultation exercises are linked from 'Current Planning Consultations'
• Call Centre Customer Survey - surveys of people who have used services offered by our new Call Centre are being undertaken to assess satisfaction

For further information about consultation contact Claire Sides, Policy Officer, tel: (01480) 388495 or email Claire Sides by using the link on the right.