Charter for Public Participation

Shaping public participation in Kensington and Chelsea

The local Charter for Public Participation describes how you can influence local services, get involved in decision-making, and make a difference in your area.  Five years after launching the Charter, we’re now reviewing to ensure it is meeting your needs. Read more about the current Charter on this page.

Earlier this year, we ran a 12-week consultation asking residents to share their views on how we can better support public participation in local decision-making. The consultation was part of our ongoing commitment to become a more transparent and listening council following the Grenfell tragedy and Inquiry recommendations.

More than 500 people took part, through surveys, focus groups and community events. Thank you to everyone who contributed. Your feedback is now directly shaping the Charter’s future.

What you told us

• residents care about influence: 86 per cent said it’s important that local people have a say in major decisions - only 38 per cent feel they currently do.
• trust and transparency are critical: The most common request was for clearer communication, more honest dialogue, and regular updates on how input is used.
• involving local people in decisions: 72 per cent said they wanted to be involved in decisions relating to changes to local services generally, even if they don't use them much, followed by 68 per cent who said policies affecting the whole borough and 63 per cent said matters that have a significant impact across specific neighbourhoods.
• digital isn’t enough: While online tools are useful, many want more face-to-face engagement, especially in neighbourhoods and at community events. Participants asked for more inclusive methods - from accessible venues to translated materials and support with transport or childcare.
• more visible leadership: Residents want council staff and councillors to be more present in the community - in parks, libraries, markets and meetings - not just online.
• feedback must close the loop: 75 per cent said the best way to show we are listening is by feeding back directly to participants and explaining how decisions were shaped by their views. And 58 per cent said they would get involved if they believed change is possible and worth the effort.
• younger and ethnically diverse participants were more likely to want further involvement and were more engaged through non-traditional formats like postcards, social media and community partnerships.

Read the full report on our Consultation and Engagement Hub.

What’s next?

Using your consultation feedback, the Charter is now being co-designed with a group of local residents. The first of three co-design sessions was held recently - the beginning of a genuine collaboration between us and our community to refresh how we involve residents in decision-making.

Contact

For a copy of the report or if you would like the report in a different format, email [email protected] or call 07814 361723 (Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm).

Read the Charter

Introduction

Healthy local democracy goes well beyond people voting in borough elections every four years. Local people rightly expect to have a say on things that affect their communities.

They also help to shape our decisions and contribute to the development of services, plans and programmes alongside council officers and local councillors.

Furthermore, they want some confidence that their contributions can and will influence these things.

We deliver a wide range of services and take many decisions, most of which are quite routine and don’t impact local people in any significant way. A few however, have a potentially significant impact in one way and another. We are keen to hear how local people wish to be engaged or involved, and want to listen to them before reaching a decision.

It acknowledges that such public participation can often deliver more sustainable outcomes: local people, after all, are more likely to support decisions on which they’ve had an input.

That said, we have the legal responsibility for the provision of local authority services. We can and will listen, hear, engage, and involve – but ultimately it’s the democratically-elected council which has to, by law, weigh up all relevant considerations and take these decisions.

In many instances, these decisions will clearly reflect the wishes of local people, but at times the council may have to take difficult decisions that will not satisfy everybody. However, it will always take account of local views and make decisions that it considers are in the best interests of the borough as a whole.

The diagram at Appendix D shows a range of ways that can and will be used to facilitate public participation, each of which we will use as and when appropriate (see examples provided).

Document

Charter for Public Participation PDF, 476.86 KB, 6 pages

Our values and behaviours

In 2018, we adopted the Twelve Principles of Good Governance (now incorporated into Part One of our Constitution) and in 2019 adopted new organisational values and behaviours which include commitments to:

put local people at the heart of decision making in everything we do: listen to others and value the personal experiences of people in our communities, and each other, and let people know how we are doing and communicate why and how decisions have been made.

Involving local people in issues that impact on the community

In terms of public participation, our values and behaviours mean that we:

• accept the principle that those impacted upon by major proposals or actions should be given an opportunity to be involved in advance
• will listen to views and opinions and, where there is clear local consensus, take this into account in our decisions
• acknowledge that the community is a valuable, often untapped, resource, and that drawing upon this resource through public participation can drive more sustainable outcomes
• value public participation so that we can hear from those most impacted by decisions etc
• will investigate, and remain keen to hear at any time about, those things in which local people wish to be involved (and where they want to be consulted or to co-design or co-produce something with the council) and will thereafter facilitate that involvement where possible
• where local people do wish to be involved, will do our utmost to ensure they are well informed
• will include a section in Key Decision reports where we explain involvement from local people and other relevant stakeholders in advance of the decision and state clearly what influence this has had on the decision being taken, and
• will continue to review the way that we have engaged with local people and consider how we might improve.

When involving local people we will:

• give people a chance to be involved at the earliest possible opportunity and allow enough time to engage with them and for them to make a genuine contribution
• use a variety of approaches so we’re hearing from a range of voices which reflect the whole community, and we understand that not everyone wants to engage with us in the same way
• be honest about what can or can’t be changed and any other limitations
• ensure that all council departments keep ward councillors informed of issues and developments that have a particular impact on their wards and alert them well in advance to decisions that have a significant effect on their constituents, and
• review engagement activity and share learning across the council.

We will do all we possibly can not to ask people for information they have already given us, and we will not overstate what we can offer.

Major plans, policies and projects

When we are developing significant plans, policies and projects we will:

• seek views from local people at an early stage, before a council policy has been formulated, so as to gather ideas and opinions
• take account of this input in formulating a draft council proposal
• put the draft council proposal out to consultation, using appropriate means of communication and give people enough time to comment – usually at least six weeks
• publish a full list of consultations underway in a single place on the council website
• make a clear statement on the council website of our approach to consultation on new plans, policies and projects

Getting involved in council meetings

To achieve our aim, we will:

• welcome interested local people to our meetings and provide reasonable opportunities for them to speak and to film or record the public part of any meeting
• routinely explore and provide opportunities for interested local people to get involved in the council’s scrutiny activities, ensuring Scrutiny activity focuses above all on the things that matter most to local people;
• give at the very least 28 calendar days notice*, on the published Forward Plan of Decisions, of all ‘key decisions’ and ‘executive decisions’ we intend to take (as defined in Part 4 of the Constitution), and
• welcome and respond efficiently to petitions in line with our Petitions Guidance [*other than those occasional circumstances where statutory urgency procedures are used]

and additionally local people may:

• complain to us under our Complaints Scheme; to the Ombudsman after exhausting the provisions of our Complaints Scheme; to our Monitoring Officer about a breach of the councillor Code of Conduct; and to the Information Commissioner where applicable
• inspect our accounts and make their views known to the external auditor, and
• where they use a specific council service (for example as a parent of a school pupil or as a council tenant), have additional legal rights which are not covered here.

Openness and transparency

We will make it easy for people to find out whom to contact about any particular issue and will publish on the council website councillor and senior officer email addresses.

However, where people want to make a complaint or have a routine enquiry, they should pursue this via the complaints form on our Complaints, Comments and Compliments page. This is to ensure a timely response to the issue in question and to make sure the council captures and learns from all complaints.

We will make it easy to find information, as well as responding in a timely way to specific requests for information.

A two-way relationship

If it’s to function effectively the relationship between us and local people has to be a two-way, reciprocal, one.

While we will continue to explore ways to better communicate with, to empower, and to maintain the trust of, local people, if the council is to represent, and speak or act with authority on behalf of, local people then there is an onus on local people to feed back to, and communicate openly and constructively with councillors and council staff.

So we encourage local people:

• wherever they can to access council services and other information via our website in the first instance
• to vote in elections and, more generally, to participate in public life
• to take part in consultations, giving their views and feedback on local services and holding us to account – telling us if and when we ‘get it wrong
• to do what they can, individually or with others, to make the borough a better place to live.

Accessibility

We want to ensure that there are no barriers preventing local people from accessing council services, facilities and meetings.

We are keen that local people feel welcome at our meetings so will ensure these are held in accessible rooms, with facilities available for those requiring additional assistance.

Requests for information in alternative formats will be accommodated wherever possible.

Accountability for our Charter commitments

It is Important that the Charter is not purely aspirational but, rather, is the catalyst for and reflection of real culture change. All our departments and all our staff will need to deliver consistently to the standards set out in this document.

However, there may be occasions where local people feel we have fallen short. If and when this happens, we want to hear about it - via our Complaints, Comments and Compliments page - so that we can apologise when we have not lived up to our commitments and, as far as possible, put things right.

The overarching principles in this Charter will feed into, and be supplemented by, more specific or service-based commitments contained other documents such as the Community Engagement Strategy, the Statement of Community Involvement in Planning and the Resident Charter for Housing Tenants.