Building a council that listens: Survey launches on new strategy

Wokingham Borough Council is inviting residents to help shape a new engagement and consultation strategy that aims to ensure everyone’s voice is heard when decisions are being made that affect their lives.

The survey, now open to all residents, marks a key milestone in the council’s commitment to improving how it listens to and works with the community.

Alongside the public survey, the council is also reaching out to people who are less likely to respond to traditional online consultations, ensuring the strategy reflects the views of a broad and diverse cross-section of the borough.

Cllr Stephen Conway, leader of Wokingham Borough Council, said: “We know that like most local authorities many of our consultations receive low response rates, and those who do respond are often the same voices. This can create a misleading impression of the range of views in our community, and we want to find a better way to capture that range of views. So, we’ve set out to improve the way we consult and engage with our residents and this strategy is a key part of that.”

To make sure it hears from a wider range of residents, the council has reshaped its team to focus more on listening and involving the community. It is setting up a new Community Panel that reflects the borough’s diversity and is having an independent research company carry out a borough-wide survey to get a reliable picture of how residents feel about local services and life in Wokingham borough. This will help guide service development and how we allocate our resources. 

These initiatives will complement existing resident-led engagement and community-led research, including working together with groups such as Social Care Future, the Youth Council, Voluntary Sector Action Group, Communities Vision Steering Group, and the Tenant and Landlord Improvement Panel.

The new Community Panel will help the council engage with a wider and more representative group of residents on a range of topics.

Some of the ways the panel will be used include:

• Early engagement to inform the development of decisions, strategies and plans
• Perception checks to understand views on borough-wide issues
• Focus group recruitment for more detailed feedback
• Targeted engagement by age, gender or location

If supported through the consultation, the strategy would be guided by a set of principles designed to make engagement more inclusive, meaningful and accessible. The council would aim to involve residents in ways that are flexible and proportionate, using both formal and informal methods depending on the topic. Engagement would take place at the right time in the decision-making process, be open to all, and communicated in plain language. Crucially, the council would commit to using residents’ feedback to inform decisions and provide clear, fair and accessible updates on how that feedback has been used.

Cllr Conway added: “We want to build a stronger, more inclusive approach to engagement – one that reflects the views of all our residents, not just the few we hear from regularly. This strategy is about making sure everyone has the opportunity to shape the future of our borough.”

Residents can take part in the survey by visiting the council’s Engage Wokingham Borough website. The survey will be open until 30 November.

For anyone needing help with the survey, contact the council’s customer service team on 0118 974 6000 or drop by one of the borough’s libraries.