Consultation
Why Consult?
A Community Strategy sets out a vision of how the whole area will develop over the next 10-15 years. It is therefore vital that this vision and the actions arising are based on the local communities' needs and aspirations - this can only be established by talking to people.
It is also important to talk to all those partnerships, organisations and groups that have the capability to do the activity that would result in an improved quality of life. Indeed, they are often already doing work focusing on improving the quality of life of people in Torfaen.
How have we consulted?
It was important to the Torfaen Partnership that the consultation carried out was 'open book'. This means that the issues that arise from the consultation come out because they are the issues which were important to those who respond not because they have been directed in the direction of certain issues.
Below is an outline of the main ways in which we consulted with the residents and communities of Torfaen as well as with organisations that work within the Torfaen area:
Vox Pop Video Project
This involves interviewing a number of people of all age ranges from across Torfaen asking them about their quality of life and their aspirations for the future. These interviews were filmed and a DVD made that will act as a record of what people thought in 2004. Not did we hear about what people thought about their quality of life but in a number of years time this can be used as a comparison to see how quality of life has changed. The DVD will also act as a visual stimulus to decision-makers of what people within Torfaen think about their quality of life but also their future aspirations.
This project was carried out by two local people with the help of a large number of people who have volunteered to take part. The information from the interviews was analysed to find out what the quality of life issues were throughout the Torfaen area and to see if there are specific issues being raised in different areas or amongst different age groups.
The Big Vision
This was an exciting project which lit up Torfaen. A nationally aclaimed artist, specialising in figurative and photographic work, was commisioned to produce images of Torfaen in the future. These images were based on work with young people on their visions of Torfaen in 2025 and as such were both positive and negative. In November 2004, the images were projected onto a number of landmark buildings across Torfaen so that people could see them and make their views known on Webster and via a simple questionnaire.
Community based Open Space events
Two community consultation events were held (in Wainfelin and Cymynyscoy) in which pepole from the local area attended. These events lasted approximately 3 hours and were based on the principle of having no agenda at the start of the event and enabling those attending to draw together what they beleive to be the key quality of life issues they face. These issues were then the focus of the rest of the event with those taking part driving the whole content. The role of those organising the events was purely be to help those who attended.
Torfaen Talks
An article in Torfaen Talks - the Council Newsletter - that is delivered to every household in Torfaen explained the COmmunity Strategy and included a postage paid response form so that people could give us their views.
Young Peoples Forum
All the young people who took part in the consultation for establishing the Young Peoples Forum were also asked their views on the quality of life issues that affect them.
Webster and Democracy events
The young people that took part in the Webster and Democracy events were also asked for their views on their quality of life and what changes they would like to see happen in the future that would improve it.
Organisation, Partnership and Group Consultation
There are a large number of organisations, partnerships and other groups that work to improve the quality of life of people in Torfaen. We asked them to let us know what they thought should be the 5 key issues that need to be addressed by the Torfaen Community Strategy and give a brief reason why.
The Residents Survey
As a result of all this consultation we found that there was a large number of issues which people and organisations said they wanted to be dealt with as part of the Community Strategy. We compiled a list of these issues and constructed a questionnaire which asked two questions:
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Firstly, how important was each issue?
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Secondly, how urgently should the issue be dealt with?
The reason why we asked two questions was because an issue may be very important to someone it may not need anything being done about it! For example, it is important for someone to paid every week or month but it is not an issue that urgently needs addressing (assuming that they are regularly paid!).
By looking at the responses to both these questions, we can understand how much of a real priority each issue is to those who responded to the questionnaire.
The questionnaire was then sent to 2,000 households in Torfaen that were selected on a random basis and the results were used to help decide the focus of the Community Strategy.
What were the results of all this consultation?
The following is a list of documents that outline the results of the consultation exercises carried out. Please feel free to view and/or download the information: