Consultation results and feedback

Feeding back the results of consultation

There will always be a purpose for carrying out consultation, and a number of people who may be interested in knowing the results. They may also have a vested interest in knowing what will happen as a consequence. Such groups of people include: -

• the people with whom you consulted (consultees)
• councillors and local politicians
• the Chief Executive or senior managers of your organisation
• colleagues, including the public relations and communications teams
• the general public
• other stakeholder groups
• strategic partners
• community groups
• local media

Feedback to consultees

It is important for feedback to be given to people who have participated in research and consultation activities. Not doing so is a main cause of of consultation fatigue, scepticism both of your own work and of your organisation. You also risk not being taken seriously as an organisation.

How and when you give feedback, and the likely content of the feedback needs to be considered when you are planning your consultation activity. Time for giving feedback will need to be built into your consultation plan. How much time you will need depends on a number of factors, eg. method, numbers involved, additional information needed.

Methods for feedback

The suggestions below are for a range of audiences. Who is receiving the information and how they might understand that information will determine your desired method(s). It is also important to consider how the information can be made relevant and interesting to them. Depending on the project, it is feasible that a number of different approaches will be used for your various audiences.

• Follow up meeting/discussion/presentation: For a small group of consultees, it might be appropriate to hold a follow up meeting where consultation results and proposed action plans can be presented. This would have the added benefit of enabling people to ask questions and perhaps have an input into drawing up the final action plan.
• Leaflet/newsletter: For a large group of consultees or where there is ongoing consultation, the preferred method may be to send out a leaflet or newsletter. The publication should be interesting to look at, easy to read, and well laid out, containing the most important points relevant to the particular target audience.
• Local press: The consultees may have been anonymous and widely dispersed, as in for example a self-completion survey printed in a local newspaper. Feedback to them, as well as information to the general public can form a news item in the local press.
• Internet: Survey and consultation results may be published on your organisation's website. This enables you to reach a diverse range of audiences, including other local authorities.
• Internally: Feeding back the results of consultation within the your own organisation can be done in a variety or combination of ways. Options include the staff newsletter or the internal intranet if you have one, in addition to using departmental newsletters, emails, leaflets and notice boards.

Just as you need to consider accessibility and inclusiveness when planning your consultation, you also need to think of those things when delivering your feedback. Here are some other considerations:

• Use of plain language 
• Use of of variety of formats eg. tape, large print, community languages.
• Selective use of key points from the full survey results/report.
• Use of diagrams, graphs and charts to display numerical data, with cross-tabulations showing key relationships

People will expect to receive feedback quite soon after the consultation. Given the lengthy time a decision-making processes can take, it may be appropriate to give feedback in two stages. Initially you can give people some results and then later on you can inform about how the results have been used, or what action will be taken.

You also need to think about monitoring and evaluating whether the information you have given people has been understood.