Questions

Answers

Q. What is Community Engagement?

  • Community Engagement refers to consultation, involvement and participation with residents and services users. These are the ways in which we find out the views of local people to inform the decisions we make.

Q. What is the difference between consultation, involvement and participation?

  • There is a spectrum of engagement from consultation with residents about services through to the continuous participation of residents in making decisions and delivering services. Click on this link to find out more about the spectrum of engagement.

Q. Why do we engage with you?

  • We want to engage with local people to ensure that we provide public services that you want and are responsive to your needs.

Q. How do we engage with you?

  • We have a number of ways in which we engage with local people. These include regular activity such as Community Councils and our Residents’ Panel. It also includes specific activity to get your views on particular issues. These activities include the use of questionnaires, discussion groups and consultation workshops.

Q. How can I get involved?

  • You will sometimes be invited to be involved in specific consultation activity. However, if you want to raise issues that are important to you, we encourage you to attend your local Community Council. You can also contact your local Councillor

Q. Why can’t I get involved in all engagement activity?

  • Ideally, everyone would get involved in every engagement activity. However, this is not practical and not everybody wants to be involved. Good engagement is about ensuring that we have a representative view of what local people think

Q. How will I find out what Community Engagement activity is happening and what the findings are?

  • You can visit use Consultation Finder to find out about current and future consultation activities and the results of past consultations. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts about consultation on issues you are interested in. The outcomes of consultation are also fed back via the local press and the Council’s WFM

Q. Are there instances when the Council will not consult about certain issues?

  • Not every issue or decision is available for consultation as this would not be practically possible. Your local Councillors are elected to oversee the everyday running of the Council. In order to help them do this, they ask for and use the views of residents to help them make decisions

Q. Will decisions ever be made which do not appear to reflect what local people said?

  • There are lots of issues that Councillors have to consider and balance when making decisions. These include central government policy and guidelines, resource constraints, complaints information, as well as the views of local people. The views of local people will always be considered, but decisions may also reflect these other issues.

Q. How do we ensure that we get the views of a cross section of our community?

  • Good quality engagement activity that is well planned and executed will be inclusive and accessible to a cross-section of the community. This ensures that we get a representative view of what local people think. Sometimes we will engage on issues that are of particular importance and interest to a specific part of the community. Community Engagement will then be targeted to this group. For example we have some exciting projects aimed at engaging with children and young people. You can visit www.forestflava.org.uk, the website for young people aged 11-19 that live or study in the Borough, to find out more

Q. How can I find out more about Community Engagement activity in Waltham Forest?

  • You can sign up to receive e-mail alerts about consultation on issues that are of interest to you. In addition, you can contact us direct via e-mail: communityengagement@walthamforest.gov.uk or call Waltham Forest Direct on: 020 8496 3000