Our Place Discussion Group Feedback - Web Accessible Format

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Our Place Discussion Group

Feedback on Key Messages

Introduction

In June 2022 four discussion groups were carried out with a sample of Participate Panel members who responded to the Autumn 2021 'Our Place' survey, to understand the key messages from the survey in more detail. The in-person and online discussions focused on what makes a local area a good place to live, what creates a good sense of community and what is most important to do well to be a good council.

The findings report from the discussion groups is available to read here. Below is a summary of the key cross-cutting messages from the discussion groups:

Getting the basics right

For some residents this meant providing key universal services such as waste, highways, transport and street cleaning, whereas for others this meant protecting statutory services that support the people most in need in our borough.

Facilitating communities coming together

Many people felt it was important for the Council to empower people to make a difference to their local area and community, by bringing residents and key partners together and supporting community projects and initiatives.

Working together with residents

It was important to many people for the Council to be open with residents by keeping them well-informed, involving them and responding to their concerns, and feeding back honestly on decisions and the reasons for them.

The discussion group findings have been widely shared within the Council and are now being used to inform plans for services and enhance our communications with residents. This feedback outlines how the Council is responding to the key messages. The 'Our Place' survey and discussion group feedback will be invaluable now and, in the future, to help improve the local area and ensure services meet residents’ needs.


Getting the basics right

What participants said

Participants felt that getting the basics right is of upmost importance. For some, this meant providing key universal services such as waste, highways, transport and street cleaning, for others this meant protecting statutory services that support people most in need in our borough.

How the Council is responding

The Council strives to deliver high-quality universal services such as waste, highways, transport and street cleaning within the funding it has available. Often Council resources are constrained for these services due to our responsibilities to provide care for vulnerable adults and children, nevertheless we constantly look for opportunities to improve all services.

Examples of improvements we are making to get key universal services right include:

Waste – The borough’s new kerbside recycling and waste collection service, which has been rolled out to properties that can accommodate the containers brings a number of benefits:

  • The new larger recycling bins hold more recycling, so facilitate the ability to recycle more, need to be emptied less often, and can be sorted on the roadside. The bins also have better, more effective lids than the boxes, therefore the risk of littering is reduced.
  • This will lead to fewer collection vehicles on the road, quicker, more efficient collections, and reduce carbon emissions by around 220,000kg of CO2.

Streetcare – We have increased our maintenance and cleansing teams to help maintain and improve the appearance of the borough, with key initiatives including:

  • Investing in fully electric street washing vehicles to provide enhanced cleaning of busy pedestrian areas in town centres, using high heat, low pressure water jets to clean streets and making them brighter and more attractive for residents and visitors.
  • The continued rollout of QR codes on litter bins, which direct residents to the Council’s website for details of when each bin is next due to be emptied, and to report issues, if necessary, to improve efficiency.
  • Improvements to the Council’s reporting app making it easier to navigate and report issues under appropriate categories and add detailed information about an issue, allowing the teams responsible to respond and resolve queries more efficiently.
  • Compactor litter bins installed in high-footfall areas such as Ellesmere Port, Frodsham and Malpas, which use solar energy to compress the waste, meaning five times more litter can be placed in them, reducing the number of collections required as well as the likelihood of overflowing bins.

Highways – The Council wants to ensure it provides an efficient Highways service for residents and maintains the quality of roads and pavements. For example, we are:

  • Redesigning our system for reporting highways issues and prioritising incidents from a safety-first perspective, to ensure that the most important issues are dealt with first.
  • Improving customer experiences, by making it simpler and easier to report highways and transport issues and managing expectations about what is possible and how quickly requests can be dealt with.
  • Improving the process for road repairs, so that issues are fixed the first time around, reducing the need for repeat repairs and disruption to journeys.

Transport – The Council wants to develop transport options across the borough, for example we are:

  • Using government funding to trial transport options to respond to demand in rural areas. We are trialling a new bus service provider in Frodsham who will plan services based on demand in the community, rather than a traditional timetable, to ensure the needs of the community are met. If successful we can then look to roll this out across other rural communities, to provide them with appropriate, accessible public transport options.
  • We have developed and implemented an Enhanced Partnership with our bus operators to allow us to work more closely with them to provide the bus service people want and will use in the borough.
  • We are improving and increasing the provision of infrastructure for cyclists as well as pedestrians to support all those who wish to walk and cycle more across the borough and make it safer and easier to travel actively.

Examples of improvements we are making to provide care and support for those most in need include:

Supporting children and young people – The Council wants to ensure children and young people are safe, feel included, listened to, and lead fulfilling lives. A number of key initiatives in place to help achieve this include:

  • The Holiday Activities and Food programme provides activities and food for young people during the Christmas, Easter and Summer holidays. It is aimed primarily for those on free school meals, but is also available to other vulnerable families. The programme was accessed by over 2,000 young people at Easter and 4,000 over the summer holidays.
  • The Journey First programme supports young people aged over 15 and adults into education, employment and training. The programme helps people to earn their own money and make their own choices, building confidence and improving wellbeing.
  • The Intervention Hub provides specially trained staff to support children and their families to achieve the best possible outcomes, with support focused around increasing the likelihood of children staying in or returning to their parents’ care, where outcomes are known to be better for children. Support includes help with everyday tasks such as reminders for appointments, accessing benefits, accessing mental health support, and using public transport, as well as improving communication skills, to encourage carers to share their difficulties, so that those close to them are able to help.
  • ‘Our Way of Working’ programme supports all agencies, services and schools who work with children and families to understand how trauma and adversity can impact children, parents, and carers from childhood through to adult life. The programme seeks to avoid re-traumatisation and enable children and adults to feel emotionally and psychologically safe, to support recovery from trauma and build resilience. Through this we are developing a trauma-informed partnership with a common and consistent way of meeting the needs of children and families to improve their outcomes.
  • The Council’s Corporate Parenting Strategy seeks to ensure that we are the ‘best corporate parent we can possibly be’ for those children, young people and young adults in our borough for whom we hold corporate parenting responsibilities. We take a collaborative approach to ensure that children and young people in our care have all their needs met to a high standard through our Children in Care and Care Leaver services. The Council also considers care experience as a protected characteristic, in line with those defined in the Equality Act 2010.
  • The Children in Care Council (CICC) is a group of young people cared for by the Council that enables young people to have a say about the things that really matter in their lives, to shape and influence the parenting they receive, and the Council’s strategy for cared for children and young people in the borough. The CICC has a dedicated website and runs monthly meetings to ensure that children and young people are at the heart of service delivery and that their voices are heard. For more information, please click here.

Supporting adults – The Council supports adults to live longer, healthier and happier lives, by providing good health and social care services and support within communities. Some examples of how the Council is doing this include:

  • Setting up of a number of ‘Let’s Talk’ drop-in sessions across the borough where people can speak to the Council, as well as representatives from housing associations, Brio Leisure and the Community and Voluntary Sector, about care and support. There are currently regular ‘Let’s Talk’ sessions in Ellesmere Port Market and Blacon and Lache community centres, and the Council is looking to establish further sites across the borough.
  • Changing the way we commission (or ‘buy in’) care and support services from the Community and Voluntary Sector, to increase the flexibility of how Council funding can be accessed and used. For example, by introducing grant funding opportunities to help address gaps in care and improve the timeliness of support provided.
  • Exploring how we can use specialist technology alongside more traditional care and support to enable greater levels of independence. In some cases it may also reduce the need for elements of traditional care.
  • Looking at our direct payments processes, to make it simpler and easier to access direct funding, which allows people who draw on care services and their carers to arrange care and support that is tailored to their needs.

Helping communities to come together

What participants said

Participants felt it was important for the Council to empower people to make a difference to their local area and community, by bringing residents and key partners together and supporting community projects and initiatives.

How the Council is responding

Examples of improvements we are making to bring together residents and key partners include:

Community engagement – Services including the Council’s Communities and Engagement team work closely with communities to bring local people and groups together to work on community projects. Examples of recent initiatives include:

  • Member budgets are available for Councillors to support local projects and events within their communities. They have supported Platinum Jubilee events, community arts projects, community Christmas events and young people’s wellbeing activity programmes. These initiatives are important to communities as they enable people to come together, connect and get involved in their local area. For more information, please click here.
  • During the pandemic the Council brought together a network of Community Champions to share information and advice and help keep communities safe. These champions continue to be used to share information with communities and we are working with the voluntary sector and health partners to promote this initiative and encourage more people to get involved. You can sign up to become a Community Champion here.
  • A programme of online engagement sessions (Connections) between Council services and Town and Parish Councils has been delivered in partnership with the Cheshire Association of Local Councils. In the last 12 months, ten sessions have been held on a variety of topics, such as the Warm Spaces initiative and Equality and Diversity, and the programme is recognised nationally as best practice enabling councils to work more closely together for communities.
  • Supporting community engagement activities for the development of a new play area at Marbury Country Park, Northwich, through a joint project between the Council and the Friends of Anderton and Marbury (FoAM). This has been followed by a brand-new changing facility, making the park much more accessible for whole families to come together.
  • Working with partners to bring communities together to celebrate their cultural heritage and promote cultural activity across the borough. This includes supporting Theatre Porto in Ellesmere Port, Winsford Creates in Winsford Town Centre, an independent music festival in Northwich, and NOW Northwich, as well as a programme that supports grass roots creative organisations across rural areas.

Examples of improvements we are making to support community projects and initiatives include:

Community funding – The Council is helping local groups get projects off the ground through a crowdfunding platform called Cheshire West Crowd, where the Council and local communities can contribute funding towards local projects. In the last 12 months, 55 projects have been supported, with recent examples including:

  • Hartford Pavilion (Northwich) – 41 contributors raised £73,190, to renovate an old football pavilion, which will be used as a fully accessible community workshop for local groups.
  • Tattenhall Repair Café – 40 contributors raised £2,915, to fund a monthly repair café, where volunteers will repair household equipment which would otherwise be landfilled.
  • Help Cheshire Reduce Food Waste – 24 people contributed £10,021, to help distribute surplus food to those in need in the local community, including purchasing a refrigerated container, to safely store food and feed more people for longer with less waste.

If you have an idea to launch a community project and would like to get involved, please click here for details.

Examples of improvements we are making to support minority communities across the borough, to ensure their voices are heard and their needs are addressed, include:

Minority communities – The Council continues to support minority communities across the borough to ensure their voices are heard and their needs are addressed. Just a small number of examples of how the Council has supported these communities include:

  • Supporting the LGBT+ community and its allies with holding successful Chester Pride events each year. Chester Pride celebrated its 10th anniversary this year and has proven to be increasingly popular year on year, with over 20,000 people attending in 2022.
  • Supporting people with physical and learning disabilities through programmes such as Bread Together and New Scene, which provide an environment for young people with disabilities across the borough to take part in activities, learn new skills and socialise.
  • The Disability Access Forum is a key partnership of disability organisations, charities and the Council, working together to promote accessibility and deliver improvements to the built environment, transport and communications across the borough for disabled residents and visitors.
  • The Council works in partnership with health and voluntary organisations, such as Cheshire, Halton and Warrington Race and Equality Centre (CHAWREC) to support refugees across the borough by providing a diverse range of services, including accommodation and wraparound support, such as English classes, hot meals, and increasing access to health checks and school places.
  • The Cheshire & Warrington Traveller Team deliver services for Gypsy and Traveller communities across the borough, including managing two sites for families wishing to have a permanent base, managing unauthorised encampments, and developing a temporary stopping place in Ellesmere Port. Help and support services for families are also provided by Irish Community Care, via a drop-in service once a week in Ellesmere Port and Winsford.

Working together with residents

What participants said

Participants felt it was important for the Council to be open with residents by keeping them well-informed, involving them and responding to their concerns, and feeding back honestly on decisions taken and the reasons for them.

How the Council is responding

Examples of improvements we are making to the experience of residents when they contact us include:

Customer experience – We are always looking to provide the best possible customer experience for our residents however they contact us, and are reviewing customer feedback on an ongoing basis, to make improvements to the quality and timeliness of our services. For example:

  • Over the past few months, the Council has been reviewing and making changes to customer services to make it easier for residents to access services whenever and however they chose to – whether that’s online, by telephone or in person. Accessing services online is still the fastest and most convenient way to interact with the Council, however, those residents who are unable to use this method can call the Contact Centre to deal with a range of issues. They can also ask the Contact Centre to book an appointment to see a Customer Service advisor, or drop-in to one of the Resident Assistance Points located in some Council buildings and libraries across the borough. Buildings are also equipped with technology to enable residents to access Council services and staff are also on hand to offer guidance and advice. Further information is available here.
  • We have launched a mystery shopping programme with more than 120 Citizens’ Panel members, to find out how well some of our key services respond when residents contact them by phone, email, face-to-face and online. The feedback gathered will be shared with lead officers from across the Council, to make improvements that would provide better services in the future.

Examples of improvements we are making to involve residents and feedback on decisions taken include:

Codesign and consultation – We work closely with our communities and others to understand residents’ views and ideas on a range of important issues, to help design and deliver services that meet the needs of local people. For example:

  • The Council has committed to developing a Council-wide approach to involvement over the coming year, which will be developed in consultation with local people and wider stakeholders.
  • We have made it easier for local people to have their say and influence decisions, by introducing a website called Participate Now where all Council consultations take place, as well as involving the Participate Panel, made up of around 1,300 residents reflective of the local population, in key consultation activities.
  • We also consider the residents’ lived experiences to help shape our policy decisions and services, whether that be older people, carers, people experiencing poverty or children in care. For example, the Poverty Truth Advisory Board, has been set up to give people with lived experience of poverty a voice and advise and support services across the Council and our partners. An Age-friendly Network is also being established for residents to work with the Council, the health sector and voluntary sectors, and local businesses, to help ensure people feel included, valued and respected into older age.
  • We have new feedback processes in place, to ensure the rationale for decisions is always clear, which involves sharing findings and explaining how decisions taken relate to what people have told us. We always listen to people’s views and try to accommodate them as far as possible, although it’s worth noting that people often have differing views, which can make it hard to accommodate everyone’s preferences. We also need to consider a range of factors when coming to a decision.

Examples of improvements we are making to keep residents well-informed include:

Communications – It is important to the Council to keep residents informed through effective communications. Some examples of the ways in which we are modernising and improving our communications with residents include:

  • Recently launching a new and improved Council website which is more engaging and easier to navigate. You can access the new website here.
  • Expanding our use of email newsletters to share service information and updates. You can sign up to receive the Council e-newsletter here.
  • Sharing real-life stories and case studies to promote the wide range of services the Council provides and using videos and images to bring those stories to life.
  • Expanding the use of town centre screens to share key messages with the public.

Our Place Discussion Group

Feedback on Key Messages

Introduction

In June 2022 four discussion groups were carried out with a sample of Participate Panel members who responded to the Autumn 2021 'Our Place' survey, to understand the key messages from the survey in more detail. The in-person and online discussions focused on what makes a local area a good place to live, what creates a good sense of community and what is most important to do well to be a good council.

The findings report from the discussion groups is available to read here. Below is a summary of the key cross-cutting messages from the discussion groups:

Getting the basics right

For some residents this meant providing key universal services such as waste, highways, transport and street cleaning, whereas for others this meant protecting statutory services that support the people most in need in our borough.

Facilitating communities coming together

Many people felt it was important for the Council to empower people to make a difference to their local area and community, by bringing residents and key partners together and supporting community projects and initiatives.

Working together with residents

It was important to many people for the Council to be open with residents by keeping them well-informed, involving them and responding to their concerns, and feeding back honestly on decisions and the reasons for them.

The discussion group findings have been widely shared within the Council and are now being used to inform plans for services and enhance our communications with residents. This feedback outlines how the Council is responding to the key messages. The 'Our Place' survey and discussion group feedback will be invaluable now and, in the future, to help improve the local area and ensure services meet residents’ needs.


Getting the basics right

What participants said

Participants felt that getting the basics right is of upmost importance. For some, this meant providing key universal services such as waste, highways, transport and street cleaning, for others this meant protecting statutory services that support people most in need in our borough.

How the Council is responding

The Council strives to deliver high-quality universal services such as waste, highways, transport and street cleaning within the funding it has available. Often Council resources are constrained for these services due to our responsibilities to provide care for vulnerable adults and children, nevertheless we constantly look for opportunities to improve all services.

Examples of improvements we are making to get key universal services right include:

Waste – The borough’s new kerbside recycling and waste collection service, which has been rolled out to properties that can accommodate the containers brings a number of benefits:

  • The new larger recycling bins hold more recycling, so facilitate the ability to recycle more, need to be emptied less often, and can be sorted on the roadside. The bins also have better, more effective lids than the boxes, therefore the risk of littering is reduced.
  • This will lead to fewer collection vehicles on the road, quicker, more efficient collections, and reduce carbon emissions by around 220,000kg of CO2.

Streetcare – We have increased our maintenance and cleansing teams to help maintain and improve the appearance of the borough, with key initiatives including:

  • Investing in fully electric street washing vehicles to provide enhanced cleaning of busy pedestrian areas in town centres, using high heat, low pressure water jets to clean streets and making them brighter and more attractive for residents and visitors.
  • The continued rollout of QR codes on litter bins, which direct residents to the Council’s website for details of when each bin is next due to be emptied, and to report issues, if necessary, to improve efficiency.
  • Improvements to the Council’s reporting app making it easier to navigate and report issues under appropriate categories and add detailed information about an issue, allowing the teams responsible to respond and resolve queries more efficiently.
  • Compactor litter bins installed in high-footfall areas such as Ellesmere Port, Frodsham and Malpas, which use solar energy to compress the waste, meaning five times more litter can be placed in them, reducing the number of collections required as well as the likelihood of overflowing bins.

Highways – The Council wants to ensure it provides an efficient Highways service for residents and maintains the quality of roads and pavements. For example, we are:

  • Redesigning our system for reporting highways issues and prioritising incidents from a safety-first perspective, to ensure that the most important issues are dealt with first.
  • Improving customer experiences, by making it simpler and easier to report highways and transport issues and managing expectations about what is possible and how quickly requests can be dealt with.
  • Improving the process for road repairs, so that issues are fixed the first time around, reducing the need for repeat repairs and disruption to journeys.

Transport – The Council wants to develop transport options across the borough, for example we are:

  • Using government funding to trial transport options to respond to demand in rural areas. We are trialling a new bus service provider in Frodsham who will plan services based on demand in the community, rather than a traditional timetable, to ensure the needs of the community are met. If successful we can then look to roll this out across other rural communities, to provide them with appropriate, accessible public transport options.
  • We have developed and implemented an Enhanced Partnership with our bus operators to allow us to work more closely with them to provide the bus service people want and will use in the borough.
  • We are improving and increasing the provision of infrastructure for cyclists as well as pedestrians to support all those who wish to walk and cycle more across the borough and make it safer and easier to travel actively.

Examples of improvements we are making to provide care and support for those most in need include:

Supporting children and young people – The Council wants to ensure children and young people are safe, feel included, listened to, and lead fulfilling lives. A number of key initiatives in place to help achieve this include:

  • The Holiday Activities and Food programme provides activities and food for young people during the Christmas, Easter and Summer holidays. It is aimed primarily for those on free school meals, but is also available to other vulnerable families. The programme was accessed by over 2,000 young people at Easter and 4,000 over the summer holidays.
  • The Journey First programme supports young people aged over 15 and adults into education, employment and training. The programme helps people to earn their own money and make their own choices, building confidence and improving wellbeing.
  • The Intervention Hub provides specially trained staff to support children and their families to achieve the best possible outcomes, with support focused around increasing the likelihood of children staying in or returning to their parents’ care, where outcomes are known to be better for children. Support includes help with everyday tasks such as reminders for appointments, accessing benefits, accessing mental health support, and using public transport, as well as improving communication skills, to encourage carers to share their difficulties, so that those close to them are able to help.
  • ‘Our Way of Working’ programme supports all agencies, services and schools who work with children and families to understand how trauma and adversity can impact children, parents, and carers from childhood through to adult life. The programme seeks to avoid re-traumatisation and enable children and adults to feel emotionally and psychologically safe, to support recovery from trauma and build resilience. Through this we are developing a trauma-informed partnership with a common and consistent way of meeting the needs of children and families to improve their outcomes.
  • The Council’s Corporate Parenting Strategy seeks to ensure that we are the ‘best corporate parent we can possibly be’ for those children, young people and young adults in our borough for whom we hold corporate parenting responsibilities. We take a collaborative approach to ensure that children and young people in our care have all their needs met to a high standard through our Children in Care and Care Leaver services. The Council also considers care experience as a protected characteristic, in line with those defined in the Equality Act 2010.
  • The Children in Care Council (CICC) is a group of young people cared for by the Council that enables young people to have a say about the things that really matter in their lives, to shape and influence the parenting they receive, and the Council’s strategy for cared for children and young people in the borough. The CICC has a dedicated website and runs monthly meetings to ensure that children and young people are at the heart of service delivery and that their voices are heard. For more information, please click here.

Supporting adults – The Council supports adults to live longer, healthier and happier lives, by providing good health and social care services and support within communities. Some examples of how the Council is doing this include:

  • Setting up of a number of ‘Let’s Talk’ drop-in sessions across the borough where people can speak to the Council, as well as representatives from housing associations, Brio Leisure and the Community and Voluntary Sector, about care and support. There are currently regular ‘Let’s Talk’ sessions in Ellesmere Port Market and Blacon and Lache community centres, and the Council is looking to establish further sites across the borough.
  • Changing the way we commission (or ‘buy in’) care and support services from the Community and Voluntary Sector, to increase the flexibility of how Council funding can be accessed and used. For example, by introducing grant funding opportunities to help address gaps in care and improve the timeliness of support provided.
  • Exploring how we can use specialist technology alongside more traditional care and support to enable greater levels of independence. In some cases it may also reduce the need for elements of traditional care.
  • Looking at our direct payments processes, to make it simpler and easier to access direct funding, which allows people who draw on care services and their carers to arrange care and support that is tailored to their needs.

Helping communities to come together

What participants said

Participants felt it was important for the Council to empower people to make a difference to their local area and community, by bringing residents and key partners together and supporting community projects and initiatives.

How the Council is responding

Examples of improvements we are making to bring together residents and key partners include:

Community engagement – Services including the Council’s Communities and Engagement team work closely with communities to bring local people and groups together to work on community projects. Examples of recent initiatives include:

  • Member budgets are available for Councillors to support local projects and events within their communities. They have supported Platinum Jubilee events, community arts projects, community Christmas events and young people’s wellbeing activity programmes. These initiatives are important to communities as they enable people to come together, connect and get involved in their local area. For more information, please click here.
  • During the pandemic the Council brought together a network of Community Champions to share information and advice and help keep communities safe. These champions continue to be used to share information with communities and we are working with the voluntary sector and health partners to promote this initiative and encourage more people to get involved. You can sign up to become a Community Champion here.
  • A programme of online engagement sessions (Connections) between Council services and Town and Parish Councils has been delivered in partnership with the Cheshire Association of Local Councils. In the last 12 months, ten sessions have been held on a variety of topics, such as the Warm Spaces initiative and Equality and Diversity, and the programme is recognised nationally as best practice enabling councils to work more closely together for communities.
  • Supporting community engagement activities for the development of a new play area at Marbury Country Park, Northwich, through a joint project between the Council and the Friends of Anderton and Marbury (FoAM). This has been followed by a brand-new changing facility, making the park much more accessible for whole families to come together.
  • Working with partners to bring communities together to celebrate their cultural heritage and promote cultural activity across the borough. This includes supporting Theatre Porto in Ellesmere Port, Winsford Creates in Winsford Town Centre, an independent music festival in Northwich, and NOW Northwich, as well as a programme that supports grass roots creative organisations across rural areas.

Examples of improvements we are making to support community projects and initiatives include:

Community funding – The Council is helping local groups get projects off the ground through a crowdfunding platform called Cheshire West Crowd, where the Council and local communities can contribute funding towards local projects. In the last 12 months, 55 projects have been supported, with recent examples including:

  • Hartford Pavilion (Northwich) – 41 contributors raised £73,190, to renovate an old football pavilion, which will be used as a fully accessible community workshop for local groups.
  • Tattenhall Repair Café – 40 contributors raised £2,915, to fund a monthly repair café, where volunteers will repair household equipment which would otherwise be landfilled.
  • Help Cheshire Reduce Food Waste – 24 people contributed £10,021, to help distribute surplus food to those in need in the local community, including purchasing a refrigerated container, to safely store food and feed more people for longer with less waste.

If you have an idea to launch a community project and would like to get involved, please click here for details.

Examples of improvements we are making to support minority communities across the borough, to ensure their voices are heard and their needs are addressed, include:

Minority communities – The Council continues to support minority communities across the borough to ensure their voices are heard and their needs are addressed. Just a small number of examples of how the Council has supported these communities include:

  • Supporting the LGBT+ community and its allies with holding successful Chester Pride events each year. Chester Pride celebrated its 10th anniversary this year and has proven to be increasingly popular year on year, with over 20,000 people attending in 2022.
  • Supporting people with physical and learning disabilities through programmes such as Bread Together and New Scene, which provide an environment for young people with disabilities across the borough to take part in activities, learn new skills and socialise.
  • The Disability Access Forum is a key partnership of disability organisations, charities and the Council, working together to promote accessibility and deliver improvements to the built environment, transport and communications across the borough for disabled residents and visitors.
  • The Council works in partnership with health and voluntary organisations, such as Cheshire, Halton and Warrington Race and Equality Centre (CHAWREC) to support refugees across the borough by providing a diverse range of services, including accommodation and wraparound support, such as English classes, hot meals, and increasing access to health checks and school places.
  • The Cheshire & Warrington Traveller Team deliver services for Gypsy and Traveller communities across the borough, including managing two sites for families wishing to have a permanent base, managing unauthorised encampments, and developing a temporary stopping place in Ellesmere Port. Help and support services for families are also provided by Irish Community Care, via a drop-in service once a week in Ellesmere Port and Winsford.

Working together with residents

What participants said

Participants felt it was important for the Council to be open with residents by keeping them well-informed, involving them and responding to their concerns, and feeding back honestly on decisions taken and the reasons for them.

How the Council is responding

Examples of improvements we are making to the experience of residents when they contact us include:

Customer experience – We are always looking to provide the best possible customer experience for our residents however they contact us, and are reviewing customer feedback on an ongoing basis, to make improvements to the quality and timeliness of our services. For example:

  • Over the past few months, the Council has been reviewing and making changes to customer services to make it easier for residents to access services whenever and however they chose to – whether that’s online, by telephone or in person. Accessing services online is still the fastest and most convenient way to interact with the Council, however, those residents who are unable to use this method can call the Contact Centre to deal with a range of issues. They can also ask the Contact Centre to book an appointment to see a Customer Service advisor, or drop-in to one of the Resident Assistance Points located in some Council buildings and libraries across the borough. Buildings are also equipped with technology to enable residents to access Council services and staff are also on hand to offer guidance and advice. Further information is available here.
  • We have launched a mystery shopping programme with more than 120 Citizens’ Panel members, to find out how well some of our key services respond when residents contact them by phone, email, face-to-face and online. The feedback gathered will be shared with lead officers from across the Council, to make improvements that would provide better services in the future.

Examples of improvements we are making to involve residents and feedback on decisions taken include:

Codesign and consultation – We work closely with our communities and others to understand residents’ views and ideas on a range of important issues, to help design and deliver services that meet the needs of local people. For example:

  • The Council has committed to developing a Council-wide approach to involvement over the coming year, which will be developed in consultation with local people and wider stakeholders.
  • We have made it easier for local people to have their say and influence decisions, by introducing a website called Participate Now where all Council consultations take place, as well as involving the Participate Panel, made up of around 1,300 residents reflective of the local population, in key consultation activities.
  • We also consider the residents’ lived experiences to help shape our policy decisions and services, whether that be older people, carers, people experiencing poverty or children in care. For example, the Poverty Truth Advisory Board, has been set up to give people with lived experience of poverty a voice and advise and support services across the Council and our partners. An Age-friendly Network is also being established for residents to work with the Council, the health sector and voluntary sectors, and local businesses, to help ensure people feel included, valued and respected into older age.
  • We have new feedback processes in place, to ensure the rationale for decisions is always clear, which involves sharing findings and explaining how decisions taken relate to what people have told us. We always listen to people’s views and try to accommodate them as far as possible, although it’s worth noting that people often have differing views, which can make it hard to accommodate everyone’s preferences. We also need to consider a range of factors when coming to a decision.

Examples of improvements we are making to keep residents well-informed include:

Communications – It is important to the Council to keep residents informed through effective communications. Some examples of the ways in which we are modernising and improving our communications with residents include:

  • Recently launching a new and improved Council website which is more engaging and easier to navigate. You can access the new website here.
  • Expanding our use of email newsletters to share service information and updates. You can sign up to receive the Council e-newsletter here.
  • Sharing real-life stories and case studies to promote the wide range of services the Council provides and using videos and images to bring those stories to life.
  • Expanding the use of town centre screens to share key messages with the public.