Establish Clear Follow-Up Guidelines and Expectations for Commenters and Planning Authorities

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Issue Overview

We have received feedback during research indicating that councils often do not follow up on user comments and queries. This poses challenges for community engagement and undermines trust. This issue aims to document research needed to establish what can be reasonably expected from councils in terms of responsiveness and to provide guidelines for both the commenters and the councils in boilerplate text we include around the commenting process to the commenter and the planning authority.

To-Do

What can people reasonably expect - Research Needed

• Document best practices on participatory processes.
• List legal requirements for councils to respond.
• Provide an overview of current practices applicable to all planning authorities.
• Assess current public expectations about council responsiveness.

Boilerplate for the Commenter

• Detail what happens to their comment after submission.
• Provide guidelines on how to follow up with the council.

Boilerplate for the Council

• Indicate that Planning Alerts has outlined the process for comment handling.
• List expectations that commenters have from the council.

Follow-up Mechanism Consider sending an email to the commenter sometime after their comment (like with Right to Know following up on status requests), asking for feedback on whether their comment was acknowledged, or other steps in participation that we note as a status, including if the process (not the outcome) was satisfactory.

Notes

For the follow-up mechanism, we need to be cautious as many people who have interacted with councils are weary and may have lost faith in the system. The follow-up needs to be respectful of this sentiment. We might also want to better understand what's not included in the DA consideration and any feedback on concerns people or planning authority staff have with regard to a mismatch on those expectations in their desire to give and receive input when it's useful on both sides. (That might well be an interesting problem of asynchronous needs that we could be well placed to connect up). Anyhoo.... practical first steps:

Boilerplate Texts

For the Commenter

Thank you for your comment. Here's what you can expect next:

1. Your comment will be reviewed and categorized.
2. It will be sent to the relevant council division for action or response.
3. You should receive an acknowledgment within [timeframe].

Follow-Up Guidelines

• If no acknowledgment is received within the specified timeframe, consider contacting the council via [contact details].
• For unresolved issues, here's how you can escalate [escalation process].

For the Planning Authority

Dear [Planning Authority],

A comment has been submitted via Planning Alerts. Here are the expectations:

1. Please review and categorize the comment.
2. Forward it to the appropriate division for action or response.
3. Acknowledge the receipt of the comment within [timeframe].

Please ensure you meet these expectations to maintain public trust and engagement.

Additional Thoughts

For the follow-up mechanism, a brief and sensitive survey could be useful. However, the design needs to be considerate of those who may be reluctant to re-engage due to past experiences. Also thinking that the status updates are not reliably completed in the equivalent process on Right to Know. What would make this a compelling and satisfying step for the commenter?