Agenda Reports Pack (Public) 15/10/2012, 19.00 - Meetings ...

The Council’s own intranet was used to advertise the process tocouncil officers. Letters were sent to national housing bodies –Chartered Institute of Housing, Shelter, Crisis, National HousingFederation – and also London Councils. The documents were also thesubject of media attention in the national, regional and trade press.3.4 The consultation period was initially publicised as being from 22 May2012 to 18 July 2012, following approval by Cabinet of the documentson 21 May 2012. However, the process could not fully begin until afterthe ‘call-in’ period had expired. Letters and other email correspondencedid not begin being sent out until after the call-in date of 30 May 2012.To compensate for this, the consultation deadline was extended 25July 2012 to interested parties to ensure there was reasonable time forresponses.3.5 In total, there were a maximum of 114 respondents to the short onlinesurvey (see below). Some respondents did not answer certainquestions, meaning the number of responses varied according toquestion. Using the Council’s Citizenspace web-based consultationapplication, an eleven question online ‘short’ survey was prepared tocover key issues raised in each of the housing strategy documents.More detailed online surveys (which for consistency included thequestions in the short survey) were created for each of the fourdocuments. Set out below are summary comments on the keyquestions in the housing documents. The survey report is attached asAnnex F to the Cabinet Report. The more in-depth survey will be madeavailable and will help inform the policies and procedures processreferenced later on in this report.What did online respondents say?3.6 Focusing on the responses to the short online consultation survey, theresponses ranged from strongly agree; agree; neither agree, nordisagree; disagree; strongly disagree. Where respondents neitheragreed nor disagreed, their percentage response has been removed,hence the responses do not add up to 100%). On the issue of the threehousing strategy themes (identified in section 2.1), there was supportfor the approach being adopted:- Deliver economic and housing growth – 65% agreeingcompared to 18% disagreeing- Tackle economic and social polarisation – 55% agreeingcompared to 20% disagreeing- Manage a better, streamlined service – 59% agreeingcompared to 22% disagreeing• On the housing allocation scheme, there was strong agreement –80% - for the council’s proposals to verify needs at the point ofapplication, compared to 13% who disagreed. On stoppingPage 344