Kris Witherington, Engagement and Consultation Manager

Kris Witherington, Engagement and Consultation Manager at Merton Council, gave a presentation on proposals to improve resident engagement across Merton.

Kris said that the changes were focused on the work of the corporate engagement team rather than work done by many services with specific audiences and service users. The team had learnt a lot from changing approaches during COVID and from the feedback from residents on the Community Forums in 2022. They had identified three areas where improvements needed to be made and how this would be resourced through increased capacity.

The first area was face-to-face engagement, including the Community Forums. Kris said the current approach was not working as well as it should be, and instead the plan is to hold two events in each area per year. One would be a large-scale question-time event involving local services leaders, including the Leader of the Council, and the second would be more of a workshop format for residents to work together rather than a presentation and question approach. The Engagement team would also support local arrangements, working with local groups and councillors ensuring that solutions are right for each area rather than a one-size fits all approach.

The second area to improve is engagement with Civic Society, meaning resident groups, both formal organisations and informal arrangements like WhatsApp groups. The Engagement will look to map what work is taking place, offer a point of contact, provide an e-newsletter and host and annual event that brings these groups together.

The third area was the way residents can engage with the council digitally. Currently the Council has an online consultation hub and design tool for online survey but there are new tools available like mapping, discussion boards and an online resident’s panel.

These changes will be delivered by recruiting a new Events Officer post to manage the meetings, a Community Development Officer to work with the Civic Society and an Engagement Officer to work on digital engagement and support departmental consultations.

Cllr Stringer said that the administration wants to massively increase the ways we can hear from residents. In Raynes Park residents are welcome to continue with the current format for the forum but in other areas we will have more flexibility.

A resident asked how the selection for a Residents Panel would be representative. Kris explained that we can use address files to send out random invitations and can skew the numbers in different areas where the response rate is likely to be lower. The responses will then show how representative the Panel is demographically and if needed weighting can also be applied.

Tony Edwards asked about consulting businesses and Cllr Stringer said this was a fair challenge and an area where the Council could do more. The Council is working with Merton Chamber of Commerce to support engagement and is recruiting a town centre manager for Mitcham where the engagement is much lower than in Wimbledon and Raynes Park. Business groups can also be captured as part of the community group mapping. Cllr Stringer also said the Council will be investing in supporting culture on the high streets.

Chris Larkman said the benefit of the Forum was that it could focus on the town centre and this benefit should continue in some format but recognised that attendance was lower since COVID. Chris Edge asked that attendees could speak with their resident association and discuss whether they would like to keep the current format and what frequency they would like to see and report back to the RPA. Most attendees agreed they would like to keep the current format going and have at least two meetings a year in addition to Council events. 

Tony said that he was concerned that with larger scale meetings a few voices could dominate but Kris said there are ways to manage the meeting to mitigate that risk.

A resident asked about promoting the Forum to new people, and Chris Edge said that resident associations play a key role in sharing the information, not just sending representatives.

Cllr Flack said that Raynes Park generally has a higher level of engagement and should be able to experiment and find a solution that is right for the local community.