Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Chiswick Library to be rebuilt? | |
Posted by: | Malcolm Peltu | |
Date/Time: | 09/05/08 10:41:00 |
Thanks Peter. I am pleased to hear the proposals will be open to public consultation and look forward to learning more about them and the extent to which any final decisions have been taken and what aspects could be modified if they improve the service to users. I hope you and other councillors take as a lesson from this thread that this Forum can be useful way of communicating with your constituents. 'Consultation' should include providing timely information and responses in places that engage with the public, including seeking advice on what criteria should be included in negotiations that might have to happen behind closed doors. This topic has been raised before without response from Councillors and your posts don't seem to contain anything that couldn't have been said before, including at the time this process began. From Richard Jennings: 'are you seriously suggesting that the choice of a contractor is a matter on which residents should be directly consulted? Of course deals are being done behind closed doors. You can't carry out complex commercial negotiations any other way.' As indicated above, I believe public consultation involves much more than contractor negotiation process and it is possible to have both public consultation and formal tendering processes that protect commercial confidentiality, etc. For example, I understand it is now a requirement to consult users of an NHS service before significant changes in the provision are made, although there are subsequently formal tendering processes for the choice of contractor. Peter indicates that such consultation isn't included in the EU tendering process for the library, although I'm not sure that this formally excluded consultation. Whether or not the consultation on the previous library proposal scuppered a desirable option with the Barley Mow is not a reason to bypass consultation Democracy sometimes comes up with the wrong answers - but so does behind locked doors negotiations. |