I spent last Saturday morning in a draughty school hall in Whitechapel for a meeting on crime and anti-social behavior. The 3 hour meeting was a chance for the council, the police and the local anti-social behavior unit (ASBU) to inform and consult the local community. A chance to make local residents aware of the services available to them and to understand what they perceive to be the issues around crime and anti-social behavior.

Ignoring the not insignificant problems with crime in this area (burnt-out homes, racial abuse, graffiti - the 'youth' are responsible for all of it), the 'consultation' itself was shocking. Although the meeting was pitched as 'the communities' chance to tell us what we should spend on to improve the crime situation', it quickly became an aggressive exchange between embittered local residents, the council and police bodies.

The residents felt they hadn't been listened to in the last seven years - why should they be listened to now. The ASBU defended everything they weren't doing and the local councilors were only concerned in promoting the things they personally had achieved in the last years. All thoroughly unconstructive.

The meeting was 'facilitated' by an independent agency, but it seemed facilitation was more about ordering the food and the video projector than creating the right context for constructive exchange. The key skills of the faciliator himself were to be the biggest person in the room with the loudest voice.

There must be an opportunity to improve this kind of consultation event. This is the only one I've ever been to but I suspect that it is not an isolated example of bad practice. The councils already have a rhetoric of listening to residents - but not one of understanding them. I also suspect that they don't have any experience of how events could be better than this, or how much value they could actually get out of them.

The methods and techniques designers use to create the right conditions for a productive workshop and a basic understanding of user research could go a long way of improving these event for all involved. Councils could be helped to ask better questions and get more value from the answers, they also need help in communicating what they have achieved. It's not that LAP3 hadn't done anything - they just hadn't told anyone about it.

CATEGORY: PUBLIC SERVICES