A concordat for communication and consultation with Members

The do's and don'ts list below picks up on many of the comments received:

Do

There are a number of ways comments should be communicated, including: 

• ensure that the principles of the concordat are embedded within your service, at all levels
• clearly indicate if information provided requires a response or action from the Member
• ensure members have sufficient time to consider matters. Members should receive papers 5 working days before a Council meetings and officers should try, as far as practicable, to give this as a minimum amount of time for members to respond to and consider the information
• note that official letters on behalf of the Council should normally be sent out under the name of the appropriate Officer, rather than under the name of a Member
• note that correspondence between Officers and Members of Parliament should be copied to the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council
• keep members informed of any staffing changes or office moves
• keep ward members informed of incidents or issues within or affecting their ward. This may include signposting to crime data and anti-social behaviour, briefings before press releases are issued
• provide a summary, so that Members can decide quickly, whether all the information will be of use
• include details of consultations with members in Cabinet , Committee 
• ensure all officer delegated decision in consultation and significant officer decisions are published immediately on ModernGov
• inform democratic services of any key decisions taken by officers, so that members can be notified properly
• when contacting a Member by telephone leave a message on the answer service

When communicating via email:

• obtain confirmation of receipt of all important emails that you send
• take care not to amend any messages received
• do not send or forward email messages or documents which are, or may be construed as harassment or bullying, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit
• do not send or forward email messages or documents which divulge information concerning another person's private affairs without their explicit consent
• do not send or forward email messages or documents which would be in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 or any other legislation restricting or controlling the disclosure of information
• add appropriate disclaimers to your emails
• avoid using mass emailing facilities, and send emails only to those who need them
• do not send emails without a title
• do not write in capitals
• try not to use abbreviations, as the recipient might not be aware of their meaning
• use the Distribution Lists 'DL' ,on Outlook, for All Members and Committees
• consider the format of information and ensure the font is readable, also, remember that most members do not have ready access to colour printers
• do not send large documents to members' inboxes, for example, those with excessive memory

Don't 

There are a number of ways comments should not be communicated in, including: 

• send hard copies of documents to members through the post via Royal Mail, unless urgent, as this is expensive. The Council has a courier service, managed by Resources, general office which can arrange delivery of such documents
• send information with technical language or acronyms without explanation
• correspondence between an individual Member and an Officer should not normally be copied (by the Officer) to any other Member unless a prior protocol to that effect has been agreed
• routinely duplicate the same, or similar information, in lots of different publication.
• as far as practicable, and subject to any time restrictions, send information or request a response from members 'last minute'