Electronic Consultation

What is Electronic Consultation?

Electronic consultation, or e-consultation, includes a wide variety of methods of consultation, which all provide technological alternatives to the more traditional techniques. Although a lot of these methods utilise the Internet, e-consultation also includes methodologies that use mobile phone technology and other multimedia equipment. Examples of e-consultation the Council hopes to implement include:

Online Surveys Online surveys can be completed on the Internet, using an online form. The information you submit can then be automatically included in a database of results.
Straw Polls Online polls are usually quick and easy questions which ease people into expressing their opinions.
Question and Answer Pages Often referred to as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) pages, question and answer pages are webpages which display questions submitted to an officer by email with a published response.
Facility to Comment on Documents This is a facility for members of the public to comment on consultation documents and reports. This can take the form of a simple email facility directed to the author of the consultation document or something a little more sophisticated like an online form.
Live Chat Events - Chatrooms offer a fast line of communication between officers and multiple members of the public and the opportunity for question and answer sessions.
Instant Messaging and Net Meetings Instant messaging requires you to download some extra software like, msn or yahoo messenger, but once you have done this you can see whenever an officer is online and send them a message. Private meetings can also be set up in this way as an alternative to a Live Chat Event. Webcam and microphone technology can also be employed so you can see and hear the other people involved in the meeting.
SMS Technology SMS (Short Message Service), more commonly referred to as texting or text messaging, is a system of sending messages of up to 160 characters using mobile phone technology. This technology can be utilised to facilitate straw polls and ballots, or can be an alternative to sending your opinions using e-mail. More recently MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is being introduced to supersede the SMS technology. With the added potential to send pictures and sound files to or from your mobile phone, expect to see consultations incorporating MMS technology soon.
WAP Technology WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is a similar technology to the Internet that is designed specifically to be viewed on mobile phones. This gives us the potential to duplicate anything that we do on the Internet on the WAP as well; giving you mobile access to all our consultation opportunities.
Multimedia Events - Multimedia events can include events such as a press conference or meeting aired over the Internet (they are often referred to as ‘Web Casts’).
Infra-Red Voting Handsets During a public meeting or consultation event, infra-red handsets can be used so that the delegates can vote on issues that arise during the event. The results of this vote can then be instantly seen on an over head projector (this is the same technology that can be seen in use on TV programmes such as ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’).
Mailing Lists You can ask to be added to a mailing list about a certain subject or issue that concerns you. Mailing lists have been used in the past, but now we can incorporate e-technology to e-mail you any relevant information about the subject.

What does Electronic Consultation achieve?

E-Consultation methods have the potential to achieve the same results as traditional consultation techniques, but with the use of less resources and time spent by both the facilitators and the users. Printing costs, like paper and ink, and the cost of mailing questionnaires out to thousands of people are all saved. Also, after the original set up of the various systems, administering the consultation is cut down to a minimum, as software is available to collate the results into usable information for us. Time is saved as we can receive results and feedback instantly, and consultation is made easier and more accessible for you as you can attend forums and meetings from the comfort of your own home.

Utilising new technologies like mobile phones helps us to tap into the young people in the County, a group which are often hard to reach when consulting, this will increase their input into how their Council is run and give them a chance to have more of a say.

All of these advantages leave both Council officers and the public free to spend more time on implementing the findings from the consultation and developing our services for the better.

When will we use Electronic Consultation?

For most traditional forms of consultation there is a method of e-consultation that could be used as an alternative, but we are a long way off becoming a completely paperless society. To ensure that as many people as possible are included in consultations, traditional forms of consultation will still be the preferred method for the time being, with e-consultation being used to supplement and support the primary consultation technique. E-consultation will be used increasingly, however, when we are:

targeting younger people for a consultation
targeting the housebound for a large consultation
time does not allow for traditional forms of consultation

Electronic Consultation

further information