Consultation Summary
This summary provides some key headline themes and messages emerging from a
sample of the responses to the Commission's consultation, 'Your
chance to tell us what you think', published in November 2006.
Our approach
We are interested in what integration and cohesion mean to you in practice.
When we opened the consultation process, we asked you for information on
your ideas and experiences, to inform our work up to our full report in
June 2007.
We wanted to know what you think are the key issues for integration and
cohesion; and we asked you what needs to be done at local level to address
tensions. It was 'your chance to tell us what you think', and to
highlight what practical steps you think we need to take, to make our
communities more cohesive and integrated places to live.
Learning from you
We wanted very much to learn from you, so we called for views and
suggestions from people around the country: national organisations, local
organisations and groups, and individuals. The consultation paper
[external website] asked seven key questions for national bodies,
local organisations and individuals. We also invited you to offer any
supporting information or practical examples that you wanted to share with
us.
The consultation process is just one element of our work. The Commission
also has a programme of:
-
Visits to local projects: Commissioners have visited
projects to see what brings communities together, and cohesion in action.
We have seen projects that have helped new communities to settle and make
a valuable contribution to wider society; and seen how communities
mediate and resolve tensions across different groups.
-
Wider research and fact finding: the Commission is
undertaking its own research and is reviewing information and evidence
from various sources. Some of these are 'think piece' by
specialists, and others are presentations.
-
Commissioner meetings: throughout the life of the
Commission, we will be holding monthly meetings to discuss work in
progress, and key themes. To date the Commissioners have met in the North
East, the Midlands and in London.
What we have done
The Commissioners' engagement process is still on-going, and
we have received over 600 responses from consultations and evidence from
individuals, groups and organisations. We have logged these and are now
processing and analysing them. You can see a list of the responses received
to date below.
At this stage, we are able to share some of the headline messages from the
consultation and outreach engagement activities. These are organised in an
easy-to-see guide by sector. Later on, when we have processed all of the
responses, we will provide further updates, together with making a
selection of consultation responses available on the website.
Access
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