Stage 1 - introductory session
First stage will focus on orientating the assembly members and introducing them to the local context, and council proposals.
This will include 2 council representatives introducing the local context and the context of local transport.
We will also have discussions with assembly members and get a sense of their initial reactions and what’s important to them.
Stage 2 - learning phase
Stage 2 will focus on learning about climate change and sustainable transport.
There are 4 5-minute slots for climate change and 4 5-minute slots for sustainable transport. This will be a mixture of presentation and break-out table discussions.
Stage 3 - deliberation and decision making
Stage 3 will focus on:
- discussing and deliberating about what should happen
- what are the priorities
- what the assembly members want the council to do
There will be presentations on behaviour change and on futures thinking. The focus in this stage is deliberation and recommendation forming.
Board feedback - assembly content
There should be greater focus on transport related issues and less on climate change.
Mixed views on whether 5-minute presentations might be too short. Particularly when the subject matter might be quite theoretical and complex.
Suggestions that there should be more presentations on transport (which contains many topics).
Emphasis that expert presentations should be accessible to participants and the public.
Agreement that the expert speakers list is currently too local council/academic focussed and that it would be beneficial to have more independent experts (think tanks/professional body experts/people with lived experience) to help frame the conversation.
Emphasis upon the importance of ensuring that people with disabilities are actively engaged, not just being told how changes to the transport system might affect them.
Suggestions that there is too much focus on futures and technology.
Board feedback - structure
Suggestion to reduce the amount of time currently scheduled for reporting back in plenary to ensure that the assembly is engaging.
General agreement that the orientation and introduction session is too long. Suggestion that this time could be more effectively used for engagement/learning and discussion.
Suggestion to begin by asking participants what they would like from a carbon neutral transport system and what that means for them personally to help to engage them from the start.
Board feedback - general observations, feedback and questions
One meeting is currently scheduled on bonfire night and this may affect turnout.
Query about whether advisory board members can observe sessions/presentations.
Paul’s response to questions
Plenary feedback
Will be kept to minimum. The approach is to clearly structure the breakout discussions so that the facilitators know exactly what to work towards and can provide a neat summary – it will be rapid, top level thoughts. The value is in breakout discussions and presentations.
Length of presentations
Anything over 10 minutes is too long, somewhere between 5 and 10 mins is right depending on the content.
Ideally, they will be pre-recorded which will allow us to keep to time and monitor quality. It will also reduce the impact of technical difficulties.
However, we will need to see what our presenters are comfortable with.
Balance of content
The subject matter is broad and focussing on the right things will be challenging. We are interested in hearing from advisory board members about what the ‘right’ balance looks like.
For example, do we change the balance – bring transport forward or do we put a bit of climate and transport in each session?
The real challenge is how we choose the focus, determine the parameters of the transport discussion and make sure it’s digestible for the audience.
Advisory board observation
The expert presentations will be made publicly available. While there is the option for observers to join us throughout the discussion, it will need to be carefully managed: capacity issues and how many observers we have but there’s scope for board members/non-assembly members to observe.
We’ll need to assess level of interest – 50 people quickly becomes 75 people in a room with staff, note-takers and so on. We don’t want to outnumber the participants.