Local Authority "Consultation Booklet"

I think you are absolutely right! Deciding what form to put the questions in so often results in the answer they want. Not often you are given the choice of 'no change'.

I think you have every reason to be cynical. I was an associate member of the Market Research Society for many years and specialised in questionnaire design. Organisations that want convenient answers will design their questionnaire to get the answers they want. I hasten to add the MRS always deplored such questionnaires and an MRS member would certainly never set their hand to one, it breached the Society's ethics

I normally do not respond to badly designed questionnaires and where appropriate log my objections, but with questionnaires like this, you need to respond because it is so critical to your mothers care. However only tick the factors important to your mother. Do not tick 5 factors if 2 key factors are all that matter to her. Add a narrative comment, and possible indicate the factors importance by adding numbers beside them 1) for the most important etc

So pick up to 5 from 8. How many over 90 year olds will be bothered with a question like that? Wouldn't expect a great response rate.
And how the hell can you analyse the data?
And surely if you need such a service (housebound ?) you are probably not going to be fit to go round the the pub to "access it"?

Looking at the question Eloethan quotes, my conclusion is that her local Social Services intend to implement option 2 because most people will choose option 1, not 2 but from the remaining options they will not tick 5 or 8, because, as Jess points out, they need meals at home because they cannot get out or buy or cook for themselves, with or without help.

So with the majority of people choosing 1,3,4,6,7 Social Services will point out that 1 is incompatible with the other four choices and the best way to meet the majority of client preferences is a frozen meal heated up by client or carer at a time of their choice.

Clients consulted and 'support' decision Social Services has already reached.

Cynical? Me?

FlicketyB Thanks for your input - I will do as you say but fear that other people will follow instructions and tick 5 categories. I think I'll enclose a letter with it raising my objections to the way the questionnaire has been designed.

It's like the questionnaire my MiL gets from the Council every year about the care she receives in the home. Pages and pages of do you disagree?, or disagree a bit?, or partly agree? or strongly agree? etc. etc. I try to help her fill them in but she just agrees that every thing is lovely - which is not what she says for the rest of the year!!!

This is the sort of thing they need to do to get an Investors in People Award that can be boasted about on their website and a resulting certificate hung in Reception.
They're highly unlikely to take any notice of the results of the survey, unless it corresponds with what they were planning to do anyway.
The key is for them to CONSULT. No points get awarded for them taking any notice of the outcome.

#gladtoberetiredfromlocalauthority

Investors in People - just don't get me started! What a load of pathetic window-dressing - just get on with the d****d job!

My Dad went through endless assessments when we were organising his care at home. Every agency - and there were a lot, believe me! - went through complicated questionnaires. He hadn't got a clue what was going on and was asked to sign at the end of each page in some of them.

This questionnaire is more window-dressing. They know what people want and need, but they cannot afford it, so they have to find some way of reducing the service by the back door. What gets to me is the cost of the blooming questionnaires and the admin that precedes and follows them.

After making an official complaint about Social Services after a relatives traumatic discharge home from hospital I am now on some consultation register for Social Service and NHS in my county.

Every so often I get sent a document on some aspect of social/health care and a questionnaire. The documents are full of impenetrable jargon and gobbledygook, fatuous aspirations and a completely lack of real discussion about those affected and what real changes these documents will have on their lives.

I scan through these documents and fill in the questionnaires, for no other reason than to vent my spleen by pointing out what a load of self-serving meaningless tosh they are and pointing out that nowhere is the reality of the lives of the people affected by these documents allowed to intrude.

Definitely Flick!! I couldn't have put it better!

Great post flicketyb. Paying a "marketing company" to devise complicated questionnaires is so much easier than listening.
I bought a new car 18 months ago. I have had a letter requesting me to fill in a questionnaire about servicing feedback. And two follow up letters chasing me because i have not filled in their questionnaires.
And those ones that pop on line , or retailers bribe you to fill in to get entered into a draw - "just a few minutes to fill in our questionnaire" . Half an hour later...
After filling in one from M and S that asked whether I find their clothes and window displays "inspiring" I vowed, never again.

I'm cynical about 'Consultations' by councils in general. It ticks their boxes that is all as far as I'm concerned and their questions are very biased I find with no room for manoeuvre.

And the government are doing a nice line in spending a fortune on consultations that they then ignore.

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the only characteristic necessary to be a politician these days is an abnormal capacity for self-delusion.

I am hearing more and more interviews on the radio where a reputable research body has undertaken a careful research study that produces result counter to Government policy, and the relevant minister when interviewed says that the research is wrong because government policy is....., as if having a policy assured the outcomes.

To make up an example, if research showed that 50% of new born babies have green eyes. The relevant minister when interviewed will insist that the research is wrong, inaccurate etc etc because the government has a policy that all new babies should start school at six months.

This is disgusting. The documentation mentioned in the OP is merely written to get a required answer. Councils and Governments think we are stupid. Thank goodness my parents are not around to suffer this but we are the next generation and should, perhaps, make a stand now. How?

I'd start by asking what are they thinking delivering that questionnaire to a 93 year old with poor eyesight? It's a thinly disguised ploy to change to the system they have already decided to implement. Disgraceful. I don't have little or any faith in most "consultations".