Using participatory consultation to help improve local government performance and services
This article describes a project of participatory consultation for waste management conducted by the Environment and Consumer Services Department of the Edinburgh Council. A decision was taken to use Participatory Appraisal (PA) methods as had previously been applied successfully in other departments, and a main aim was to engage persons who are normally not involved in public debate and who are difficult to reach with techniques such as questionnaires, public meetings etc.