The Feedback Ledger: Making Dunbar’s Consultations Answer Back in 2026
Consultation has become a familiar feature of civic life in Dunbar. A questionnaire arrives through the door, a public meeting is advertised at the library, or a service review asks for comments on a proposed change. Residents respond in good faith. Then, too often, the trail goes quiet. The comment has been received, but the consequence has not been explained. For a town that relies on a dense network of local organisations, that silence is not a minor administrative lapse. It is a service failure in its own right.
The gap between taking part and finding out
Most public bodies are careful about the beginning of a consultation. They advertise it, set a deadline, provide a form and record the responses. Far fewer are as disciplined about the end. A decision may be taken in a committee room, recorded in minutes and mentioned in a newsletter, but the connection between the original comment and the eventual outcome is rarely made visible. A resident who asked for a bench, a later bus, a clearer form or a safer crossing has no easy way of knowing whether their point was considered, set aside or lost.
This matters because consultation is not simply a survey. It is a relationship between an organisation and the people who use its services. When that relationship ends at the point of submission, residents learn a reasonable lesson: taking part changes little. The next consultation then attracts fewer responses, and the organisations that rely on public input are left with a thinner picture of local need. Closing the loop is therefore not a courtesy added at the end. It is part of making the process work at all.
Tracing the route a comment takes
In practice, a comment made in Dunbar may pass through several hands. It might be logged by a community group, summarised by a project officer, grouped with similar points, presented to a decision-making body and then translated into an action, a delay or a rejection. Each stage is sensible in isolation. Together, they create a gap between the language of the resident and the language of the decision.
A comment about the timing of an advice session, for example, may become a line in a summary about 'access barriers'. A request for clearer signage may be recorded as a 'communication issue'. These summaries are necessary for analysis, but they can also obscure the original point. If the final public report does not show the plain-English concern alongside the organisational response, residents cannot recognise their own contribution. The loop is technically closed, but practically invisible.
The second weak point is ownership. Consultations often produce a list of themes but not a named person or team responsible for responding to them. Without an owner, the commitment to report back becomes everyone’s task and no one’s deadline. The third weak point is format. A lengthy committee report may contain the answer, but it is not designed for the person who submitted a comment in a village hall or on a rainy High Street afternoon.
Where the trail goes cold
There are three common places where feedback goes quiet. The first is the summary stage, when individual comments are aggregated and the original wording disappears. The second is the decision stage, when an outcome is recorded without a clear explanation of the reasons. The third is the publication stage, when a result is placed in a document that is technically public but not practically accessible.
Each can be addressed without inventing a new consultation industry. What is needed is a short, consistent public record that follows the comment from receipt to response. It should be written in plain English, published where people already look, and updated even when the answer is 'no'. A negative outcome is still an outcome. 'We could not do this because the cost exceeded the available budget' is a legitimate response, and a far better one than silence.
A public ledger, not a press release
The simplest solution is a standing 'you said, we did' ledger. It need not be elaborate. A single page on an organisation’s website, backed by a paper copy in a public place such as Dunbar Library, would be enough to begin. The ledger should be organised by theme and by date, so that residents can find the issue that concerns them without reading a full committee pack.
A useful entry should contain five things: what was raised, what was considered, what was decided, why, and what happens next. Where a decision has not yet been taken, the entry should say so and give a review date. Where a comment has been grouped with others, the entry should show the common theme in plain language. Where a decision has been made, the entry should name the responsible team or organisation and the date of the next review.
A simple format could look like this:
| What you told us | What we did | What changed | When and where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Requests for clearer information about local support hours | Reviewed existing printed and online listings | A single weekly update now appears in the library and on the website | From February 2026; reviewed quarterly |
| Concerns about the accessibility of a public meeting venue | Visited the venue and checked step-free access and hearing support | Future meetings moved to a room with level access and a hearing loop | From March 2026 |
| A suggestion for a shared equipment scheme | Assessed demand, storage and insurance | A small pilot is being developed with a local partner | Decision due June 2026 |
The table is deliberately modest. Its value lies in repetition and honesty, not in presentation. Residents should be able to see that a comment was received, that it was considered and that a reasoned response followed. Organisations should be able to update the ledger without commissioning a new report each time.
Making the ledger part of the routine
For the ledger to be credible, it needs a routine. A named officer should maintain it. Entries should be added within a set period after each consultation closes, and updated when decisions are taken. The ledger should be reviewed alongside existing performance reporting, not as an extra project. Local partners could agree a shared template so that a comment made to one organisation can be tracked even when another body is responsible for the outcome.
There is also a role for paper. Not everyone in Dunbar will look for a web page, and some will prefer to read a printed summary in a familiar place. A quarterly printed extract, displayed in the library and at community meetings, would help to reach people who are not online. The same extract could be read aloud at public meetings, ensuring that the loop is closed in person as well as in print.
None of this requires a large budget. It requires a decision that consultation includes reporting back, and that reporting back is a service in its own right. In 2026, Dunbar’s public organisations have an opportunity to make that decision visible. A short, public, plain-English ledger would not answer every question or satisfy every resident. It would, however, replace the familiar silence with a record that people can read, challenge and trust.
