Principles met

  • We will develop systems that enable citizens to be equal partners in designing and commissioning public services and in determining the use of public resources.
  • We will explore ways for councils to act as a platform for helping the community to contribute to local outcomes, and to re-think the role of councillors as community connectors, brokers and leaders.
  • We will embrace innovation in how we work with local communities to drive positive change.
  • We will capture and ‘expand’ the experience and learning from individual projects and approaches in order to encourage broader application of co-operative principles within individual member Councils and across the Network.

As one of the first cities in the UK to apply for UNICEF Child Friendly City Status, Cardiff Council wants to create a city where all children and young people can share their voice and have an input on decisions being made that will affect them. This approach will seek to ensure that the rights of children and young people are respected by all.

As part of the Council’s work on the replacement Local Development Plan (LDP), a project was developed to embed child rights into the process and provide children with an opportunity to become informed citizens. The aim of the project was to understand children’s views regarding different aspects of the LDP and their local area through different engagement activities.

When looking for tools to gather data from engagement activities, it became evident that it would be beneficial to move away from using online forms and use a more interactive engagement tool. This approach enables children and young people to communicate more effectively and maximise pupil engagement. Several different options were considered and after careful research, the online platform ‘Maptionnaire’ was selected as it also provided an innovative gamified element.

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