back to menuThe National Consumer Council held a one day training session this summer to introduce its Stronger Voice (see issue 201) Training Pack to individuals who would then be qualified to train consumers to be effective consumer representatives.
The NCC claims that it is "the first comprehensive, widely available pack to educate consumer representatives at all levels with the skills and knowledge they need to promote the consumer interest effectively and to a consistently high standard". However, the day's course was limited and disappointing. The aims of the pack are not well thought through and it should have been piloted more effectively before launch.
The team responsible for the development of the pack obviously had limited experience with the grass roots consumer movement and the restricted nature of their understanding of the needs of consumer representatives became apparent very quickly.
The training pack aims to cover the implications and limitations of being a consumer representative. However 'representation' was only seen as attendance at meetings and seminars. No thought had been given to the important role of the consumer representatives who have to reply to the endless stream of Government and other consultation documents and, therefore, there was no guidance available. Thankfully a number of NfCG members are, of necessity, experienced in this field.
One positive aspect was that the need to help representatives develop clear aims and objectives based on the fundamental Consumer Principles was recognised and incorporated. The Consumer Principles have been developed over a number of years and can be extremely useful as reminders of what we are all really aiming for. Unfortunately, in the training pack, for no other reason, it seems, than to fit into a rather poor acronym, the Principles have been changed and the Principle of Safety deleted. Safety was included in the nebulous term Quality, which had replaced it. This was viewed by those attending as a very negative action. Safety is a very important issue for consumers and should not be relegated to a second-tier Principle without further justification than that it made an acronym sound better. If this is the level of reasoning and understanding of the issues relating to the training required by consumer representatives it gives rise to concern for development of other areas of the training pack.
The packs are poorly designed. They give little or no flexibility for trainers to deliver the material in different ways and at different levels to different groups, despite the recognition that this should be possible. Much of the material is very old fashioned dull, and unsuitable for the needs of consumer representatives. The actual size of the pack and its content could be off-putting. Some of the suggested reading is also old.
The method of production is costly and these costs are being passed on to those attending the courses. The pack is sold at .£30 and this, together with the unsatisfactory nature of the content, led to heated debate. A consensus of those attending was that the charge was far too high. The NCC representative clearly told those attending that the NCC aim was to train 5000 people to be consumer representatives, but, in doing so, NCC had to make a profit.
However, after five hours of not particularly well thought out training I am now a recognised NCC Trainer and I can have my details included in the NCC database and website. It is not all doom and gloom, there are opportunities here, but let us hope that NCC Stronger Voice has a very quick and critical look at its training programme and brings it into the real world real fast.
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