Healthy debate and debating skills resources evaluative framework

This framework is one of four resources in the Healthy debate and debating skills suite. The resources guide explains how the resources work together and how they were developed.

This framework gives councils a light-touch way to check whether the resources are being used, whether practice is shifting as a result and whether agreed healthy debate principles are becoming visible in meetings.

Healthy debate is part of effective decision-making. The framework can also help councils reflect on whether debate is supporting clearer and better-tested decisions.

This framework is a menu, not a formal evaluation requirement. The aim is not to demonstrate transformation or create a formal reporting burden. It is designed to help councils understand the impact of focusing on healthy debate in the council, gather proportionate feedback and decide what, if anything, needs to change to get more value from the training and resources.

Use this framework after running the training pack, after sharing the councillor guide, after adopting or adapting local healthy debate principles, or as a light check before repeating the training or refreshing councillor development.

Some tools can also be used before training or before adopting local principles, to provide a baseline for later comparison.

The framework includes six tools, each described below. Copy-ready templates are at the back, labelled with their tool number.

• Use Tool 1 for a quick before-and-after confidence check around a training session.
• Use Tool 2 for immediate feedback at the end of a session.
• Use Tool 3 to check whether anything has changed after three months.
• Use Tool 4 for chair reflection before or after a difficult meeting.
• Use Tool 5 for officer reflection on preparation, advice and meeting support.
• Use Tool 6 to check whether the resources are becoming part of local practice, or to understand the starting point before further work.

You can start with one or two tools from the menu below that fit your council's capacity. You do not need to use all of them. A before-and-after confidence check for a training session, combined with a brief follow-up after three months, may tell you most of what you need to know.

If your council wants more depth, the local ownership and use checklist and the chair reflection questions add useful detail without significant burden.

Templates with all questions are provided at the end.

1. Confidence and capability. This looks at whether participants feel more confident in the practical debating skills covered in the training session and clearer about what healthy debate looks like in practice. It is the most immediate and straightforward thing to check.

2. Use in practice. This looks at whether councillors and chairs are doing anything differently in meetings after using the resources. The training is for councillors, not officers, but officers are well placed to feed back on whether meeting preparation, chairing or the tone of debate has shifted in any visible way. Their observations complement councillors' reflections, providing a more holistic assessment.

3. Meeting habits and local culture. This takes a longer view, asking whether there are observable changes in how debate is being conducted over time, including whether chairs are intervening earlier, more voices are getting in and constructive challenge stays on the argument rather than the person.

4. Local ownership and use. This checks whether your council's healthy debate principles, if you have adopted some, are being used and have genuine ownership from chairs, group leaders and political leadership.

This is one of the simplest ways to check whether participants feel more confident about the practical skills covered in the session. It takes around five minutes at the start of the session and five minutes at the end. The same five questions are used both times so that any shift in confidence is visible.

How to use it

Give participants the five questions at the start of the session, before any content has been covered, or in advance of the session before sharing any materials. Ask them to answer honestly and collect the responses.

Give the same five questions at the end of the session and collect the responses again.

You do not need to carry out a statistical analysis or produce a formal report. For most councils, a simple sense of whether responses have shifted will be enough. A brief summary of the overall pattern is sufficient if you want to share findings with political leadership or senior officers.

The five questions

For each question, participants rate their confidence on a scale of one to five, where one means not at all confident and five means very confident.

• How confident do you feel about challenging an idea, policy or proposal without making it personal?
• How confident do you feel about making a focused, evidence-based contribution in a meeting?
• How confident do you feel about listening to a contribution you disagree with and responding to what was actually said?
• How confident do you feel about knowing what to do if debate in a meeting starts to go off course?
• How confident do you feel that your council has a shared understanding of what healthy debate looks like in practice?

What to look for

A noticeable shift in any of the first four questions may suggest that the session has supported individual capability. The fifth question is different. It measures something collective rather than individual. A low score before and after may suggest that a wider conversation about shared expectations would still be useful.

A short reflection at the end of the session gives you qualitative evidence alongside the confidence check. It takes about five minutes and can be done on paper or verbally.

Three questions will usually be enough.

• What is one thing from today that you will try to apply in your next meeting?
• What felt most relevant to the debates and meetings you are part of?
• Is there anything you would want to explore further?

The answers to the first two questions are the most useful. They tell you whether the session connected to real practice or stayed abstract. If many answers to the first question are very general, for example "be nicer in meetings", it may be worth adjusting the session before it is run again, so that it lands in more concrete meeting practice.

Three months after the session, a short check-in with a small number of participants can give you a picture of whether anything has changed. This does not need to take the form of a survey. A short conversation with three or four councillors and one or two officers, or a short email, is often enough. You can reuse the five follow-up questions in the sample tools as that short email.

Useful questions for the follow-up

• Have you found yourself doing anything differently in meetings since the session?
• Has the way constructive challenge or disagreement is handled in your meetings changed at all?
• Has the council used the model principles or local healthy debate principles in any context since the session?
• Is there anything from the session that you have gone back to, either in the councillor guide or in any of the handouts?
• Have any changes to meeting format, chairing practice or support arrangements made it easier for a wider range of councillors to participate?

It is usually most useful to look for concrete and specific examples. A councillor who says the chair has been intervening earlier. An officer who says they briefed the chair differently before a difficult item. A group leader who says they referred to the principles in a group meeting. These are often more useful than general satisfaction ratings.

Chairs are one of the strongest levers on debate quality. A short reflection from one or more chairs after a contentious meeting can tell you more about practical change than most other measures.

These questions can be used as a pre-training reflection on a recent difficult meeting, in conversation with a supporting officer, or as a brief written reflection after a challenging meeting.

• Did I intervene early enough when contributions started to become unconstructive or become personal?
• Did I bring in voices that might otherwise have been crowded out?
• Was there a moment where I could have redirected more effectively? What would I do differently?
• Did I feel equipped for the most difficult moment in that meeting?
• Did I apply the meeting rules consistently and explain any procedural rulings clearly enough?
• How was the room behaving while others were speaking? Did side comments, visible reactions or interruptions affect the tone?
• Is there anything I would want to discuss with the supporting officer before the next contentious item?

If your council has adopted healthy debate principles, one useful final question is whether the meeting reflected those shared expectations.

Although the training pack is aimed at councillors, officers have an important role in supporting healthy debate and good decision-making through preparation, advice to chairs and meeting support. This tool is a short reflection for officers on what they have noticed in meetings since the training and local principles came into use.

These questions can be used as a self-assessment before training, or as a short reflection after a difficult meeting.

Officer reflection

• Did I brief the chair adequately before this meeting?
• Was there a point where a public intervention may have made things harder rather than easier?
• Was there any point where earlier or quieter support might have worked better?
• Is there anything about the room setup, agenda management or pre-meeting preparation I would do differently?

These are starting points for a short professional conversation or personal reflection, not questions with single right answers. Over time, that kind of regular reflection can help improve the support officers provide to chairs and councillors.

It can be useful to check whether the resources are embedded in how the council operates, not just used once.

Signs that local ownership may be developing

• The council has agreed its own healthy debate principles, whether adopted from the model principles, adapted locally or developed independently.
• These principles have been discussed at group leader or full council level, or the equivalent formal setting in your council.
• The principles are referred to in member induction materials.
• A chair has referred to the principles before a contentious item.
• The training session has been run more than once, including for new councillors at the start of a term.
• Officers have used the handouts or the councillor guide in briefings or development conversations with councillors.
• A group leader has referred to the principles in an internal group conversation.

Signs that further steps may help

• The session has been run once but not yet followed up.
• Shared expectations are in place but have not yet been referred to in a practical context.
• Councillors may not yet be aware that the councillor guide is available as a resource they can use independently.
• The shared expectations have not yet been visibly reinforced by chairs, group leaders or other political leadership.

Agreed principles are more likely to make a difference when they are used in practical settings, for example before a difficult item, in induction or in chair briefings. If the session was well received but little has followed, it may be useful to look at local ownership rather than content.

Where the council includes independent councillors or councillors from very small groups, check whether they have been included in discussions about shared expectations and practice.

Start small with one confidence check and one follow-up conversation after three months. That will often be enough for councils in the first year.

If you want to build a more sustained picture over time, the chair reflection questions and the local ownership and use checklist add depth without adding significant burden.

Councils may find it useful to connect this framework's findings to existing evaluation on respectful politics, councillor wellbeing, equality, diversity and inclusion and councillor development, rather than creating separate reporting.

Sample tools to copy

The following are templates for Tools 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. They can be printed, adapted or used digitally. Tool 5 (officer reflection questions) is written in the body of the framework and can be lifted directly from there.

Tool 1 template. Confidence check before and after the session

Please rate your confidence for each of the following, on a scale of 1 to 5.

1 = not at all confident. 5 = very confident.

Tool 2 template. Post-session reflection

• What is one thing from today that you will try to apply in your next meeting?
• What felt most relevant to the debates and meetings you are part of?
• Is there anything you would want to explore further?

Tool 3 template. Three-month review

• Have you found yourself doing anything differently in meetings since the session?
• Has the way constructive challenge or disagreement is handled in your meetings changed at all?
• Has the council used the model principles or local healthy debate principles in any context since the session?
• Is there anything from the session that you have gone back to?
• Have any changes to meeting format, chairing practice or support arrangements made it easier for a wider range of councillors to participate?

Tool 4 template. Chair reflection questions

• Did I intervene early enough when contributions started to drift or become personal?
• Did I bring in voices that might otherwise have been crowded out?
• Was there a moment where I could have redirected more effectively? What would I do differently?
• Did I feel equipped for the most difficult moment in that meeting?
• Did I apply the meeting rules consistently and explain any procedural rulings clearly enough?
• How was the room behaving while others were speaking? Did side comments, visible reactions or interruptions affect the tone?
• Is there anything I would want to discuss with the supporting officer before the next contentious item?

Tool 6 template. Local ownership and use checklist

You can use this six months after the session. Review which statements apply.

• The council has agreed its own healthy debate principles, whether adopted from the model principles, adapted locally or developed independently.
• These principles have been discussed at group leader or full council level, or the equivalent formal setting in your council.
• The principles are referred to in member induction materials.
• A chair has referred to the principles before a contentious item.
• The training session has been run more than once.
• Officers have used the handouts or the councillor guide in briefings or development conversations.
• A group leader has referred to the principles in an internal group conversation.
• Independent councillors or councillors from very small groups have been included in the conversation about principles and practice.