The road to consultation – Consultations are often only as good as the preparation work that precedes them

When the Government cancelled the Forestry consultation earlier this year, the Prime Minister is reported to have complained that ‘we hadn’t done enough pitch-rolling’. Despite mystifying non-cricket followers, he was probably spot-on.

The road to consultation has two distinct aspects – procedural and substantive. Organisers of consultations these days are quite familiar with the necessary preparations for such a formal engagement exercise. We normally refer to the procedural elements as pre-consultation, and expect it to cover discussions with key stakeholders about the form the dialogue should take – methods, venues, timings and so forth; expect these to take place in the weeks and months leading to the start of the consultation period.