The magic moment - Is there one particular moment when consultation is most appropriate?

People can always criticise a public consultation!

Just on the timescales alone, it is quite a challenge to please everyone. Leaving aside the more obvious blunders such as announcing it quietly when nobody notices (a recent CLG consultation of interest to local government was published on December 27th!) or holding a six week consultation in the summer holidays (The Post Office plans several consultations on its closure programme this coming July!) …… the two most frequently heard gripes are:- • This is far too early; everything is too vague. They should work out their proposals first and then ask us ……. • This is far too late; everything is cut and dried. They’ve obviously worked out what they want to do, and are just asking us to rubber-stamp their decisions…..

So is there, possibly, a magic moment between the time when researchers and policy-makers start looking seriously at an issue … and the moment when they become so clued-up that they inevitably form opinions as to what appears to be the best solution? Is there a stage when minds are still open, and when informed input can significantly influence the outcome?

With long-term matters, where debate has been protracted over many years, possibly there is. Our town planning system is, in many ways, designed to be slow-moving because experience shows that rapid decisions can frequently be bad decisions. So, if there is a proposal to re-vamp the city centre, chances are that this has been discussed over time with the debate moving from the general principles of Whether we should? through to How should we? and What might it look like..? In this scenario, it may well be possible to pinpoint the stage at which consultation can be really effective.

But Governments - and other public bodies frequently have to react faster. Many of the most difficult issues shoot up the agenda - seemingly from nowhere, and by the time a consultation becomes practicable, those most closely involved are perceived to have a settled view of the preferred outcome, and despite protestations that they are open to persuasion, key stakeholders see it as a done deal.

One way to tackle this might be to separate the “experts” from the public dialogue and to commission a consultation in parallel with some of the policy-making work. This might work occasionally and is fine when there public attitudes are evolving as with new scientific discoveries, ethical problems or proposed legislation. But the real solution is to be better at anticipating the issues in the first place.

One of the great attractions of the new model of “commissioning” public services is that we don’t wait until there is a crisis of provision - we systematically keep services under review, and, ideally institute a rolling programme of consulting users, customers, passengers, patients or whoever along with other stakeholders.

This way, there is no need to search for the elusive magic moment - for every month, every quarter, every year becomes the right time to ask the key questions and consult people about their views.

There will always be a need for one-off consultation exercises alongside regular, on-going public and stakeholder engagement, but it is possible that we give insufficient attention to permanent consultative machinery …. It may be time to redress the balance

Trigger points

• Before planning a formal consultation, consider whether it is the right moment in the policy development cycle
• Find ways to ensure that those most involved in an issue are still open-minded as they approach a consultation. Bring in an outsider to join the team and manage the consultation?
• Review the balance between one-off exercises and permanent consultative machinery

This is the 104th Tuesday Topic; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement