Originally published 8 February 2012. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
Right now there are hundreds of hard-pressed Managers in the public sector who are sweating over expenditure cuts that oblige them to re-structure services, some of which have scarcely changed for decades.
How do they view the requirement to consult all the different stakeholders that emerge whenever change is threatened? Do they groan at the avalanche of opposition this will produce and groan at the demanding process of consultation and its many pitfalls? Or will they welcome the fact that someone else is there to help them think seriously about the problem, consider alternatives and generally share the pain?
Most likely, there will be a combination of both emotions, with much depending upon recent experience with service change. Some public bodies have the knack (or good fortune?) to have understanding stakeholders with whom it has proved possible to organise a constructive dialogue. Others have inherited a culture of mistrust where motives are impugned on all sides and where contact has been sporadic and vexatious.
A minority of campaigning organisations now regularly seek recourse to the Courts and in recent months we have seen a record number of legal challenges when service changes are alleged to have been implemented without the benefit of meaningful consultation.
The net result is that consultation has the power to help or hinder significant change.
It can help by • Exposing radical proposals for change to the scrutiny of public debate • Requiring those who seek change to address issues raised by stakeholders • Learning how others see the opportunities and problems arising, and finding ways to improve proposals by listening to genuine concerns
It can hinder by • Polarising views and encouraging active ‘oppositionism’ • Slowing down the process and reducing the impetus to address difficult issues • Over-emphasising the views of a small minority who participate at the expense of a wider public who may not respond
A quick glance at the list and it is easy to conclude that the problems occur when consultations are not thought through or where inexperience leads organisations to making avoidable mistakes. So here are three solid pieces of advice for anyone considering significant service change
1. Always involve the users – and start early Too many change-related exercises start as desk research or accounting projects. In reality there is only one place to start with any review of a service – with the customer. There may already be formal machinery for listening to them, but often it is useful to supplement these as the views they express might not be representative. Not everyone can devise a co-production project (but many can) but everyone can start talking to service recipients and elicit what they like and don’t like about a service. The Government’s Open Public Services agenda is yet to be fully launched, but when it comes, the users of countless services may experience serious change – and their response will need to be benchmarked against what they think of services today.
2. Invest in facilitation skills Dialogues seldom happen via the ubiquitous questionnaire! Although we sometimes need to play the numbers game, most service change is about understanding people’s experiences; not just the customer, but the service delivery staff as well as others in the chain. Teasing out what people really think and enticing them to consider difficult aspects seriously is a job for a trained facilitator, and too many in the public sector have found themselves performing these roles by accident. Addressing this deficiency and promoting the ideas of independent or impartial facilitation is one reason why the Consultation Institute has invested in its Registered Facilitator Scheme – with over 50 enrolled at the last count!
3. Build confidence through such mechanisms as Local Compacts A few days ago, the National Audit Office published a critical Report about the Government’s inadequate observance of the National Compact with the Third Sector. Among the issues identified was the deplorable disregard of Whitehall’s promise to offer 12 weeks for the Sector to consider important consultations. The point was not really about the timescale, but about an unwillingness to stick to agreements, and it illustrates a problem of trust between the parties. The same thing can happen at local levels, and is another reason why agreeing Local Compacts – and sticking to them is vital. Consultation will always work better if the parties trust each other, and if the Third Sector is going to play a bigger role in the future of public services, there needs to be a foundation of mutual respect upon which dialogues – even robust ones – can be continued.
These may not solve everyone’s problems, but closer attention to these three suggestions may tilt the balance away from ‘hindering’ and towards the ‘help’ we all need.
Trigger points
This is the 205th 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