Winner takes all …  

Public consultations and the numbers game

For years, there has been an argument as to how much reliance to place on the statistical results of a pubic consultation. With respondent rates hovering at about 1% for most decisions affecting local public services, it has become customary to dismiss the breakdown of those in favour or against proposals on the grounds that it is normally only the opponents to public bodies’ proposals who bother to take part. ‘Never mind,’ we say, ‘we now know their opinions, the arguments they advance, and maybe the strength of feeling in the local community. Deal with as many of these as you can, then take your decision.’

Occasionally, a more sophisticated approach is adopted. In parallel with a traditional public consultation, the consultor organises an opinion survey of a stratified sample. This will provide a much truer picture of the public mind, and decision-makers can balance this against the views of those who were motivated to participate in the consultation itself. Experience shows that vociferous campaigns to oppose changes to NHS, Council or even Police services, enjoy somewhat less support if the view of non-respondents are measured. Such exercises often reveal astonishing levels of apathy, generally filling community activists with sheer horror!

This is why it is so problematic to rely too heavily on the consultation numbers game. The stratified sample, for all its advantages, accords the same weight to those who don’t care as to those who care passionately. Is this right? Do those who bother have any greater right to be heard than those who frankly would not remotely consider expressing a view unless approached. Delve deeply into this and one is at the heart of debates about the mechanics of democracy, the franchise, the consequences of differential turnouts and even compulsory voting. Consider this. The 52-48 result of the EU Referendum after all is but the sum of those who voted, enabling many of those who dislike the outcome to argue that 16-18 year olds were denied the opportunity to participate or that early postal voting skewed it one way or another. Might it have clashed with a football match? Or it might have rained heavily in North Wales? And had it been 48 hours later, might opinion have changed? Was this only a snapshot picture of people’s views on one day? And we still have endless arguments as to what was in the minds of those who voted, as witnessed in last year's Article 50 debate. In short, numbers don’t always settle things.

The intrinsic value of a consultative process in a representative democracy is that one can elect people to decide, but you let them use their judgement based on the evidence. Disagree with their judgements, and you can vote them out. So, for a mega-decision such as the vote for BREXIT, it is easy to see that our politicians deliberately or by neglect (depending upon your point of view) decided to abandon the consultative principle in favour of a winner-takes-all simple-majority vote.

For many other complex decisions, however, decision-makers recognise that only a minority of residents will offer opinions. And, unlike the nationwide referendum, they will acknowledge that consultees differ enormously. A typical consultation on changes to the NHS, for example, may elicit responses from a wide range of people and organisations. Let’s list some of them:

• Patients with direct personal experience of services being proposed for change
• Prospective patients expecting to be treated through the affected services
• Patient groups representing those with conditions requiring the affected services
• Relatives of patients or prospective patients who may or have used these services
• Clinicians or support staff involved in delivering the affected services
• Royal Colleges representing clinical or other specialisms involved in service delivery
• Staff who work in the NHS generally
• Charities or support groups providing services to patients or prospective patients
• Local Councils and other representative groups with an interest in local NHS services

…and many others.

Now who on earth can even attempt to allocate a weighting for the respective importance of those categories, especially as one grouping could number hundreds and another just one? Equally, how can one take account of the different impact that categories or sub-categories will feel as a result of specific proposals. One-person, one vote clearly does not work, and neither should it. Only a well-run consultation can provide the evidence-base for complex decisions with variable impacts.

No one argues that numbers are wholly irrelevant. But, as the EU Referendum so clearly shows, crude arithmetic obscures the differential impact on various types of stakeholders, and provides no mechanism for democratically-legitimate bodies to take these into account. When unelected Managers – as, for example in the NHS - have to weigh up these variables, it is essential to have good governance and a recognizably democratic form of ultimate accountability. On that score, we still have a long way to go, but it might help if we avoid too simplistic a reliance on the numbers alone.

TRIGGER POINTS

1. What is your experience of using stratified sample opinion research to supplement conventional consultation?
2. Does your organisation strike the right balance between quantitative and qualitative consultation?
3. Have you an adequate classification of consultees for analysis purposes?

This is the 314th 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. http://tinyurl.com/jermfrh