This begs the question ‘… according to whom?’

In the distant past, we remember coming out of a public meeting where the organisers must have been dispirited and disappointed. But the audience felt elated; campaigners were cock-a-hoop; the Council had been embarrassed and impassioned speeches from the floor had been duly applauded. Conversely, we have all experienced public meetings when the public go away depressed and dissatisfied but the organisers felt they had gone very well.

Everyone agrees that inviting the public to come together en masse carries significant risks. The context matters, of course. Some issues gather more opposition than others. Some communities exhibit more aggression than others. Local history matters. Is this an issue that has been brewing for years? Or is it a ‘bolt from the blue’ ?  Has the meeting identified new arguments, or alternative suggestions? Or did it just degenerate into a negative slanging-match?

As always, much depends upon expectations. Public bodies cannot be blamed for being nervous and reluctant if they fear that the occasion will be a gathering just of opponents to their proposals. If you expect trouble, you often find it! They may also be right to worry that some local politicians are prone to ‘grandstanding’ – meaning that they are ‘playing to one gallery or another’. They might also be anxious about media coverage; a smooth-running event is seldom as newsworthy as a good old-fashioned row!

At some point or another some or all of these will have happened to those charged with organising public meetings. The good news is that many of them are wholly preventable and that best practice planning can reduce the risks. Top of the list is to recognise that public meetings must – absolutely must –  be designed as listening exercises. Failure to convince the audience that their views will be conscientiously considered will be a recipe for failure. So having a credible Chairperson or Facilitator is paramount. If attendees sense that the ‘top table’ (not a great idea, but it happens!) is merely going through the motions, then the hazards increase. It is one reason for bringing in an experienced independent facilitator who will see it as part of his or her role to ensure that it is a genuinely responsive event.

The credibility of the event also depends upon being held in the presence of real decision-makers. People resent expressing their views to those they consider to be messengers – just reporting what people have said. Public relations consultancies, able to organise a slick professional show run the risk of being seen as too far removed from decision-makers themselves. The whole point of these events is that participants feel they want to talk directly to those in power. You may hear the old adage. Let me talk to the organ-grinder – not the monkey.

In recent years we have heard of public meetings when attendees were told that their views would only be recorded when captured in an online submission via the ubiquitous questionnaire. It left those in the room feeling they were wasting their breath; the voices of those less confident using the internet would never be heard.

The best public meetings manage to strike a balance between explaining and listening. If speakers appear more intent on ‘selling’ their ideas rather than objectively setting out the issue, they will antagonise the audience. Boring presentations are just as bad. A few years ago, within a mile of our Institute headquarters, we heard of a public meeting where every one of the local Council’s speakers overran the allotted time leaving only a few minutes for questions from the floor, before the meeting came to an end. The fury was perfectly understandable.

In any case, it is not inevitable that meetings are filled with those who oppose consultation proposals. In general, the fewer who know it is happening, the more likely it is that those who turn up will be those most committed to opposition. Effective promotion can be structured to appeal to stakeholders of all persuasions or none, but it has to be positioned and planned in such a way.

These are just a handful of well-known pitfalls, but most weeks, the Institute’s newsletter features stories from controversial public meetings. Some years ago, we calculated that there are at least 60,000 public meetings in the UK each year, and it is time to update this figure. In particular, we need to examine whether the growing popularity of drop-in events and other variants will have reduced the number of traditional-style sessions.

Over the next three months, we invite Institute Members and Newsletter readers to send in their own experience of public meetings, for the launch of our new e-Learning course “Consultation and Public Events.” This will be available on the 1^st May. The best stories received will be offered a free registration for the course*.

 

*One free registration offered per month

 

Written by Elizabeth Gammell and Rhion Jones