Converting Lived Experience into Lawful Evidence

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Public consultations surface rich lived experience: stories, frustrations, workarounds, and everyday wisdom from people affected by change. For consultation managers and engagement officers, the challenge isn’t collecting these narratives—it’s converting them into evidence that is both decision-useful and legally defensible.

1. Start with Fair Collection

The Gunning Principles set the legal baseline. Proposals must be formative, consultees must have sufficient information to respond intelligently, adequate time must be given, and outputs must be conscientiously considered. Run a simple pre-check:

• Are we clear what’s up for discussion?
• Have we explained the “why” in plain English?
• Is the time window appropriate to audience constraints—school runs, shift work, disability access, language needs?

If a single parent working nights can’t meaningfully engage, your process has a legal vulnerability.

2. Build Equality In, Not On

The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) requires decision-makers to have “due regard” to eliminating discrimination, advancing equality and fostering good relations from the outset, not as an afterthought. In practice:

• Design your sampling plan to actively reach people with protected characteristics
• Build equality considerations into discussion prompts from day one
• Choose recruitment partners who can access underrepresented groups
• Link your topic guide to protected characteristics at the design stage
• Record who was reached, who wasn’t, and why

Think of PSED compliance as the foundation, not something you add at the end.

3. Treat Qualitative Analysis as Rigorous Evidence Work

Qualitative isn’t “just quotes.” Robust qualitative analysis requires methodological rigour comparable to statistical work. Before fieldwork, draft an analysis protocol defining:

• Coding frames (deductive starting points and how inductive themes will emerge)
• Reliability steps (dual code 10–20% of transcripts)
• Saturation expectations
• Triangulation with quantitative data, admin data, or operational metrics

Keep an audit trail: researcher memos, code changes, and clear distinction between what participants said and your interpretation. Practical steps during analysis:

• Start with deductive codes (policy themes, equality lenses), allow inductive codes to emerge
• Dual code a subset, reconcile differences, document outcomes
• Test narrative themes against admin data, geospatial patterns or operational metrics
• End each theme with prevalence indicators: “frequent,” “minority view,” “single outlier”

4. Right-Size Your Evidence

Proportionality matters. You don’t need 300 pages to adjust opening hours, but hospital reconfiguration demands comprehensive evidence. Document your proportionality rationale upfront based on:

• Scale of impact
• Vulnerability of affected groups
• Reversibility of the decision
• Legal risk profile

This protects you if someone later argues you didn’t do enough—or that you were disproportionate.

5. Privacy by Design

Personal stories are powerful precisely because they’re personal—and that makes them potentially identifiable. The ICO’s 2025 anonymisation guidance sets the standard. Practical privacy measures:

• Anonymise or pseudonymise raw data at the earliest safe point
• Use role-based access controls for verbatim transcripts
• Provide decision-makers with extracts that preserve meaning without re-identifying individuals
• Prefer aggregated quotations (“several wheelchair users in outer wards reported…”) unless a single quote adds unique value with minimal risk

Getting this wrong isn’t just ethically problematic—it’s a data protection breach.

6. Turn Narratives into Defensible Findings

When consultations are challenged, courts ask whether responses were fairly interpreted and conscientiously considered—not whether everyone agreed with the outcome. Your findings must demonstrate:

• Theme clarity: Define each theme with operational criteria and illustrative quotes, not just a label.
• Balance of voices: Show approximate proportions. If 80% supported a proposal but 20% raised safety concerns, both perspectives need fair representation.
• Contextualised feasibility: Participants might suggest brilliant solutions that aren’t operationally viable. Test proposals against real constraints and explain trade-offs transparently.
• Traceability: Link each decision recommendation to underlying evidence—which participants, where, when, how collected.

7. Report for Decision-Makers

Decision-makers need clarity, not methodology marathons. Structure your report for action:

• Executive decisions first: For each consultation item, state what you’ll do, why, and specifically how lived experience influenced the decision.
• Evidence heat map: A one-page matrix showing strength of feeling against affected groups provides instant strategic visibility.
• Methods transparency: A concise section on collection approach, analysis methods, and honest acknowledgment of limitations.
• Annex the audit trail: Topic guides, codebook versions, reliability notes—available for scrutiny without cluttering the main narrative.

How tCI Can Help

Quality Assurance: Independent review at critical stages—from evidence protocol design through to final reporting—ensuring your approach to qualitative data meets legal and good practice standards. Our seven-stage QA process includes assessment of analysis methods, interpretation fairness, and compliance with Gunning, PSED and ICO requirements.

Early Assurance: A snapshot review during planning to sense-check your evidence framework, codebook design, and proportionality rationale before fieldwork begins.

Charter Workshops: Half-day sessions helping your team understand good practice standards for handling qualitative consultation data, including rigorous analysis and defensible interpretation.

Whether you’re preparing for a high-stakes service change or need confidence that your evidence approach will stand up to scrutiny, we can help. Contact tCI for Quality Assurance at hello@consultationinstitute.org