Engagement vs Consultation: Knowing the Difference in 2026

Engagement and consultation are not the same thing. Most practitioners know this in principle. Fewer have felt the legal consequences of getting the boundary wrong. In 2026, that boundary is better defined, more litigated, and more consequential than it was when Damian Greenfield examined the communication and engagement distinction in these pages in 2022 – Communication vs Engagement: the same thing, right….

Writing for the Consultation Institute in March 2022, Damian Greenfield (and current Associate) drew a clear and useful line: communication tells people something, engagement involves listening and allowing that input to influence decisions. A well-crafted message is not engagement. A visit that leads to a practical change is. That original article remains a sound starting point. But the environment in which practitioners apply that distinction has shifted considerably, and the gap it did not address has become the more consequential one.

The gap is this: engagement, as Greenfield described it, is broad and relational. It covers dialogue, responsiveness, and the kind of stakeholder ownership that turns opponents into collaborators. None of that is regulated in the way that formal consultation is. You can engage continuously and informally without triggering the legal framework that governs consultation.

Consultation is different. It arises when a public body invites views on a specific proposal at a stage when those views can genuinely influence the outcome. Once that threshold is crossed, a distinct set of duties applies. The common law Gunning principles require that the proposal is at a formative stage, that consultees receive sufficient information to respond meaningfully, that adequate time is given, and that responses are conscientiously considered. These are not administrative courtesies. They are legal requirements.

The problem is that the line between the two is not always obvious at the point of design. And that ambiguity has become increasingly costly.

When the Label Does Not Match the Reality

The National Disability Strategy litigation illustrates the risk directly. Government framed its exercise as insight-gathering rather than formal consultation. The High Court initially found this insufficient; the Court of Appeal later overturned that finding. But the litigation itself exposed a central truth: if you design a process that leads people to believe their responses will shape policy content, the courts will judge your process against that reasonable expectation, not the one you privately intended.

The label you attach to an exercise does not determine its legal character. The design, the framing, the questions asked, and the expectations created all contribute to how the process will be assessed if it is challenged. Calling something a conversation does not make it one if it is structured like a consultation.

When Good Engagement Still Fails the Consultation Test

The West Dulwich low traffic neighbourhood case offers a different and equally instructive lesson. The council ran a process with multiple touchpoints and substantial public involvement. The High Court nonetheless found the decision unlawful. The reason was not that engagement was absent. It was that a detailed 53-page submission made during the consultation period could not be shown to have been brought into the decision trail.

This is the point at which engagement and consultation diverge most sharply in practice. Engagement can be informal and responsive. Consultation requires something more structured: a record of what was received, evidence that decision-makers saw and considered it, and a traceable connection between representations and the final decision. Volume of participation does not substitute for that. Nor does good faith.

The Feedback Loop Is Now a Baseline Expectation

One of the clearest shifts since 2022 is the mainstreaming of explicit outcome reporting. Government consultation hubs now routinely publish “We asked, you said, we did” summaries as a standard element of the process record. At local level, the Suffolk libraries consultation provides a useful model: a mixed-method process that explicitly referenced the Gunning principles and then published a response mapping consultation themes directly to procurement specification changes.

This matters because it has reset expectations. A consultation that ends when the response window closes is increasingly anomalous. Stakeholders, scrutiny bodies, and courts all look for the connection between what was said and what was decided. Planning that connection before you launch is now part of what good consultation design looks like.

Accessibility and Inclusion Are Not Supplementary

The Gunning requirement for sufficient information is not only about the content of your materials. It is also about whether people could access them in the first place. For public sector bodies, digital accessibility requirements have been enforceable since 2018, and WCAG 2.2 AA is the current legal standard for public sector websites and applications.

Inclusion extends beyond accessibility compliance. Around 5% of UK adults do not have home internet access. If your consultation is entirely online, it may be administratively efficient and still systematically exclude those most likely to be affected by the decisions you are making. The 2025 Digital Inclusion Action Plan frames this as an operational public service challenge. Offline routes and accessible formats are not supplementary. They are part of what makes the process fair and, where challenged, defensible.

Deliberation as a Third Option

Between open-ended engagement and formal consultation sits a third mode that has grown considerably in credibility since 2022: deliberative processes. Citizens’ assemblies and juries are now an evaluated and recommended option for complex or contested decisions. The parliamentary evaluation of Climate Assembly UK concluded it was highly valuable and recommended that Parliament pursue further assemblies. Subsequent committee publications noted that deliberative engagement can build consensus and public trust, providing government follow-up is substantive rather than superficial.

Deliberation is not a replacement for consultation. But for decisions where the trade-offs are genuinely complex, the stakes are high, and trust is fragile, it offers a legitimacy that neither informal engagement nor a standard consultation exercise can easily match.

Practical Checks Before You Launch

Whichever mode you are using, ask these questions before you begin:

• Are you clear about whether this is engagement, consultation, or deliberation, and does your design match that?
• Have you published sufficient information for people to respond meaningfully?
• Are your channels and materials accessible to those most affected, including offline routes?
• Do you have a process for recording and considering representations, not just counting them?
• Can you produce a decision record that shows what you received, what you considered, and what changed?
• Have you planned your response publication before you launch, not after?
• If you cannot answer all of these, the process is not ready for launch.

Conclusion

Greenfield’s 2022 instinct was right: the distinction between telling and listening matters. What has changed is what the listening must now demonstrably produce. The original article focused on the interpersonal discipline of engagement. In 2026, that discipline must be accompanied by a governance architecture: a decision trail, an accessible process, a published response, and a clear account of what changed and why.

The standard has not become impossible. It has become specific. Knowing which mode you are in, and designing accordingly, is where good practice starts.

---

---

How tCI Can Help

Organisation Wide Learning Hub Access
Equip your entire team with professional consultation skills through one platform. Self paced courses, live virtual classrooms, practical toolkits and expert resources that build a shared baseline of competence across your organisation. Trusted by councils, NHS bodies and regulators nationwide.

Bespoke Training Workshops
Training that works with your real projects, not hypothetical scenarios. Sector tailored sessions help teams apply good practice to live challenges: sharpening consultation documents, building defensible codebooks, strengthening equality analyses. Half day or full day workshops for health, local government, planning and public service teams.

Coaching for Complex or High Risk Consultations
Expert guidance when the stakes are highest. One to one and small group coaching for senior officers navigating legally exposed or politically contentious decisions. Strengthen your judgement on proportionality, evidence standards and challenge management. Essential for organisations that may face judicial review risk or major service changes.

Whether you’re preparing for a high stakes service change, building long term consultation capability, or need confidence that your evidence approach will stand up to scrutiny, we can help.

Contact tCI: hello@consultationinstitute.org