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Public consultation is not traditional accountant-territory. Few consultation projects are formally budgeted, and many of the costs involved are normally funded from larger departmental or functional budget allocations. If you run a sizeable corporate communications department with a substantial budget earmarked for publicity, it may appear dogmatic hair-splitting to account separately for distributing leaflets inviting […]

Tuesday Topic 6 tackled the thorny issue of budgeting and funding consultations. It recommended that organisations take steps to improve their accounting and monitor value for money. But this isn’t the whole story. Far more money is spent responding to consultations than organising them. Consider a consultation issued from a central Government department. It may

“Chris! I’ll need you to organise a consultation on this issue……..” “So how long have we got ?” “Oh, don’t worry about it – you’ll get your three months – and a bit extra if we’re lucky……..” “That’s all right, then ……”  WRONG!  It’s not all right. The 12-week rule, recently re-inforced by the Government’s

Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation (and its variants) is well known to many people who work in the field of public or stakeholder consultation. It starts with information giving at the bottom, moves up to consultation then ascends still further through involvement to acting together and finally to supporting community organisations who effectively run things

If spring is a time of re-awakening, it’s also time to get real and shed the cosy myths with which we surround ourselves in the dark days of winter. Indeed the Easter Bunny may be winter’s last fling before we knuckle down to the realities of the rest of the year. So here, by analogy

With talk of referendums in the air, we will all hear the old adage that the answer will of course depend upon the way the question is formulated. The suggestion is that clever people can always contrive to get the answer they want – just by being smart with the syntax. No doubt there are

Stand by for a dose of pure heresy…. For anyone who truly believes in high-quality consultation, it is axiomatic that it must have integrity; that the consultor genuinely wants to hear the views of consultees, and is prepared to act upon what is said.  And yet, there are occasions when the consultation process can achieve

There comes a point in most areas of life where the amateur gives way to the professional, and where the rich diversity of people re-inventing the wheel every time yields to common standards. It is not always a good thing, and one of the characteristics of today’s post-modern culture is that we appreciate the value

Consultation papers are in danger of being too PR-driven. Recent examples arriving at Institute offices have been the usual mixed bag of plain and glossy, but if there is a trend, it seems to be towards spending more on presentation. In one way this is to be welcomed. If we want stakeholders and the general

If public and stakeholder consultations are to be really effective, then politicians must believe in them and be comfortable with the process. But there is evidence that too little has been done to sit down with elected representatives and agree where and when consultation is appropriate and where and when it is not. The truth