Originally published 20 December 2005. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
When buying goods, it's always a good idea to have a look at the "small print"! There, buried deep in the legal verbiage you may find something like The Supplier has a policy of continuous improvement and therefore reserves the right to make changes to the product specification at any time …… or words to that effect. In principle, the same is true for professional services and other hybrid deliverables.
It's a wonderful get-out, and is the ubiquitous defence against customers or consumers whose expectations have not been fully met.
Now think of public or stakeholder consultations in a similar way. Even heavily-centralised departments with years of experience are still experimenting with slightly different ways of going about the task of gathering and listening to people's views. The standard disclaimer would fit quite nicely - for we are definitely witnessing a drive for constant…improvement …. So maybe we should draft some words along these lines ….? Except that disgruntled stakeholders might not see things the same way. People who have engaged in a controversial consultation - and especially those who lose the argument (or who disapprove of the eventual outcome) may be tempted to cry foul. They are quite likely to question the way in which the consultation was organised. So, if they find that the methods changed, and that previous precedent was not followed in their particular case, they may feel they have cause for complaint. Many public bodies have found such situations difficult to handle, and disappointed consultees have been known to go to Court to argue their cases.
Now they can use the Freedom of Information Act as well. Their aim will be to probe the detailed processes used by those who organised the consultation to see if they observed best practice, treated all sides of an argument fairly, helped engage hard-to-reach groups, and were unbiased in their interpretation of the views that were received. Even the best-run consultation departments will need to tighten-up on current practice to be 100% confident that their processes will withstand critical scrutiny.
But the problem is exacerbated by two further factors. Firstly, consultation is highly decentralised in many Authorities - so it is virtually guaranteed that different practices are followed and different standards observed - with some people highly trained for the role, and others just learning on the job. So there are bound to be discrepancies. Secondly, many public bodies and functions (eg Town Planning re Statements of Community Involvement) aspire to a level of community engagement that goes beyond conventional consultation. But this wider public involvement is frequently vague and ill-defined, and probably very vulnerable to criticism in the FoIA context. Why were Group A involved but not Group B? How representative were the people you engaged with? etc etc
Either way, more robust and better documented processes are now needed….fast !
Trigger points
- Does your Consultation Strategy have a mechanism to ensure conformance to minimum process standards?
- Train everyone who undertakes consultation in the name of your organisation.
- Consider the Institute's Consultation & the Freedom of Information Act Seminar on June 23d in London….where these issues will be explored in depth…
This is the 36th 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