Originally published 13 June 2014. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
So the consultation is over; the data is analysed; feedback has been published and a final decision has now been taken.
For those whose lives are much involved with the processes of consultation and engagement, it may well be time to express a sigh of relief, or maybe move on to the next project. But of course it may well be far from the end of the story; this could just be the beginning. After all, some of our most important public consultations are about major initiatives of enormous scale and significance. Think High-Speed Two, a Nuclear power station, reconfigured hospital services or new Government policies. For such projects, the consultation is – to use a famous phrase – “the end of the beginning”
As projects move towards their implementation phase, the personnel can change. Teams that have worked together over a consultation are sometimes disbanded and those responsible for implementation frequently come from a technical background, and may have very limited experience of public engagement. For these and other reasons, the Institute has, for some time been considering whether it might be possible to devise a set of best practice standards that could be relevant for this implementation phase.
The challenge is that whereas consultation falls into a consistent set of processes regardless of the business or policy context, implementations vary enormously.
Some take place pretty immediately, and may affect only a small group of key stakeholders, all of whom will have been involved in the previous consultation. Others can take years or even decades and affect thousands of people, many of whom will never have been engaged with – let alone have any involvement in the consultation. Almost all require some form of continuing engagement for those who implement major change need to work alongside communities that are impacted. Would it be possible to write a set of guidance that would make sense and command support in these different circumstances?
Institute members now have the opportunity to judge for themselves as we circulate the first draft for comment. We learnt ten years ago that the KISS (Keep it simple stupid!) principle should apply when writing standards, but one has to tackle the fundamentals. In the end we have adopted six rules, which can be briefly summarised as follows:
One: Keeping promises: this means keeping any promises made in the consultation!
Two: Communicate progress: keeping everyone informed about the implementation
Three: Maintain contact: have a continuing channel of communication with relevant stakeholders
Four: Machinery for dialogue: adequate arrangements to address issues of common interest
Five: Updated impacts: ensuring that impact assessments take account of changing circumstances
Six: Measure stakeholder perceptions: knowing the changing views of those affected
Obviously, these are just the headline, and as always best practice is all about the detail, and that needs to reflect the different environments of implementation. Maybe it’s best to illustrate with some scenarios:
- A major civil engineering project may involve much disruption to local residents, businesses and even those travelling through a particular area. They will all expect that undertakings given about noise, traffic or street closures will be kept, and prudent implementers will probably invest in local liaison staff who will communicate regularly and be responsive when there are unforeseen problems.
- Implementing service reductions in a local authority. Library closures, for example may need new arrangements to meet the needs of specific groups. A consultative forum of some kind might be formed, and within its terms of reference, possibly the oversight of updated impact assessments. It might also organise a survey of resident views as new services are introduced.
- NHS reconfigurations, involving patients in having to attend different hospitals. Continuing dialogue will be necessary with statutory consultees such as Healthwatch, but a much wider range of the public will need to be kept informed.
- A new controversial policy from an Executive Agency might have implications not fully grasped at the time of the consultation – or be affected by subsequent events. Here it might call for an independent chair of a panel of stakeholders to monitor and review the implementation
What is plain is that implementations may require a range of engagement solutions – tailored to their own circumstances. But these six principles can help serve as a checklist or an agenda for those needing to follow up on a best practice consultation with equally best practice implementation
TRIGGER POINTS
- The full wording of the Implementation Engagement Standards is available upon request from Jan Warner on 01767 318350, or hello@consultationinstitute.org
- These standards will, in due course be incorporated into the Institute’s full Quality Assurance scheme, enabling clients to obtain a Certificate of Best Practice when they are able to show themselves meeting the Six principles
- In the meantime, we are happy to discuss these principles and how they might work. If you are interested in a Roundtable discussion on the subject, please contact Jan (see above)
This is the 261st Tuesday Topic; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation a