Originally published 28 April 2010. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
The first week of the General Election witnessed something of a Dutch auction as to who could be most credible about ‘efficiency savings’. One side says it’s easy – only 1% of Government spending; the other side talks of sums being made on the back of an envelope!
Mandarins at the Ministries will however be preparing for budget cuts whoever wins, and as all the talk is of ‘intelligent’ savings and of protecting ‘front-line’ services, expect pressure on policy-making staff and the backroom researchers that help gather the evidence. Council leaders will probably come up with a similar analysis. So will this impact upon the extent to which the public and key stakeholders are consulted?
Central Government departments organised well over 500 consultations in the last 12 months; add another 100 odd in Scotland and 150 in Wales. These are some of the numbers:-
Is it likely that the cost-cutters will decree that too many of these are unnecessary, tick-in-the box exercises? They may well be able to argue that significant changes in the wake of many of these consultations are few and far between. Why waste the time of key stakeholders if the issues are cut and dried, and the outcome already pre-determined? Let’s save money ... and speed up the decision-making process!
In practice, any such stance would probably be temporary. Few Government consultations are done just to be nice to people. The reason why there are 500 not 50 is that successive Sir Humphreys have burnt their fingers by making mistakes which a dialogue with those who understand the subject would avoid. There could, of course be a retreat from involving the wider public, and the use of online techniques can give the impression of greater participation than is sometimes the reality. But the international trend is towards more and more people wishing to be involved, and to influence the big decisions. In the USA, eParticipation is a major theme of the Obama administration, and the younger generation of politicians in most democracies speak the language of public engagement. If we have to guess between a future with more consultations or fewer, it’s a brave person that thinks there will be fewer.
But at least with central Government, we know how many consultations take place.
At local level in many places, public engagement is hopelessly unco-ordinated and no wonder there are complaints of consultation fatigue. Not only are some Partnerships unaware of who is consulting about what – some Councils have little visibility of what public engagement is undertaken by each department. Mention money and eyes glaze; very few local authorities know what it costs to dialogue with their public.
Ironically, Councils are almost certainly responsible for some of the best consultations. But standards are uneven and in the coming months the need to work economically with other local agencies, and particularly with the NHS will force Chief Officers to grasp the nettle. There are clear signs that this is happening. The Institute has, in recent months seen a number of projects initiated to discover precisely what is happening in their area. Some have called is ‘consultation mapping’ – though this is misleading. The better term is a Baseline Audit. If you’re squeamish, call it a Baseline Study.
Whatever it’s called, what everyone running public consultations needs to do in readiness for the ‘efficiencies’ that others may seek – is to understand what is currently done, and be rigorous in assessing its effectiveness. This means going beyond merely counting engagement exercises; it means undertaking a qualitative analysis of what was achieved by such engagement.
Armed with this information, we can all face the calls for ‘efficiency savings’ with greater confidence.
Trigger point
- Does your organisation know how many consultations it has undertaken, how much they cost...and what they have achieved?
- To learn how best to conduct a Baseline Study, talk to the Consultation Institute.
- How will the Election affect public engagement and consultation? Join us to consider whether there will be more or less at Public engagement issues for a new Government.
This is the 159th 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