Counting to Ten - Is consultation at its most valuable when providing a breathing space

The hurly-burly of politics is often, in reality, a somewhat remote process. Journalists eager to break tomorrow’s story rather than probe and assess yesterday’s can whip up a synthetic excitement in what they admit is the 'Westminster Village'. And the rest of us just get on with our lives.

Just occasionally, however, democracies throw up astonishingly fast-moving dramas. They are not all in the league of Thatcher’s toppling from power or the cliffhanger of the Scottish referendum. But last week was hard to beat for sheer speed and potential implications. And that was before the long-awaited Chilcott Report! Who says politics is dull? Who says our entire country is not affected?

Febrile days like these are dangerous. At such times, candidates for high office adopt positions or make promises, and some that are made in haste can of course be repented at leisure. Abrupt changes of policy, U-turns, or the advent of new personalities are often presented more for impact than effectiveness. And there in lies the danger. It is not just the keys of No. 10 that can prompt very sudden changes as new brooms try to sweep clean in all manner of organisations.Regime change does not just happen at the level of the nation state.

High-speed decision-making smacks of firm, decisive Government or macho management. But it can also create uncertainty. A headline-grabbing announcement almost always involves more decisions and issues which affect stakeholders at the more detailed level. The prospect of BREXIT and the innumerable policy and administrative consequences may be the most spectacular example that is in all our minds, but in reality this theory applies to most situations of swift political change. And the case for public consultation at such times is particularly strong.

Let’s accept that we don’t as a rule launch a public consultation just as an antidoteto such events. Of itself, it isn’t a traffic-calming device for the political motorway. But, under certain circumstances, holding a public consultation can provide a welcome pause for thought. It’s an opportunity to calm things down a little and inject a period and a process of reflection in the headlong rush to change. Just look at the advantages:

• Preparing and publishing a formal consultation paper obliges those behind new change proposals to write up the case and subject it to proper scrutiny. How often do sensible-sounding policy changes look less appealing when having to be presented in the more prosaic format of a public consultation? Looking at the boring detail can lower the temperature and switch the focus from rhetoric to reality.

• The time needed for an effective consultation provides the opportunity for debate and for affected stakeholders to absorb the proposals and figure out what the implications may be. If we are talking about very large numbers of consultees, or if voluntary and community bodies are involved, there must be enough time for them to engage in secondary consultation. When we see a consultation being rushed it is a sign that maybe listening is a lower priority for those who organised it.

• The duty to consider and publish anticipated impacts has grown in importance following key legal judgments,but inevitably also takes time. Far from slowing down the momentum for change it should be a positive period of research and exploration whilst the knock-on effects are thought through.

• Having a consultation widens the circle of those involved andhelps identify pockets of expertise or opinion that can help refine proposals and make them workable. Reluctant bosses or civil servants fear that consultations help opponents coalesce, but when properly done such an exercise can also build coalitions of support for new thinking or new policies.

Recent Chancellors have used Budget speeches to announce a large number of Government initiatives, and in so doing launch public consultations on the details. Some survive the test, but others can come unstuck. One great example is the recent row about forcing all schools to become Academies. It took only six weeks for the plans to unravel but that was partly because there was no adequate consultation. In the absence of a formal structure for debating the issue, local politicians started to voice their discontent and backbench MPs similarly campaigned against them. The lack of detail fuelled speculation as to how exactly the new policy would be handled and the bureaucratic burden placed on small primary schools.

Ironically it had only been a few weeks earlier that the Junior Education Minister in the House of Lords, Lord Nash had pooh-poohed the whole idea of consulting parents if failing schools were to be converted into Academies. Consultations, he said “unintentionally raise the temperature of debate, rather like when one gets lawyers involved in divorce settlements and could be used to create delays”. There spoke someone for whom speed is more important than getting a decision right. When prepared and conducted well, consultation can take the heat out of the situation and let everyone consider what’s best. It’s not the main aim of a consultation, but providing a safe haven for rational argument has much to commend it when radical changes are afoot and we are all so uncertain what comes next.

TRIGGER POINTS

• Are there situations in your organisation where a consultation might cool things a little and provide time and space for a wider debate?
• Do you provide enough time to think through the likely impact of proposals, and to subject them to informed scrutiny?
• Many of the themes covered in this topic can be discussed at greater length at our learning and training events.

This is the 301st 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