Originally published 20 December 2004. This article is retained from the tCI archive. Law, policy or practice may have changed since publication.
Rumour has it that Scrooge lives somewhere in HM Treasury!
Seriously, most public bodies have an institutionalised kill-joy ready to shout Bah, Humbug at any form of consultation or public engagement.
Our Christmas wish is for such sad souls to experience the nightmare of Dickens’ original creation.
In the Ghost of Consultations Past, he or she-who-must-be-obeyed occasionally condescended to ask of the great unwashed whether there was anything they wanted! Answering this rhetorical question would probably provoke an explosion of rage. How dare the public answer back? After all, policy-makers always knew best .
Then comes the vision of present-day Consultation – thousands of able, intelligent public servants struggling to set up focus groups, run citizens panels, meeting stakeholders, tenants associations or hard-to-reach groups. Scrooge notices how some of these are blessed with big fat budgets, glossy brochures, fancy websites and seminars in expensive hotels. Then he sees that others have to do without – still using Windows 95 and post-it notes instead of a database. He also sees the callous indifference of some of the bosses – ignoring the consultation output whether the money spent on it was large or small.
But what did Scrooge see lying ahead? Did the Ghost of Consultation Future appear as in the Christmas Carol - bleak and de-personalised – where consultation has become a tick-in-the-box formulaic paper-chase, where the consultor pretends to ask, and the stakeholder pretends to answer …?
Or did the Ghost transform into the Christmas Fairy who, with a wave of her wand, makes all concerned take the process seriously? Is there, maybe, a future where no-one starts a consultation unless they genuinely want to hear the answers, and where stakeholders feel it worthwhile to devote energy and talent to submitting their views? Let’s hope so!
Trigger points
- To influence the future, work with the Institute in 2005
- Enjoy a Merry Christmas!
- Have a Happy New Year!
This is the 25th 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