Simon Angelides

Youth Panels and Co-Design: Moving Beyond Symbolic Inclusion in Public Consultation

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The challenge The challenge of engaging younger people in public decision-making has become sufficiently well-rehearsed that it no longer warrants extended description. Consultation exercises continue to attract responses that skew older and more institutionally confident. What has shifted, albeit slowly, is the recognition that this is not simply a problem of reach. It is a […]

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Why does more Consultation Evidence Weaken Decision-Making

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Introduction In public decision making, it is common to treat volume as protection. More meetings. More survey returns. More submissions. The assumption is that a larger evidence base makes a decision safer under scrutiny. That assumption is often wrong. Scrutiny rarely turns on how much engagement you ran. It turns on whether your evidence base

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AI and Code Framing: A Framework for Responsible Adoption

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The Promise and the Caution AI is arriving in government consultation. Cambridge City Council’s planning department and the Central Government are piloting systems to process responses faster, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of work-days annually. But citizens demand rigorous oversight. The public holds AI to higher standards than humans and expects transparency. Any hint of

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From Gunning to Moseley: What Case Law Tells Us About Option Development

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The risks of premature engagement What happens when an organisation moves to public engagement before fully developing its options? From the NHS to local councils to infrastructure projects, consultations can falter when the option development phase has been insufficient. Moving to public engagement without robust option development can lead to weaker outcomes, increased legal risk,

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Gunning Principles and Accessibility: Why 20% Can’t Access Your Public Consultation

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Introduction Public consultations must be fair and inclusive, ensuring all participants can understand proposals and provide meaningful feedback. One of the well-known Gunning Principles for lawful consultation requires that sufficient information be provided to allow for “intelligent consideration and response”. In practice, when information isn’t readily accessible, whether due to format, language, or barriers related

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When 94% Say No: Getting Emergency Service Consultations Right

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What is the Challenge? When planning major changes to emergency services, the stakes are significant. Decisions such as closing fire stations or adopting new policing models affect public safety and trust. A poorly managed public consultation can backfire, leading to community backlash, delays, or even legal challenges. For Chief Fire Officers, Police and Crime Commissioners,

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Consultation under Section 114: Engaging Communities amid Financial Crisis

Article, Section 114 /

When a council issues a Section 114 notice, it declares that it cannot balance its budget. Recent years have seen Woking, Thurrock, Slough, Croydon and Birmingham reach this crisis point. Yet even in this emergency state, councillors and officers remain legally bound to consult fairly and meaningfully on service cuts or budget changes. The stakes

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Public Consultation? A Practical Test for ‘Significant Change’ in the Real World

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Public Consultation Requirements Public sector leaders routinely face a deceptively simple question: does this change require formal public consultation? The answer matters enormously. Consult too little and you risk legal challenge, damaged trust and derailed projects; consult too much and you waste scarce resources on unnecessary process. This guide cuts through the complexity. It explains

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What Recent LTN Cases Tell Us About Consultation Risk: From Process to Product

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A Shift in Where Risk Lives Three cases in particular mark out the current territory: West Dulwich Service Station v Lambeth (2025), Hawes v Tower Hamlets (2024), and the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Sheakh v Lambeth (2022). Together with HHRC Ltd v Hackney(2021), they reveal a decisive shift in where legal risk now sits. The standard for consultation design has not

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Abolishing Police & Crime Commissioners Deepens the Democratic Deficit: Structures to Bridge the Gap

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Scrapping Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) may look like an efficiency gain – but it risks widening the gap between police and the public. The government’s own figures note turnout and awareness have been “incredibly low” for PCCs, with around 2-in-5 people not even knowing who their PCC is. These challenges, however, don’t stem from

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