Britain prepares for BREXIT – The role of Public Consultation

This paper has been written for policy-makers and officials working in the civil service. It will also be relevant to politicians, academics and public engagement professionals working in the public, private or voluntary/community sectors.

It considers how public and/or stakeholder consultation can work in the febrile policy environment that follows the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. It argues that conventional methods of policy-making may not work in this changed environment and that the conventional model of consultation and the well-developed legal rules underpinning it may need to modified under certain circumstances. It illustrates four scenarios where Ministers, Government departments, devolved administrations and other public bodies facing the need for accelerated policy-making might choose to do something different in terms of engaging relevant stakeholders and the general public. These ideas have been generated as thought-starters and the Consultation Institute intends leading the debate on this important subject.

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