Tuesday Topic

Change requires consultation – we all know this. It is one of the reasons why public engagement is so important in these days of deficit-reduction and massive organisational upheavals. But other conditions also place a premium on the ability of people and bodies to maintain a reasonable dialogue. They include those situations when different entities […]

Whilst we were all anxiously awaiting the ‘advent’ of the real Localism Bill, how many of us noticed the introduction of the Christmas (Localism in action) Regulations? Under these liberating new arrangements, Councils will, henceforth, be able to make whatever arrangements they like concerning Christmas. Ministers argue that we have suffered greatly from a top-down

In the coming months, as the Police Reform Bill goes through Parliament, we will hear a lot about the pros and cons of placing England’s 41 Chief Constables under the direction of an elected politician. The proposals aren’t new, and have been subject to a recent consultation. This revealed anxieties that the new Police and

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

All those who are interested in civic affairs are engaged in a guessing game right now – trying to anticipate the kind of landscape we will all face after the General Election. Few of us have ever experienced a campaign with so many uncertainties, and policy-makers have to consider three or four different scenarios for

Listening to the media, we may be forgiven for being a little confused as to who won, and who lost the High Court case about the proposed Third Runway for Heathrow. According to the BBC, “Lord Justice Carnwath ruled the public consultation about expansion was invalid, because it was based on out-of-date figures”. Yet a

Like a sticky label that resists all attempts to be removed from a piece of luggage, we cling to some terms or phrases long after they have ceased being useful. ‘Hard-to-Reach’ is one such label. What’s wrong with it is the implication that it is somehow a group’s own ‘fault’ that it cannot be reached.

‘Nothing but the truth’ is the title of a discussion paper published by the Audit Commission just before Christmas. In it, it reveals its anxieties about the quality of information provided to the public and exposes some of what goes wrong both locally and nationally. This matters to consultation professionals for three reasons

In the world of customer service, we now know that Companies who treat their workforce badly have real problems delivering a high standard of service to their customers. Maybe staff are still loyal, are still motivated and even willing to disguise any disillusionment they feel with their employer – but somehow it shows. One can

It’s already law! Section 1 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act creates a new duty for local authorities in England and Wales to promote the opportunities for citizen involvement in a surprising range of local institutions. These include a long list of those which critics have long labelled as featuring a ‘democratic