News & Insights
Counting the cost of consultation – The basic laws of arithmetic apply to consultation as well!
Public consultation is not traditional accountant-territory. Few consultation projects are formally budgeted, and many of the costs involved are normally funded from larger departmental or functional budget allocations.
If you run a sizeable corporate communications department with a substantial budget earmarked for publicity, it may appear dogmatic hair-splitting to account separately for distributing leaflets inviting local residents to a public meeting. After all, aren’t consultation exercises but a sub-set of the wider task of public engagement?
Well yes …… and no! It is true that it is sometimes inconvenient to untangle cost allocations, but it is also high time a degree of financial discipline was exercised over consultations. The Institute estimates that the public sector alone spends over 100 million Pounds on public and stakeholder consultation, and there is natural concern that taxpayers receive value for money.
Here are three good reasons why consultations should be properly costed:-
Access to this content is exclusively for Institute members
Not a member? Unlock this article and more today by signing up for a Consultation Institute membership. Benefit from access to over 300 Topic Papers and Briefing Notes, discounted rates on all public training and more. Click on Join Now today to find out more and sign up.
Rhion Jones
More news
A Welsh Government advisory group published its progress report on democratic renewal in Wales this month. Buried in the detail...
We published an earlier version of this article in 2019 under the title “Will purdah affect your consultation?” The underlying...
A Section 114 notice is a statutory declaration that a council cannot balance its budget under the Local Government Finance Act 1988....
