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Is Gove the most consultation-savvy Minister?

It was always going to take a good story to dislodge the Windrush fiasco from the news headlines. Michael Gove’s promise to ban single-use sale of plastic straws, drink stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton buds did precisely that.

For future students of the way in which 10 Downing Street works, this will be a classic case study in news management. For those of us working in public engagement, might it be a case study in Ministerial use of consultation?

Michael Gove is on a consultation ‘binge’. His department has launched 35 consultations since his appointment to DEFRA in June 2017. Compare that with a total of 13 in the previous 12 months. There are good reasons. BREXIT affects the environment more than most but other departments such as Transport have also seen a growth in consultation exercises. Gove, however seems particularly adept at converting the bad news of uncertainty into the good news of opportunity.

In respect of this week’s announcement, note the following:-

  • This is not the announcement of a ban – just an announcement of a consultation ‘later this year’. It provides no guarantees about the scope of the consultation, its duration or its form. Neither does it provide a date.
  • On his energetic tour of the broadcasting studios on Thursday morning, Gove promised that the ban would take place by the end of the year. Given the need for Parliamentary time (if a ban was to have a statutory basis) for there to be sufficient time for a 12 week consultation, time to analyse the results and to consider the output, this is brisk indeed. Will there be a risk to the quality of the exercise?
  • Not all DEFRA’s recent consultations have been immune to criticism. The methodology (relying too much on rankings rather than ratings) used in the high-profile consultation on the future of food and farming due to close in early May, is attracting scrutiny and the impacts of new policies raise far more questions that will require further, more specific consultations.
  • The way in which the Prime Minister hijacked Gove’s announcement and tried to leverage it for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers conference suggests that this, fundamentally, is seen in Whitehall as a ‘good news story’. The trouble with such initiatives is that the follow-through is seldom as effective as the original presentation – so environmental pressure groups and other campaigners will need to keep up the pressure to see if Mr Gove can deliver a high-integrity consultation that will live up to the early hype.

There are two ways to view the Environment Secretary’s current use of consultations. The uncharitable view is that this is all about giving the impression of activity rather than serious changes to policy or practices. Critics would claim that the Government is more interested in the publicity about its good intentions – and that similar exercises on banning microbeads, the deposit return scheme for bottles and on Air Quality have yet to demonstrate the promised results.

But one can take a more positive stance.

For years we have complained that Ministers have determined a course of action, persuaded their civil servants to formulate a plan and then consult the public tokenistically. The telltale signs are usually there as the questions start “Do you agree with us that ….” Now most of the recent consultations have been better than that, and Gove should be given credit for consulting whilst there is still some opportunity to influence important decisions.

In our forthcoming book, The Politics of consultation, we consider the huge pressures on Ministers and the inevitable temptations to cut corners. The cleverest Ministers are those that see the benefits of involving stakeholders sufficiently early. If the price for this is that Government news managers are tempted to go OTT on the original announcement, it may be the lesser evil than a sham consultation too late to matter.

So, is Gove the most consultation-savvy? The quality of the next consultation, and the way he listens and uses the data collected will tell us the answer.

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