Coffee Morning – Season Two: Thirteen Sessions, May to July

Season One concluded at the end of April. Season Two opens on the 7th May with thirteen sessions covering legal risk, equality analysis, data, digital practice, and stakeholder management. We are also delighted to announce that we have a number of special guests joining us.

Season Two of the tCI Coffee Morning runs every Wednesday from 7 May to 30 July. The format is unchanged from Season One: one hour, one topic, led by a tCI Fellow or a specialist guest, with the floor open for discussion from practitioners dealing with the same questions.

Thirteen sessions are confirmed for the summer programme. The topics range from the legal foundations every consultor needs, including Gunning principle one and the mechanics of judicial review, to the practical disciplines of data analysis, digital content, equality analysis, and stakeholder management. Each session is followed by an Insight Journal, a short written record of the key discussion points, available to all tCI members.

If you joined us for Season One, we will be in touch to confirm your place for Season Two. If you are joining for the first time, email hello@consultationinstitute.org to register for the full programme.

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Insight Journals

After each Coffee Morning, we publish an Insight Journal: a short written record of the session’s key discussion points, case references, and practical conclusions. Season One produced twelve journals, covering co-production, AI in questionnaires, seldom-heard communities, Healthwatch, stakeholder mapping, the law of consultation, continuous engagement, emergency service change, digital engagement, and equality analysis. If you want Season One’s Journals, please email us at email hello@consultationinstitute.org and we will send them over to you.

The journals are circulated to registered attendees. If you are not registered for Season Two, you will not receive them. Registration is free.

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How to Join

Sessions run on Wednesday mornings from 11am to 12pm, via MS Teams. To register, email hello@consultationinstitute.org and we will send you an invite for the full season. You can also join directly using these credentials:

Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/322282671537538?p=ouGzFs5AHDcM20DCqY

Meeting ID: 322 282 671 537 538 / Passcode: vb27mS2k

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7 May | The Value of a Strong Pre-Consultation

Good consultation rarely begins with the consultation itself. Nick examines what genuine pre-consultation looks like, how it differs from simply preparing a process, and why organisations that invest in it tend to produce better outcomes and carry less legal risk.

Facilitator: Nick Duffin
Good for: practitioners planning formal consultations; legal, governance, and risk leads

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14 May | Managing Political Stakeholders

Every public consultation has a political dimension, and some have a great deal more than others. Rory Hegarty and David Mallet examine how to map political stakeholders, how to make the case for change persuasively, when to use trusted spokespeople, and how to handle the range of actors from local councillors to central government.

Facilitators: Rory Hegarty & David Mallet
Good for: anyone running contentious consultations; communications leads; public affairs teams

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21 May | Judicial Review: Why and How?

Most consultation practitioners know that judicial review is the ultimate sanction for a flawed process. Fewer understand how a challenge actually gets there. Barry traces the journey from a threatened JR to a court judgment, demystifying what happens at each stage and what decision-makers need to understand.

Facilitator: Barry Creasy
Good for: all consultation practitioners; governance officers; senior decision-makers

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28 May | What Consultation Data Could Look Like

Most organisations run a consultation, produce a summary report, and file it. Once written, the data that fed into it is effectively locked away. Luiseach Flynn demonstrates what a structured approach looks like: a live dashboard showing who responded, what they said, and how concerns break down across respondent types and channels.

Facilitator: Special Guest – Luiseach Flynn
Good for: analysts; consultation leads; anyone responsible for producing reports or presenting findings

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4 June | tbc (Extra Special Guest)

…

Facilitator: Extra Special Guest
Good for: 

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11 June | Managing Campaigners, NIMBYs, IMBYs and More

Opposition is a fact of life in public consultation. Andy Wright examines the different types of organised stakeholder that consultors encounter, from campaign groups to those opposing change in their own back yards, and explores practical approaches to keeping their involvement constructive.

Facilitator: Andy Wright
Good for: project managers; anyone running contentious planning or service change consultations

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18 June | The Art of Digital Content

Digital content that fails to engage produces poor participation data. Rachel Richardson covers the practical principles that separate content people engage with from content they ignore, looking at what works when presenting consultation material to the public and to stakeholders online.

Facilitator: Returning Special Guest – Rachel Richardson
Good for: communications teams; digital engagement leads; anyone designing online consultation materials

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25 June | The Importance of Learning to Code

Whether or not a practitioner ever writes a single line of code themselves, understanding what coding of consultation outputs involves changes how they approach analysis. Barry makes the case for coding literacy as a core practitioner skill, and examines what that means in an era where AI is increasingly doing the coding.

Facilitator: Barry Creasy
Good for: practitioners involved in analysis; anyone using AI to process or summarise consultation responses

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2 July | Who Is Most Guilty of Failing Gunning 1?

Predetermination is one of the most common allegations made against consultors. Nick takes a different angle: examining who is genuinely most prone to failing the first Gunning principle, what that pattern looks like in practice, and how understanding it can improve the way consultations are designed and, if necessary, defended.

Facilitator: Nick Duffin
Good for: all consultation practitioners; anyone who has faced or is anticipating a legal challenge

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9 July | Connecting Stakeholder Maps to Engagement Activity

A stakeholder map that sits in a spreadsheet and is never revisited is a wasted tool. Luiseach Flynn demonstrates what it looks like when a map is treated as a live document, linked to engagement records, and used to track who was planned to be reached, who actually participated, and where the gaps remain.

Facilitator: Special Guest – Luiseach Flynn
Good for: project managers; engagement coordinators; anyone responsible for stakeholder tracking

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16 July | Looking Through Consultees’ Eyes

Survey and questionnaire design is often done from the inside out: from the organisation’s perspective rather than the consultee’s. Barry examines why that matters, what happens when it goes wrong, and the discipline of genuinely leaving one’s own frame of reference when designing consultation materials.

Facilitator: Barry Creasy
Good for: anyone designing surveys or questionnaires; consultation leads; communications teams

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23 July | Seldom Heard. Do We Know Who?

The ‘seldom heard’ label is applied to some obvious groups, and the less obvious ones are often missed entirely. Mike Bartram examines who is actually being missed, why assumptions about hard-to-reach groups can give a false sense of coverage, and what better practice looks like.

Facilitator: Mike Bartram
Good for: all consultation practitioners; EDI leads; community engagement teams

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30 July | When Are the Digitally Excluded Digitally Included?

Providing alternative access for those identified as digitally excluded is now standard practice. What is less well understood is how to support genuine digital participation among that same group. Rachel explores the distinction and what practical approaches exist for reaching people whose digital engagement is possible but not yet happening.

Facilitator: Returning Special Guest – Rachel Richardson
Good for: anyone running hybrid or digital-first consultations; accessibility leads; digital inclusion teams