Friday is the closing date for a rather important consultation on a proposed statutory duty for public spaces and venues to protect the public from the risks of terrorism following the Manchester Arena bombing.

Few people challenge the underlying motives and, if enacted, it will become known as Martyn’s law after Martyn Murray who lost his young life in the incident.

But the proposals are controversial. In his Foreword, the Home Office Minister asserts that for many organisations and venues, the requirements of a Protect Duty would entail ‘minimal new costs’. Many consultees disagree. My own local church leaders are worried about the potential requirements to train elderly volunteers in security best practice. And they suspect that their insurers will insist on strict adherence to all the minutiae of security processes despite the Government preaching proportionality.

As always, the Institute avoids holding views about the substance of a consultation. But there are two troubling procedural issues which may cause problems for the Home Office.

1. Having to answer all 58 questions on the online questionnaire

That is a very large number of questions. No wonder the consultation document says: –

“Respondents can answer as many or as few questions as they wish. You do not have to comment on every section or respond to every question on each section but can focus on where you have relevant views and evidence to share. “

Like most contemporary consultations, it urges consultees to use the online survey, though it also accepts a ‘Word format’ questionnaire. Unfortunately, once into the online survey, you realise that there is no ability to skip some questions (even some that are clearly inapplicable). In other words, No answer; no progressing to the next question. The consultation Team know about this mistake and urged me to complete the survey using the word format. However, by not telling consultees of this glitch there is every danger that responders will have given up and their views will be unrecorded. Or they will have provided spurious answers to questions they’d prefer not to answer – which is just as bad.

The Home Office should immediately re-engineer its online survey and announce to everyone that partial responses are possible online. It should then extend the consultation by four weeks to allow those who did not want to answer all 58 questions online another opportunity to contribute – and for those who gave spurious answers to some questions an opportunity to withdraw them.

2. No demographic or equalities data collected

An increasing number of Government consultations now dispense with the previous practice of asking respondents to answer a set of demographic and/or equalities questions. It is an important omission. Their role is to enable an analysis of responses according to the type of consultee. Without such data, how will the Home Office satisfy itself that the requirements of equal access to the exercise (per Public Sector Equality Duty) are met?  Furthermore, if the Minister asks “What are the views of the Muslim community… or young people … or those in Wales ….? how can the consultation team answer?

No extension of the closing date can make up for this mistake. The Home Office will have thousands of responses, only some of whom will have identified themselves as answering on behalf of organisations. It limits the analysis that can be undertaken and weakens the evidence-base upon which Ministers will rely when it comes to piloting legislation through Parliament.

The Institute is now building what will, over time become the definitive resource for those who wish to track public consultations in the UK – and what happens to them. This is the ground-breaking MIDAS data warehouse. If you want to see this particular entry click here, it provides a link to the original consultation paper and other documents. We will update the record as the consultation unfolds.

By highlighting good practice – as well as poor practice, our aim is to drive up standards and by benchmarking, help consultors follow the lead of those who consult really well.

The Protect Duty consultation illustrates the truism that an otherwise acceptable consultation can easily be undermined by errors which can be easy to rectify. By offering the world’s first consultation-related mediation and arbitration service MIDASresolve , the Institute can help find solutions where consultees feel that the process has not been fair. Maybe the Home Office should try it.

For more information, contact the Institute here.