Tameside’s Inquiring Minds in Action: How a Council Brings Best Practice to Life (2026 Update)

This is an update to the Institute’s previous article – Tameside: Inquiring Minds – the fundamentals of consultation

Understanding Tameside Council’s Strategic Consultation Framework

Back in 2020, Tameside Council worked with the Consultation Institute to establish consultation frameworks and quality assurance processes that would shape its approach for years to come. Building on this foundation, the council has developed an ambitious Partnership Engagement Network (PEN) that brings together the council, NHS Tameside & Glossop, and other partners to coordinate genuine public engagement across the borough. Rather than each agency running isolated consultations, they’ve created what they call “a conversation about ‘place shaping’” for the future prosperity of Tameside and its communities.

This multi-agency consultation approach delivers strategic engagement work for Tameside and Glossop. Many public consultations, particularly on health and social care, are run jointly by the Council and NHS, creating a single, borough-wide dialogue with residents. In recent years, Tameside has facilitated dozens of joint engagement projects and held regular PEN conferences bringing together public service leaders, voluntary groups, and residents to shape policy.

Gunning Principles and Legal Consultation Standards

The council’s guiding principles include starting conversations early, involving all stakeholder groups (including seldom-heard voices), and feeding back results. The council explicitly references the Gunning Principles, the well-established legal standards for fair consultation. According to the council’s consultation policy documentation, these principles require that:

1. Consultation must take place when proposals are still formative
2. Sufficient reasons must be provided for intelligent consideration
3. Adequate time must be given for consultation responses
4. Results must be conscientiously taken into account by decision-makers

By embedding the Gunning Principles for consultation, Tameside ensures its consultations withstand public scrutiny and legal challenge, and that community input genuinely influences decisions.

The “Inquiring Minds” Best Practice Approach to Public Consultation

Tameside Council’s consultation methodology aligns closely with best-practice models developed with The Consultation Institute. Interestingly, the term “Inquiring Minds” in this consultation context traces back to Tameside itself, linked to the “Tameside duty of inquiry”, a legal principle from a 1977 court case. In Secretary of State for Education v. Tameside MBC, Lord Diplock established that officials must ask themselves the right questions and take reasonable steps to gather relevant information before making decisions.

These “Inquiring Minds” fundamentals have become part of consultation best practice. The Consultation Institute notes that this Tameside duty dovetails with the Gunning Principles: officials should consult the right people at a formative stage and conscientiously consider all gathered information before final decisions.

Consultation Quality Standards and Framework Implementation

Today, Tameside Council seeks to ensure its consultations are “fair, lawful, and defensible”, echoing the Consultation Institute’s quality standards. This involves applying consultation frameworks that stress legal compliance, transparency, and accountability. Consultations are only launched when proposals remain open to influence, and ample information is provided so the public can give informed feedback.

Tameside Council Consultation Case Studies – 2026 Update

Local Plan Consultation 2025: “Homes, Spaces and Places”

Tameside’s consultation approach comes alive in its current Local Plan consultation process. The new Local Plan, “Homes, Spaces and Places”, has been developed through multiple stages of public engagement. Before any formal plan was drafted, the council carried out early-stage consultations including “Big Conversation” surveys on issues and options.

By December 2025, the council launched a comprehensive public consultation, inviting residents, businesses and stakeholders across Tameside to have their say on how the borough should grow up to 2042. This planning consultation builds on feedback gathered during the first two stages of engagement, demonstrating that previous input was taken into account.

The council is using a mix of online consultation and in-person drop-in sessions in every town, so people can review proposals, ask questions, and give views face to face. This reflects consultation framework principles: engaging widely, providing accessible information (the full draft plan, interactive maps), and ensuring the process is open at a formative stage when the plan can still be modified. By the time the plan is adopted, Tameside will have a clear audit trail of how public input influenced policies.

Budget Consultation and Joint NHS Partnership Engagement

Tameside Council regularly consults the public on its budget and key service changes, often in partnership with health commissioners. The Council and NHS Tameside & Glossop have run joint “Budget Conversation” consultations to involve residents in difficult spending decisions. For example, the council undertook a joint budget consultation exercise for the 2021/22 budget with the CCG, inviting the community to help shape priorities and ensure health and social care funding reflects local needs.

Such budget consultations present the financial context, outline proposed savings or investments, and ask residents for their preferences, aligning with the principle of giving sufficient reasons and data for intelligent responses. By partnering with the NHS on combined consultations, Tameside acknowledges that council services and healthcare are interconnected for residents.

Tameside’s engagement work in health and care has been recognised externally. The area was one of only 13 (out of 195) to earn a top “Green Star” rating for patient and public engagement in the NHS’s national assessment framework, suggesting the council’s consultation methods meet high standards of inclusivity and influence.

Community Co-Production and Social Care Consultation

In social care, Tameside applies co-production and engagement models to ensure policies are shaped by those affected. The Partnership Engagement Network has hosted themed conferences and stakeholder “summits”, such as a Neighbourhood Summit and Co-operative Summit, bringing together public service leaders, community groups, and residents to guide future plans.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the council pivoted to virtual engagement. It held online PEN sessions on questions like “How do we do things differently in the future based on experiences of COVID-19?”, ensuring even during crisis conditions the public had input into service recovery plans. Feedback from these online consultation sessions (for example, on improving mental health support and communication with vulnerable groups) informed the council’s pandemic response and future resilience planning. This illustrates Tameside’s commitment to continuous engagement: even outside formal consultations, the council takes the temperature of the community on emerging issues.

Building a Culture of Effective Public Consultation

In all these consultation examples, whether statutory Local Plan consultations, budget engagement, or ongoing health and social care dialogues, Tameside Council’s use of established consultation frameworks is apparent. Consultations are timely (early in the decision process), well-publicised, and accessible, adhering to legal principles to ensure fairness.

The Council leverages consultation frameworks from the Consultation Institute for quality assurance, considering tools like consultation risk assessments or independent reviews to validate that each consultation is robust and defensible. By shaping its consultation approach around these best practice models, Tameside aims to make each consultation safe from legal challenge and credible in the eyes of the public.

Key Takeaways: Tameside’s Consultation Best Practice Model

The net effect is a public consultation culture in Tameside that values:

• Early engagement at the formative stage of decision-making
• Legal and ethical rigour through application of Gunning Principles
• Multi-agency partnership working between council and NHS
• Genuine community influence on decisions from healthcare reforms to town planning
• Quality assurance and consultation framework compliance
• Diverse consultation methods including online, face-to-face, and virtual engagement

This comprehensive approach to public consultation demonstrates how local authorities can implement consultation best practice whilst meeting legal requirements and genuinely engaging communities in shaping their borough’s future.

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How tCI Can Help

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Whether you’re preparing for a high stakes service change, building long-term consultation capability, or need confidence that your evidence approach will stand up to scrutiny, we can help.

Contact tCI: hello@consultationinstitute.org