With budget season well underway there has been much debate across the UK as to spending plans. It’s all very important and very interesting, but it’s easy for us non-economists to get burnt out on trying to grapple with the numbers- so what else has been going on across the UK political sphere?

Westminster

There has been much debate in the House of Lords about the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, part of the government’s drive to better protect serving troops and veterans from legal consequences for their actions in service. The bill has proved incredibly controversial not only in the Westminster bubble but outside it, with some of the proposals which include the introduction of a presumption against prosecution for alleged historical offences, measures that could make it easier for the UK to derogate from human rights law and potentially leading to impunity for offences committed on active service.

The question of the presumption against prosecution was under examination in the Lords this week, with peers questioning why the Government is proposing the presumption to arise only five years after alleged offences. In light of the fact that the consultation on the bill initially recommended a ten-year period between alleged offences and a presumption against prosecution arising, why had the government changed it in the final bill?

Responding for the Government, the minister informed the House that the changes had been made in response to the consultation. So we went back to the consultation to see what it said. Rather strangely, sixty percent of respondents (911 responses) agreed with the initial ten-year proposal. As we always say however consultation is not a numbers game, and here it would seem to be especially so. The Government response to the consultation states that “many comments were not supportive of the 10-year timeframe”. With 708 comments given in response, we’re curious about how many is ‘many’. We’re going to try and find out, but in the meantime, we can’t help but wonder whether ‘many’ might be some degree of authorial sleight of hand.

Even if all of the comments received from respondents were solely from the 599 respondents who objected to the 10-year time frame, then can we necessarily assume that of the 911 who indicated their satisfaction with the time frame, 109 of them also said “We think 10 years is too long”? It seems somewhat unlikely. There is no reason of course that the Government couldn’t decide to change the policy off the back of the consultation, that’s what consultation is for, but on this one, we want to see more of the numbers, and more of the rationale.

Scotland

The Scottish Parliament passed the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill this week, a major new effort to update and consolidate hate crime laws, as well as adding additional protected categories under hate crime legislation. It also, though this is merely a curious and interesting side note, abolishes the criminal offence of blasphemy in Scotland, an offence that has not been prosecuted for over 175 years.

The Bill itself has been very controversial on multiple scores with some critics claiming it may risk having impacts on free speech, and others objecting to the non-inclusion of sex as a protected characteristic. Due to the tragic events of the last week this issue is now top of a lot of minds, and though the Scottish Government has agreed to establish a working group to look at the creation of a separate criminal offence to cover misogynistic abuse, many MSPs are unhappy with what they allege to be a lack of consultation with women on the impacts and need for protection from sexist hate crime. In light of the strength of feeling, it will be interesting to see what approach the working  group takes. A consultative process, drawing in contributions from all stakeholders may well be the best approach and, if done properly, would demonstrate a genuine commitment to balance and listening to all relevant voices. There are many important factors to consider in getting it right, so we’ll be watching very closely to see what happens.

Northern Ireland

Alright, I’m sorry, we are going to discuss one budget-related story. A couple of weeks ago we discussed the pre-budget process in Northern Ireland and Scotland of consultation, which we contrasted with the post-budget consultations more common in England and Wales. Interestingly, there were protests in the Northern Ireland Assembly this week that the pre-budget consultation process there for the current budget had been insufficient. Members raised many points, largely around the apparent lack of consultation on community need and the lack of focus on strategic priorities and the attendant inability of stakeholders to effectively comment. The strategic priorities issue is one not only drawing concerns from members, but also from the NI Chamber of Commerce, so is there potentially a problem here? One of the important things for consultors to remember is that consultation should always have clear goals in mind.

Although a general budget consultation is by necessity going to be a significant endeavour, and will be wide-ranging in its scope, on a fundamental level to be worthwhile it must engage with the key issues, and strategic priorities certainly fall under this umbrella. At the Institute, we’re big fans of the ‘consultation mandate’ idea being used to focus matters down. Undertaking a process to make sure the right questions were being asked could have headed off complaints in this case.

This wasn’t the only concern about the consultation either- it ran for only a little over a month, a relatively short period for an important and wide ranging consultation. A combination of a lack of information, and a relatively short period for comment is something of a perfect storm for a consultor, and whilst we wouldn’t expect any sort of non-political challenge it does perhaps raise some concerns.