No one was really paying attention to the UK Parliament proper this week, all (recently tested on long drives) eyes turning to the Honourable Member for Barnard Castle as he did his accounts, washed his dirty laundry, and sincerely apologised (not necessarily in that order).

Westminster

Oh come on, you knew that we were going to be able to spin something consultation related from Dominic Cummings’ testimony before the Science and Health Select Committees, don’t pretend you didn’t. Have I failed you yet? So what have I got for you from this? Well, as may not entirely surprise those of you who have been with us throughout the pandemic, it’s going to be about the risks of centralising authority, without consulting people.

Much of Mr Cummings’ evidence focused on the very early stages of the pandemic, where decision-making had to be snappy, we were in emergency mode, and there was less capacity for conducting traditional consultation and engagement processes. If we take even half of his statements as being somewhere approaching true, we might have a good demonstration of why some degree of engagement on policy-making, even in emergency circumstances is so critical.

The picture painted was one of abject chaos, systems being run by people who didn’t understand them and made no effort to find out how to. Of course, we should not take all of his evidence at face value- he has a somewhat vested interest in moving blame around, but there is sufficient evidence already in the public domain that at least some of it was mostly accurate.

So what does this tell us about consultation and engagement? Would more consultation and engagement have stopped the chaos he reports? Probably not entirely, but it couldn’t have hurt further. We were always largely of the impression (particularly as things moved on) that some sort of consultation and engagement processes should have been established to help the Government make better management decisions. In various places we advocated for short, three week consultations; better continuous engagement processes; and more devolution to local authorities who were closer to the front lines and more capable of effective interaction with local stakeholders. In light of Mr Cummings’ evidence, it sounds like even having slightly more expert consultation wouldn’t have gone amiss, even if it was not extended to the wider public.

One of the other things that came out of the hearing was the apparent paucity of the pre-pandemic planning. Although there have long been plans in place for such an event as this, they seem to have been remarkably deficient when it came to the rub. With increased instances of zoonotic illnesses such as this, ensuring that those plans are up to date and improved will be a key development, and one that could be vastly enhanced by wide public consultation, now that we all have lived experience of such a thing.

Whether the Government will do so or not remains to be seen. We advocated a couple of weeks ago for consultation on the terms of reference for the coronavirus inquiry, no matter how much this hurts politically. With increasing calls for the acceleration of that inquiry, it seems unlikely they will follow our advice- we can only hope for the review of future pandemic planning documents that they do so.

Scotland

An interesting snippet from Scotland this week where the Scottish Government reiterated its commitment to consult on legislation to establish a national care service within the first one hundred days of the new Scottish Parliamentary session. With the UK Government still prevaricating about how to deal with care, preferring instead to undertake a reorganisation of the NHS, any movement north of the border may put further pressure on the UK Government to do something in England. At the very least we can expect to see it being cited by parliamentarians who are already waiting for the delivery of the plan that Boris Johnson promised was ready to go in his first speech as PM.

Another interesting thing that might come out of this (albeit not immediately) is the ability to do a comparison between two parallel consultations looking at similar issues. With the new Midas database tool we launched on Wednesday this week, this sort of comparative research is set to become a lot more easy, so you can expect more from me looking at the results of consultations and how they can be used to track changing attitudes and guide future development.

Northern Ireland

We have discussed in the past the procedures in the devolved administrations for pre-budget consultations, and the lack of such provisions in the UK Government as a whole. This week we saw the other edge to the sword- the inevitable criticisms about the consultation. This week, they were fairly soft, with members acknowledging the problems of the pandemic and the late approval of HM Treasury funding due to COVID, but they warrant a quick glance. Two primary complaints were made, firstly that the consultation was far too short, and secondly that there was limited consideration of the issues raised by consultees.

In this particular case, the consultation took place over a period of just over a month, which is indeed quite short for a consultation on such a significant matter- however in light of the particular context and circumstances, it would have been near-impossible to have made it any longer and still meet deadlines. On the other point, this seems potentially to be more valid- try as I might, I cannot find a specific government response to the consultation anywhere. There is a draft budget document that was published, but I can’t find any reference in it to concerns raised in the consultation. If you have a copy, I’d very much like to see it.

Although some leeway has to be made for the unique and peculiar circumstances we find ourselves in, we have consistently seen throughout this crisis that the basic principles must still be upheld. Being able to demonstrate conscientious consideration of responses to consultation is, after all, one of the Gunning principles. It’s a point worth remembering that even if due to circumstances outside your control you have to run an accelerated or unusual engagement process, you should still be able to evidence good practice and legal requirements