This is Blog no 100
I began life as the Consultation GuRU in December 2022 and saw no reason why I should not build upon the 450 topic papers on consultation and allied issues I’d published with the Consultation Institute since 2003. Since GuRU began, I have published 99 new articles, and I am grateful to the large and increasing numbers who read my material
It still surprises me how little is written on the subject of consultation. Consider this. The UK Government and its agencies publish 500+ consultations each year; the devolved administrations add another 200 or so. Local government continues to consult extensively - and in large volumes. So do a myriad other public bodies. They keep on coming.
Some cover matters of fierce controversy; others are technical and of interest only to specific stakeholders. They ALL tell a story, and we pay insufficient attention to them. Why?
This is, in part, due to the fact that consultation is now a settled process. Generally speaking , we know the rules, even though organisations – including many that should know better, frequently disregard them.
It is also because too many observers regard it as ‘boring’ and a little old-fashioned.
SIX of the BEST
Well, maybe the most interesting …..!!
Most recent first:
Dear Wes Streeting, I’m worried about patient and public involvement. 2 April 2025: Blog 96
Will the ‘Gunning Principles’ apply to Football clubs’ consultations? 23 November 2024: Blog 85
If Manifestos were Consultation Papers? Would they meet the standard for ‘intelligent consideration’? 18 June 2025: Blog 71
Councils in financial distress demand different dialogues; here comes co-prevention! 2 February 2024: Blog 59
What made the ULEZ consultation lawful? 31 July 2023: Blog 37
Consulting on players' safety – Rugby Union’s dilemma 26January 2023: Blog 11
More deliberative processes are ‘sexier’ and are immeasurably better at giving people the sense that they are participating in something. Quite what, is sometimes more difficult to define, but there’s no doubt that we have a whole range of engagement processes that can be beneficial to defining and solving problems. Hooray.
Where some of these processes struggle is over accountability.
Last year, the excellent KNOCA organisation (Knowledge Network on Climate Assemblies) convened one of its regular online events and the discussion turned into the difficulty of ensuring sufficient political follow-up to successful Assemblies. The dilemma being that if initiated by Government agencies, the event loses the essential attribute of independence. Without such ‘political cover’, it can be an uphill struggle to convert its findings into actions. Decision-makers can be held accountable. Those who propose … or recommend, rarely can.
The point is, of course that an effective consultation has a consultor, which is usually the responsible body for acting upon what emerges! If something goes wrong two years later, responsibility is clear. But unless well specified, who do we hold accountable for something decided upon by a co-production team or a deliberative event. According to his book “The Unaccountability Machine”, Dan Davies would refer to this as the accountability sink. A judicial review of a local authority decision once turned on such an issue.
The impetus for all these alternative methods of dialogue also stems from the continuing tendency for consultation to appear as a bureaucratic tick-in-the-box exercise where politicians or officials are going through the motions. Disappointed consultees frequently complain if decisions appear to reject the view of the majority of responders. We then have to explain for the umpteenth time that “Consultation is not a vote!” Only for critics to respond by claiming “It SHOULD be a vote”
This illustrates perfectly how eager people can be to influence what happens to them. Electorates are more volatile than ever; people are prone to change their minds, and do not necessarily want to be held to the views they expressed only a short time earlier. We need to offer them more and better opportunities to be heard, and where this means influencing specific decisions, policies or other important programmes of action, it is probably a consultation.
We have become a little fixated on one form of consultation – the standard policy-making formula over 12 weeks or whatever. There are many other ways of consulting, and I think we need some fresh thinking around the role and best function of the gamut of methodologies that have become popular in recent years. Maybe we start with Citizens Assemblies!
For that reason, I have challenged myself to set the ball rolling with a new Framework for consultation that I have started to develop, and this, I’m sure, will be unveiled in time to inform many of the Blogs I hope to publish in the coming months. If their dissemination prompts a debate on how best-practice consultation can help us take better decisions, then part of my mission as the Consultation GuRU will have succeeded.
Onwards towards Blog 200!
Rhion H Jones LL.B
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