In a recent post, I identified problems with ensuring that government consultations are accessible to interested members of the public. Consultation papers are sent to established groups on a Department’s mailing list but otherwise often just placed on the Department’s website as a means of reaching the public.
As a result of the post, I received some extremely helpful responses, not least from MJ Ray, Dave Briggs and Harry Metcalfe. I have since had a very useful meeting with Harry Metcalfe, who is responsible for the tellthemwhatyouthink.org website. I now have a much clearer idea of what Government should be undertaking in order to make its consultation papers more accessible to the public. I shall be tabling some parliamentary questions this week in order to pursue the issue.
The responses to my more recent post on tackling political alienation have also proved extremely helpful and I will be pursuing some of the points raised with the relevant authorities. From my perspective, this blog has certainly proved its worth. I will report in due course on what progress I have made in pursuing the suggestions raised.
Lord Norton for President!
Brilliant! This is what we like to see! Direct representation and consultation!
Brom – I’d second that !! Let us start a ‘facebook’ campaign group !!
Thanks for the very nice comments. I have this evening been to the Table Office and submitted half-a-dozen Questions. They will appear on the published list of Written Questions on Thursday. Departments are supposed to provide answers within two weeks, so it was important to get them in now as the session ends the week after next. All being well, I should have the answers by the time the House is prorogued. If any are not answered by then, I will re-table them in the new session.
Could you repeat the questions you tabled?
I’m surprised they have a two week deadline. What sort of question requires two weeks of research? How quickly are questions normally answered?
Philip –
What a happy co-incidence. Lets talk tonight about this. I have a few ideas too.
Tom
tellthemwhatyouthink.org is a very good start to the issues of accessibility but it is only part of the problem.
Many consultations seem to be designed to exclude people because of the format and language they use. For example there is a consultation on Voting at 16. It is a PDF download (http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/voting-age-consultation.pdf) with 24 pages of close typed text. It has a set of 8 open ended questions to be responded to on paper and posted. The instructions on how to respond lie at the opposite end of the document from the questions.
I must say however that this is not typical. It is better then most – it uses colour, has a front cover and provides an email address.
As I said at the top, TTWYT.org is a good start but until consultations are designed for the public to respond then making them available to the public is only one very small step along the way.
A final point is that Govt needs to maintain a conversation with people over time. 12 week formal consultations are important, but more listening and conversation with interested parties is needed. Too many people see a formal consultation as a selling tool (http://www.gallomanor.com/2007/06/what_is_consult.html) and if government is to get over this they need to have a regular and frequent dialogue in a less structured manner.
Shane hits the nail on the head. Consider this blog as a perfect case study in itself. A steady stream of down-to-earth communication builds credibility, engagement and trust. You become ‘friends’ with people you’ll never meet. So, when you throw a question out to your readership, people are happy to respond, in a similarly informal manner… as friends do.
I wonder how this compares to responses to the official ‘consultation on consultation’ this time last year? 🙂
Delighted to find this blog. NB I clicked on “Complete the Newcomers Survey to tell us a bit about you.” and “Complete the Feedback Survey to tell us what you think of the blog.” but the surveys are now closed. (Please re-instate them or delete the links to maintain the initial excellent impression of potential involvement)
Thanks for the further comments. Mike: I plan to post them once they appear on the Order Paper. Some Departments can and do answer reasonably promptly, but some do not and there are not infrequent complaints about Departments that fail to answer within the two-week period. There are currently just over 60 Written Questions that are still unanswered after fourteen days. The Leader of the House variously reminds Departments to answer within two weeks and, in order to name and shame, the order paper now lists the number of Questions per Department that are unanswered afer fourteen days. The worst offender at the moment is the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
Tom: Delighted to discuss this further.
Shane McCracken: Many thanks for very useful points. I agree with what you say and some of my Questions are designed to encourage the Government to ensure that Departments follow best practice. What is remarkable is just how much Departments differ, with little central co-ordination. I very much agree with your point about maintaining a conversation with people beyond the 12-week consultation paper (assuming the 12-week recommended time is actually followed). I will reflect on how to pursue this in order to influence Departmental culture.
Simon Dickson: Thanks for your comments. We attract some people who become part of the Lords of the Blog ‘family’ and what has struck me is how international a family it is. This can be extremely useful, as shown by the response on the experience in New Zealand in communicating more effectively with the public. You conclude with a very apt question!
Pamela McLean. Thanks for your comment and also for drawing that to my attention. I will pass it on the Hansard Society.
Baron Thomas does not appear to be in the modern world regarding improving communication – he is relying on tablets of stone…
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2008/11/ego-has-landed.html
If there were to be an elected president, would they be the president of the Commonwealth? It would be fun to have Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand vote for a president. Although it probably wouldn’t work in practice; national governments wouldn’t like the power such an individual would gain through the extra legitimacy of being elected. Still, a fun idea though. 🙂
I was thinking it might be good to all get together one day.
It’s possible to divine that just by looking at department Web sites. The different technologies used (PHP, ColdFusion, Java, .NET, etc.) indicate disparate teams, working separately. It seems to be similar to the university my wife works at.
One interesting move by Obama was promising to create a post of Chief Technology Officer for the US government. I don’t necessarily think it’s a good idea (unless there’s significant input from people in the field), but it’s worth thinking about.
Liam: On your penultimate point (the very different websites that Departments have), that is something that I am very conscious of and is the subject of a Parliamentary Question that I tabled last night. I am pursuing to what extent there is some central co-ordination.
Great to know there is dialogue, though it is ironically opaque without the helpful responses and the questions proposed. Hope it makes the consultation process more accessible, citizens engage, their responses are public and can be shared and subscribed to by others – and, of course, they are taken into account.