Effective consultation

Currently The Cabinet Office is reviewing the Government’s consultation policy. The Cabinet Office is seeking views from the widest possible range of organisations and individuals on how the Government can improve its consultation processes and would be grateful for your responses.
This consultation is just coming to the end of it's 12 week consultation period and judging by the comments available is getting a bit of panning. Not surprising considering some of the recent consultations.

It seems that consultations are not exactly what is happening. Those that do happen are poorly advertised and communicated and the results of the consultations appear to be ignored if they don't agree with what is being consulted on. Typical of some of the comments is the one below.

What is the point of stakeholder consultation? The HSE engaged consultants last year (at enormous expense) to conduct a review of gas safety. Numerous stakeholders were invited to attend and almost every recommendation has been ignored to date. Rather than implement the changes necessary and reduce regulatory burdens as it promised, it has decided to try and implement competition for CORGI instead. So unfortunately stakeholder participation only works when they you have identical views to those conducting it, otherwise your opinion (and the consultants views) will be ignored.

Recent controversial consultations have included

Planned Closure of District General Hospitals.

Nuclear Consultation: Here and here

Effective consultation: asking the right questions, asking the right people, listening to the answers : Department of Health - Consultations

Nuclear review 'was misleading'

I see Mr Blair tried his usual trick of promising one thing and delivering another.

A judge ruled that the consultation process before the decision last year had been "misleading", "seriously flawed" and "procedurally unfair".

Having been found out our Mr Blair went on as usual and

said while the ruling would change the consultation process, "this won't affect the policy at all".

So basically he won't change his policy whatever the outcome. Now I wonder where he has done this before and what the consequences of that have been.

Initially Mr Blair had said that before any decision was taken to build more stations, there would have to be

"the fullest possibly public consultation and the publication of a further white paper setting out our proposals."

This is what the judge has found to be completely untrue.

Each of the major parties had a comment on the above

Green Party spokeswoman Sian Berry also said the Energy Review had merely been a "rubber-stamping exercise".
Shadow trade and industry secretary Alan Duncan described it as "an astonishing ruling" which showed up the government as "fundamentally deceitful."
Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: "The judgement really shows you can't perform a 180-degree U-turn on a matter as important as nuclear power without a proper public debate. It's a real slap in the face for the prime minister's sofa style of government."

P.S. I have no problem with the idea of Nuclear Power. It's the process that I am concerned with and the dictatorial way that Mr Blair tries to do Government.


BBC NEWS | Politics | Nuclear review 'was misleading'