Consultation and Research: Where’s the boundary?
October 5, 2009
That’s twice I’ve come across the phrase “Decide Announce Defend” (DAD) as an mnemonic that describes the bad old days of planning when plans were made without public participation and then defended with all their/our might! The world’s changed. People are empowered in all areas of life and they like it. They may not vote, or take part in your latest consultation excercise but they want the opportunity. So now we consult a lot but what are we doing with the results? How do we sort the wheat from the chaff? How do we avoid capture by the squeeky wheel? Is the lack of representativeness of the voices heard in consultation a problem? Those who say no argue that its the process that counts. “We need to strengthen our democratic institutions by allowing voices to be heard” they say. I say, yes but…..if its policy analysis you are doing, you need more than that. You need to be able to objectively assess the pros and cons of different policy options; how many people will be affected and how will they react? You simply cant get this information from consultation unless it is scientifically designed and analysed by people who know what they are doing. Consultation has its place but its only part of the solution. If we rely on consultation alone, we’ll ignore it when it suits us and we’ll be back to “Decide Announce Defend”. Indeed, in the face of better informed communities and better opportunities to have a say, there even more need for soundly researched strategies that can be used in a dialogue with the community. Consultation becomes a series of steps, fisrtly hearing concerns, then discussion options and finally evaluating options. The develoment of options can draw on the consultation but the analysis must be based on scientific research principals. The audiences for the different stages of consultation may differ and the squeeky wheel hopefully will be put in its place.
