Back in May, Bristol hosted a referendum on the governance model of the city, in which it decided to abolish the position of elected mayor and revert to a committee system of governance. Since then, the machinery has been turning to implement the changes before the handover scheduled in May 2024. Transiting between two systems is never an easy thing to do, and the Council is currently examining the issue using a ‘committee model working group’ comprised of 12 current councillors who are busy collecting expert evidence, in advance of a consultation to commence later in autumn.

The process has come under challenge however by some councillors who have alleged that the meetings being closed to the public, and no minutes being published render the process questionable and opaque to the general public. The group itself has rejected these claims, with the vice-chair saying in a statement “There are probably about 12 nerds across the city who would have been vaguely interested”.

As nerds who are vaguely interested (though not ones based in Bristol), this got us thinking as to whether there’s anything to the complaint. Transparency is of course a vital part of the consultation and engagement process, and even though this exercise has not reached the point of consultation yet (although curiously, the email for consultation responses is active and taking responses, despite no documentation or evidence having been published), as we know from examples past, sometimes the options development process itself can fall under scrutiny.

The question here might be what exactly the exercise is, and how lines are being drawn. What is known is that a consultation is coming up, but that at the moment the working group is primarily engaged in an information gathering exercise with other local authorities that have done similar things and other experts. After that, they will be engaging with selected community groups before going out to a city-wide consultation.

The phase they’re in now (information gathering) might be one in which it is more permissible for the public not to be involved, given that it is mostly about establishing core facts and issues that are later to be consulted on, though there might be a need to share that information later on in the process to allow people to comment on it.

The fact that the consultation e-mail address is already open and statements being made to the effect that people should start sending in comments might be blurring the lines between when the consultation is and isn’t happening. With no substantive information having been published, this does make us question what response exactly is expected. It seems likely that all they’re likely to get is either objections to the principle, or comments that are so broad that they aren’t so much use.

If the consultation has already started (which would be suggested by the opening of the e-mail address), then the argument that the meetings should be more transparent is perhaps more compelling, given that it would be the only possible source of information on the subject of the consultation. If it isn’t (which would seem to be the case from the planned phases and some statements made), then transparency might be less of an immediate issue.

There is also the “12 nerds” question. If we are to assume that the consultation has started, then is it permissible to withhold information merely because only 12 people in the city would be interested in it? This is possibly a more interesting question. Generally speaking, as we’re sure you remember, information pertinent to the subject of the consultation, or that would facilitate comment on it, generally should be shared (a crude contraction of the longer Leggatt-Carr factors from the Law Society case, which give us a framework for deciding what information needs sharing). If the information falls under this category, then is it OK not to share it merely because few people would (in your view) likely be interested?

As with all good principles, there are two perspectives on this. On the one hand, in the interests of good administration, if digging out the information would be disproportionately costly or burdensome, then there might be an argument that it is permissible. On the other, as we saw in the Bloomsbury Institute case, just because a proposal affects a small number of people doesn’t mean they should not be properly consulted. As a general rule of practice, we would suggest that if there is no significant barrier to providing the information, then without good cause not to it should be provided, even if it is just for 12 nerds. This is doubly the case when there is no evidence as to how many people actually might be interested. You may think only 12 people would. But in the event it might turn out that far more were.

If nothing else, this is a pertinent reminder of the advisability of maintaining firm control of your consultation narrative and being clear when different phases of the process begin and end. Particularly in cases like this, where there are promises of consultation floating around, not doing so can cause trouble and unhelpful questions that can have a negative public impact.