At first glance, there does not appear to be any direct comparison between major public policy consultations and the fiasco that led to the Department of Transport having to abandon its decision to award the West Coast inter-city rail franchise to the First Group.

Look further, however, and many of the failures found by Sam Laidlaw refer to risks which are also inherent in high-profile policy issues. It does not matter whether these are in Whitehall departments, independent Regulators, Local Government or the NHS. Note how the following extracts from the Report resonate in a wider context….

• “the XXX Director and the YYY Director all retired in December 2010 and only the AAA was replaced, resulting in a loss of both “corporate memory” and individual commercial experience”

• “… officials felt inhibited from escalating significant risk areas. This inhibition may in part be attributed to the fact that, when attempts were made to escalate such issues, in some instances senior officials were perceived to be unreceptive or not willing to give due attention to the concerns raised”
• “the effectiveness of quality assurance procedures in respect of the … process was significantly limited due to failures … to follow up on the outputs of those procedures ..” What Reports like this highlight is the need for checks and balances to ensure that individual failures of process are picked up before they compromise a whole policy initiative. In the case of the West Coast re-franchise, formal quality assurance steps such as Gateway Reviews raised concerns that were ignored, or failed to notice them in the first place.

Other weaknesses included lapses of governance. No-one was in charge! To compound it all, inaccurate accounts of decision rationales were circulated to Ministers and others without being challenged.

Of course, most consultations are somewhat less complicated than the            rail re-franchise.  And yet, consider such controversial issues as the High Speed Two proposal, Same-sex marriage, Schools curricula or Hospital reconfigurations. They all involve multi-disciplinary project teams that work both with the substance of the issues, and with a range of process decisions. They also arouse public controversy, to the extent that opponents of the eventual decision may challenge it in the Courts. So everything has to be done in ways that will withstand detailed scrutiny.

The Laidlaw Reports confirms that an exercise portrayed by Ministers as ‘transparent’ and ‘robust’ was in fact, neither. On occasions, consultations are similarly flawed. There is, therefore, a strong case for structuring a Consultation project in ways that encourage internal and external quality assurance, and establishing clear lines of responsibility.

All these are basic requirements of the Institute’s Consultation Charter, but it is surprising how often failures of governance expose public bodies to criticism. Despite its complexities, Laidlaw’s Report is worth reading if only to see how many mistakes can happen through inadequate resourcing, time-pressures and poor project governance.

An important factor in the sad tale is that the Department of Transport failed to follow its own Guidelines, or the commitments it had made to the franchise bidders. It is similar to the short shrift given recently to local Councils who have gone to the High Court to defend consultations where they have themselves ignored their own internal Guidance.

The new Cabinet Office consultation Principles may be a little looser than their predecessors, but public bodies will still need to adhere to them. They must also demonstrate that they are adhering to them – not so easy!

The Institute View

• Public bodies planning or handling controversial consultations must assume they will be challenged and need to take immediate steps to ensure they have a sufficiently robust process and adequate governance.
• Organisations affected by reorganisations or significant budget cuts are especially vulnerable; the NHS in England, for example may have consultations that extend beyond the April 2013 reorganisation date, and where a seamless handover might prove difficult.
•  tCI can help by offering to use its ‘compliance assessment’ service to issue a Certificate of Best Practice for the consultation.

This Briefing is of relevance to Consultation and Public engagement staff in CentralRelevance

Government departments, as well as in the devolved administrations in Belfast, Cardiff and

Edinburgh. Similar issues will also be relevant for independent Regulators, Executive Agencies, non-departmental public bodies, and advisory committees. Local service providers such as the NHS, Police, Courts and local authorities also on occasions find themselves involved in controversial multi-disciplinary consultations, and these issues are also therefore important for them to appreciate

Further insights

•  This Briefing was written by Rhion Jones, Programme Director of the Institute, and who may be available for discussion. Telephone the Institute Centre of Excellence in Biggleswade on 01767 318350
•  On 15^th January 2013 in London, the Institute is holding a Breakfast Briefing on Applying the new Cabinet Office Principles; a few places still available
• The Laidlaw Report may be particularly interesting for Regulators, and will therefore be considered alongside other issues at the Institute’s Roundtable on 13th February 2013 in London. The event is called The challenge of stakeholder engagement and consultation  – a new priority for Regulators and places can be booked through the tCI website or the tCI office
• An unsatisfactory aspect of the Laidlaw Report is that not all relevant emails were made available to the Inquiry- due to IT problems and security issues. Such a situation would not be acceptable to the Courts.
•  Neither did the Laidlaw Report examine other aspects of the re-franchise process which many claim to be unsatisfactory. These include the inadequate extent to which the views of rail customers were taken into account!

This is the 6^th Briefing Note; a full list of subjects covered is available for Institute members and is a valuable resource covering so many aspects of consultation and engagement