The word of the week in Westminster must surely be ‘lobbying’. The revelations have been coming thick and fast, and the Government has to date announced (we think) seven separate inquiries related to lobbying and alleged breaches of the spirit, if not the letter of the law. In PMQs this week, the Prime Minister said “I do think it is a good idea in principle that top civil servants should be able to engage with business”, which got us thinking: But that’s what we do!

Alright, so perhaps it’s not quite so clear cut, but the twin areas of lobbying and consultation and engagement are in many ways very similar. Both involve external (often private) bodies exercising their influence to affect, create or remove government policy. Both, when done well, can have significant impacts upon the future of regulation and statute. Both are essentially communications disciplines going to the heart of public life. Both, when done properly, are legitimate and fair ways for people to partake in the public discourse.

But to say that they are the same would be inaccurate. There are distinct differences. Consultation is largely done at the behest of public authorities, issuing invitations for comment and influence, whereas lobbying stems from the desire of organisations to influence government. They’re not comparably regulated either. Although both are regulated as a matter of public law, there is much more law around consultation than lobbying.

Perhaps the key difference is in perceptions. In the modern era, ‘Lobbying’ conjures up a perhaps confused image of darkened backrooms, cigar-smoking old boys and smarmy briefcase-wielding middle management types, plying authority figures with boozy lunches and gifts-below-a-set-value that will not have to be declared. Consultation however has a much more amiable image- even when this is undercut by poor consultations, which tend to be the ones that come most frequently to the public attention. There is perhaps another difference in levels of awareness- most people could tell you what lobbying is (and, usually, that they dislike it), whereas we would venture to suggest that there are far lower levels of awareness about consultation and engagement and their place in the policy making process.

The truth is of course that they both fulfil two different public functions. Consultation is done by the Government when they think they need our help (or are forced to accept it!), but lobbying is done when private organisations and individuals think the Government need their help. The latest media revelations however have cast another long shadow over lobbying. As a rule (though in recent times we have seen a few moves in this direction) public authorities do not run general consultations asking how they’re doing and what changes the public and organisations think they need to make, unless they are already looking at the specific area.

One of the other key distinctions is in disparity of power. A major international company will naturally have more clout to lobby ministers and other public authority than a small, struggling charity would. This is perhaps one of the reasons that lobbying has the connotations it does- the nature of the beast means that effective lobbying is often expensive and therefore unaffordable except for those that, in the public eye at least, already constitute an ‘elite’.

With consultation of course, this disparity is somewhat reduced. Although responses to a consultation can be judged and assigned different evidential weights based on their content, in principle (and as a matter of law) the major international business’ contribution and the small charity’s contribution have an equal status. In consultation, you cannot ignore someone merely because of who they are, and the degree of resource or connections they have available to them.

With increasing attention on lobbying and how policy is made, we can’t help but feel that there might be an argument to tighten up internal Government rules, in particular with regard to the policy-making process. More transparency should always be sought (except where unavoidable) in a manner exemplified by best practice public consultation, and perhaps less so by lobbying. We should make it clear that we do not propose banning lobbying entirely- as we have argued it performs a different function to public consultation and when done properly and in line with best practice- including being done as transparently as possible plays a vital part in the relationship between state and the private sector. But some degree of improvement on the current system should certainly be sought- and perhaps public consultation should play a key role.

With all the new inquiries announced it will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of them. The policy-making process is an absolutely key part of good government and should be done with openness and fairness to all those who might be affected by changes to policy. With revelations still coming at a regular daily rate, the pressure on the Government to do something will likely only increase.

The pressure isn’t only on the Government though. In both lobbying and consultation and engagement there is a lot of work to do around public image. Although most lobbying has moved away from using that term in favour of ‘public affairs’ as a more neutral positioning, there is perhaps a need to explain how good quality best practice lobbying can be beneficial as part of the process. There may also be a need to better drive towards those best practice standards.

For consultors and those engaged in public engagement we need to be better at communicating why public consultation is done, that it isn’t just a way of public authorities avoiding taking actual action, and also to increase general public awareness of how they can take part in it as a vital part of the legislative and policy making process.

Both lobbyists and consultors have lessons to learn from each other. For lobbyists, the standards of transparency and openness embodied by regulation of public consultation both through the law and best practice requirements could provide a model for the improvement of their industry. For consultors and consultees, the public affairs industry may teach us lessons about achieving effective change in collaboration with partners.

This is of course terribly idealistic. Particularly in industry many of the changes being sought are solely those in the financial interests of the companies in question. Certain industries have practically become bywords for influencing policy to their benefit, but at the expense of the public interest. For us, we are interested solely in best practice and process, so we would naturally argue that the openness and transparency of consultation lends it more social responsibility than lobbying. But it has to be said that with a lack of proactive public engagement on issues, there is a risk that certain voices are less likely to be heard.

As public consultation professionals it’s our job to encourage and help those voices to speak up, and speak loud. There is, as we have said, no explicit conflict between the two areas. But we can reach places, and help amplify voices that lobbying will not speak for. And we absolutely should, it’s a vital part of achieving the appropriate balance in policy making. So consultors- start thinking about more proactive engagement. It’s in the public interest.