Government’s New Approach to Consultation: “Work in Progress” (SLSC Report)

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, I have experienced consultation from several different perspectives during my long years. I have experienced it as a local authority chief executive, as a senior civil servant, as a quango chair, a chair of several major voluntary organisations, and as a non-exec of a private sector organisation providing services for the Government. These experiences have taught me some important lessons.

This first is that, as a rule, and with some honourable exceptions, civil servants instinctively do not much like consultation because it rather slows down the process of implementing their favoured proposal and can throw up some inconvenient but valid objections which even—heaven forbid—Ministers might find convincing. For many of the same reasons, some Ministers and quango chairs are sometimes inclined to circumnavigate the consultation process while, in contrast, voluntary organisations and private providers much value consultation because they often feel that the frequent changes to government policy and operating procedures could and would benefit from more, not less, consultation.

From these various experiences, I have been convinced that policy can be greatly improved as a result of effective consultation. There are many examples of that having happened. It has not yet been mentioned that consultation is also much more likely to ensure that legislation and policy changes are introduced with public support rather than in a hostile environment.

Consultation matters, as the chairman of the committee of which I, too, am a member, so eloquently said. This is a serious and important matter. It is not arcane. It is not just a matter for the nerds, or something that can be swept into the long grass. Not only does it matter, it needs to be regulated to ensure that it is conscientiously and thoroughly undertaken.

Strangely, before the Government introduced these new guidelines, there was, as has already been said, advice in place. It had been agreed with the voluntary sector and other interested stakeholders, and seemed to be working rather well. Although it set a uniform 12-week period for consultation, common sense accepted that sometimes a shorter period would be needed, and that happened when necessary. But perhaps, without having time to look at the statistics which demonstrated that this was being operated sensibly, Ministers were convinced by their officials that this was all taking up too much time, was excessively bureaucratic and was delaying the implementation of vital government policy, and so the new guidance was issued.

Oddly, since it was about consultation, it was not felt necessary to consult those affected. Nor was it felt necessary to prohibit commencing consultations at the start of holiday periods when those affected might not be available. Surely no one would do that deliberately. However, it has happened rather a lot to be a coincidence. It was not even felt necessary to require departments to publish a response to consultations so that respondees could at least see that their views had been considered rather than peremptorily ignored. Of course, if people cannot see that their views are taken note of, they very quickly decide that it is not worth being involved in a consultation at all. A commitment, as has been said, was made to digital consultation as the norm, with no attempt to identify groups for whom this would cause serious problems. No commitment was made at publication for an independent review of how these new arrangements were working.

It has been said that when the Minister appeared before the Select Committee, he appeared to concede significant ground on all these points. Perhaps it would have been helpful to make clear that consultation during holiday periods was not desirable; perhaps it would have been useful to publish some analysis of responses; and maybe an independent review would have been helpful. But the Minister’s later, more considered response suggested that all these matters would merely be looked at as part of the review; not now to be undertaken independently and externally but by the Cabinet Office—which is not perhaps entirely dispassionate on the matter—with advice, it seems, from an advisory committee. At this point I am trying to recall which episode of “Yes Minister” contained this storyline, because I am absolutely certain that there was one. I have been away and I have not had a chance to research that.

The final irony is that these changes have been made to inject a sense of urgency into the policy process and to reduce bureaucracy. So far their introduction has provoked widespread opposition and criticism. It has caused the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Select Committee to discuss the proposals on at least four occasions, with the Minister attending one of those; it has led to the establishment of a review; and it has led to the establishment of an advisory board and the likelihood of many further debates when the review is published.

Perhaps most important of all, it has suggested that the Government’s commitment to the big society and listening to the voice of civil society is more about rhetoric than a genuine desire to listen to the views of interested parties—especially, I am sad to say, if their views are inconvenient. I suggest that it would be better, even now, to revert to the previous guidelines and, if not, to have a properly independent review carried out with greater urgency than we have seen so far.