Steps in a formal consultation exercise

Sometimes community organisations feel over-consulted or that what they have said previously has not been taken into account.

Before you start a formal consultation process, ask the following questions.

• Is the information you seek already available? If so, you may only need to check that the information is still valid or seek additional information.
• Has this sector of the population been consulted recently on this topic? Check what other agencies are currently consulting on, or ask your key contacts.
• Is it too late to make any real changes to the proposed policy or service? In that case, refocus your consultation on aspects that are still open for discussion.

Start gathering views at the early stage when problems and objectives are being defined. Communities are a rich source of information and can add depth to your understanding of the issues.

Go back to your community contacts at the stage when you have draft options for tackling the problems. Discuss the feasibility of the solutions you are proposing.

What outcomes are you looking for? A clear purpose will ensure that the participants understand what they can expect from the consultation, and what input they are expected to provide. You need to ensure that all parties agree on what the community feedback will be used for. To what extent will it influence the decision?

Key questions

• What sort of information do I hope to get?
• How will the information be used in the decision-making process?
• How much is negotiable?
• What is not negotiable?

The policy or issue under investigation may demand a very wide national consultation process (eg, issues affecting all New Zealanders), or a more limited consultation of organisations with specific interests.

If you are organising a large-scale consultation process involving a wide range of groups you will probably require some specialist advice. Check for:

• agencies' guidelines on consultation
• successful consultation exercises that could serve as models for yours
• people who have expertise in consultation exercises, networking and facilitation.

Develop a project plan that outlines each step of your proposed process and allow sufficient time for each step. Depending on the size of your project, you may need to allow several months to prepare for the consultation, including giving interested parties advance notice of the process. You also need to allow sufficient time to analyse the results from the consultation.

Key questions

• Is there sufficient time for the proposed consultation process ?
• Will the proposed techniques provide robust information?
• Will the approach allow representative groups to participate effectively in the process?
• How will you process the feedback generated by the consultation?

You need to inform participants about the issues at stake. The information you provide must be clear, simple, and free of jargon. Give people ample opportunity to respond to this information, by allowing plenty of time, using appropriate techniques and/or venues and taking account of participants' needs.

You can publish your media releases, or details of issues and proposals you are consulting on, online at the New Zealand government website as well as on your agency's own website.

If you do a lot of consulting, consider setting up an RSS feed to do this automatically. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standard format for automating news feeds for syndication. It allows summaries of web content, together with links to the full versions, to be displayed automatically on the New Zealand government website or other websites.

Key questions

If group discussions are to be used:

• Are the facilitators sufficiently skilled?
• Are the people who will record meetings skilled in summarising key points?
• Is the venue appropriate?
• How can you encourage people to participate (eg, by providing childcare, transport and/or cash vouchers as an incentive to attend meetings)?
• Do you have a system for recording attendance and a database of participants for post-consultation follow-up?

Before you start writing a report, focus on its purpose and audience. It's also a good idea to review the structure of other reports.

Focus on trends, rather than on quantitative results, unless you have a representative sample of people participating.

You may have many pro forma submissions: these follow a template, and are sent in by many people. You'll need a policy on how to treat these submissions.

It is important to link viewpoints to submitters, unless you have promised to protect their anonymity. For example, you may need to show the viewpoint being taken by a key NGO working on the issue.

Present the analysis in a form that is easy to read. Be sure to include an executive summary.

Key questions

• Does the report provide an accurate account of what was said?
• Are all viewpoints fairly represented?
• How are pro forma submissions to be treated?
• Does the report show the dominant view of key groups?
• Is the report in a form that is easy to read?
• Does it include an executive summary covering all main points?

Those who contribute to the consultation need to be given feedback. This could be a summary report, with the full report being sent to key groups or deposited in public places such as libraries.

Besides a summary of what was said, be sure to let participants know:

• how the information derived from the consultation was used
• the extent to which their views influenced the final decision
• how any unresolved issues will be addressed.

Key questions

• Will you send a summary of the report to all those involved in the consultation?
• Do the final decisions differ from the ideas they suggested during the consultation? If so, have you explained why?
• How will the relationships be maintained during implementation, monitoring and evaluation?
• As the project continues, how will you keep participants informed?

Plan the evaluation from the beginning of the project. This way you will collect useful information during the process. An evaluation report could include assessment of:

• the aims of the consultation against results
• how effective the planning and implementation was
• how effective the methods used were
• whether risks were identified and well managed
• feedback by participants
• costs compared to budget
• how the information gained impacted on decisions made.