Evaluating participation, amidst political realities

My friends at the participation think tank Involve have published Making a Difference: A guide to evaluating public participation in central government - pdf download. It is written by my former colleague Diane Warburton of Shared Practice, so I'm altogether well-disposed, particularly when there's an admirably brief and clear set of web pages as well as a download. The intro explains:

Public participation has become a central plank of public policy-making. Increasingly, decision-makers at all levels of government build citizen and stakeholder engagement into their policy-making processes. Activities range from large-scale consultations that involve tens of thousands of people, to focus group research, on-line discussion forums and small, deliberative citizens' juries.
This guide to evaluating public participation is intended to help those involved in planning, organising or funding these activities to understand the different factors involved in creating effective public participation.
It helps planners set and measure attainable objectives, evaluate impact, and identify lessons for future practice. Using clear language, simple instructions, illustrative case studies and a glossary, this guide is a valuable tool for anyone involved in running or commissioning public participation in central government and beyond.

The guide has been published with the Department for Constitutional Affairs, who are promoting work in this field as well as e-democracy (including this game). I hope the good practice advice resonates throughout Government. This includes starting evaluation work early by setting up a design group to agree the objectives of the exercise, the methods, the scale and the scope. If that's done, it should help those actually doing the participation work define just how much participation is on offer. As the guide says:

As long as there is room for change in the policy and the results of the engagement will make a difference, it is worth considering public engagement.

There's a rather good diagram, which I've taken the liberty of reproducing on the right - click to enlarge.

However, I was reading this at the same time as I was picking up on the reported remarks of former cabinet secretary, and top Civil Servant at the Treasury, Lord Turnbull. In an interview with the Financial Times. He gave a frank assessment (not intended for quotation, he now maintains)  of the ways of Chancellor Gordon Brown, presumed to be our next Prime Minister. The Guardian summarises it like this:

In the interview, Lord Turnbull said that Mr Brown had a "very cynical view of mankind and his colleagues".
And he added: "He cannot allow them any serious discussion about priorities. His view is that it is just not worth it and 'they will get what I decide'. "And that is a very insulting process."
Lord Turnbull suggested that Mr Brown's style had an impact on the effectiveness of the government as a whole.
"Do those ends justify the means?" he asked. "It has enhanced Treasury control, but at the expense of any government cohesion and any assessment of strategy.
"You can choose whether you are impressed or depressed by that, but you cannot help admire the sheer Stalinist ruthlessness of it all."

I don't know Gordon Brown, or his views on public engagement. He may well be strongly in favour of processes that enhance the influence of citizen consumers, and so put pressure on public services for improved performance. But his remarks do highlight that in matters of participation attitude is at least as important as method. I looked in vain in the glossary to the guide for mention of Control and Culture, but maybe they don't need explanation.

There is, however, a section on public participation goals which reproduces the spectrum of levels of engagement:

Inform: To provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problem, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions.
Consult: To obtain public feedback on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions.
Involve: To work directly with the public throughout the process to ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered.
Collaborate: To partner with the public in each aspect of the decision including the development of alternatives and the identification of the of the preferred solution.
Empower: To place final decision-making in the hands of the public.

From Lord Turnbull's remarks, the cynical may expect a Brown government to set engagement firmly at the Inform and Consult end of the spectrum. I hope someone someone can offer some evidence the other way. Political bloggers like Dizzy tend to say "what's new":

It is a commonly held view that in the control-freak stakes Brown is probably even worse than Blair.

... and then interpret Lord Turnbull's remarks as another round in the Blair-Brown feud:

Whilst some commentators make allusions to rapprochement and a thawing of the Cold War at the top, I'd rather make allusions to that being an illusion. It's interesting that Stalin should be invoked because frankly, it looks like a very Stalinist, ergo Soviet, détente.

There's participation (or not) and there's politics.

Technorati Tags: engagement, participation