With a few notable exceptions BANES public consultations have been of very poor quality. Some of the recurrent problems are:
- Poorly designed questions
- Poorly structure questionnaires
- Poor presented background information and poorly researched information leading to poorly informed responses
- An over reliance on questionnaires
- A failure to use more deliberative processes
- A focus on consulting groups generating negative publicity
- A over reliance on self selecting respondents over more representative sampling
This has led to a whole series of confused, badly informed decisions and an over emphasis on vociferous minorities over wider public opinion.
We need our politicians to get a grip on this by:
- Getting better expert advice
- Learning from their own best practice
- Engaging with a broader range of organisation while designing consultations