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CHAPTER 2: THE CONSULTATION PROCESS

This Chapter outlines in detail the consultation process designed by the Scottish Executive Public Service Reform Group to facilitate the involvement of stakeholders in an effective manner.

2.1 AIMS OF THE CONSULTATION

The overall aim of the consultation process was:

" To agree the best possible vehicle for delivering Ministers' vision of refreshed Best Value in public services by April 2006".

Specific aims were:

• To begin to facilitate a dialogue with public bodies and their sponsor departments on how to be Best Value organisations;
• To start to refresh and renew the spirit of Best Value across the public sector by empowering public bodies to help set the direction for future resources;
• To initiate the exchange of information between public bodies and the Scottish Executive on good practice in Best Value, helping the policy team to begin to understand and plug the gaps in Best Value knowledge management.

2.2 BACKGROUND TO THE CONSULTATION

Best Value principles are intended to inform and reinforce organisations' efforts towards achieving continuous improvement in the performance of their functions. The key principles of Best Value are:

• Commitment and leadership
• Responsiveness and consultation
• Sound governance arrangements at strategic, financial and operational levels
• Sound management of resources
• Use of review and options appraisal
• Accountability
• Joint working
• Sustainable development
• Equal opportunities

A series of Best Value pilots in local authorities was run during the late 1990s with lessons learned informing the roll-out to all local authorities following the statutory duty placed on them by the Local Government in Scotland Act, 2003. In essence, the duty encompasses:

• Making arrangements to secure continuous improvement in performance (while maintaining an appropriate balance between quality and cost); and in making those arrangements and securing that balance,
• To have regard to economy, efficiency, effectiveness, the equal opportunities requirements and to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development.

In parallel with these developments in local government, was the preparation of a non-statutory duty of Best Value to be applied to public service organisations in the Scottish Administration with Accountable Officers. These comprise Scottish Executive Departments, Executive Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies. This non-statutory duty was set within a different framework to that developed for local government, with different operating environments and accountability structures, but nevertheless, the 2 duties share the same principles with the emphasis on outcomes rather than process details.

Guidance on Best Value was prepared for both local authorities and central government public service organisations, with the local government guidance immediately adopted. The guidance for central government was the subject of written consultation and is not yet adopted. Consultation responses, published in December 2004, indicated a number of areas for revision of the guidance. In particular, they pointed to the need for clearer secondary guidance for Accountable Officers, and also to the need for effective knowledge management networks amongst public service organisations, coupled to a clearer audit regime.

In August 2005, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform informed central government public service organisations in Scotland of further consultation on their respective Best Value guidance. The Minister's letter informed these organisations of the Scottish Executive's decision not to legislate on Best Value for central government at this point. However, the Minister outlined the need to refresh and renew Best Value activity by consulting on the nature of improved guidance, toolkits and knowledge management arrangements which were requested in the earlier consultation exercise.

The current consultation activities were designed to facilitate these needs and are outlined below.

2.3 ELEMENTS OF THE CONSULTATION PROCESS

The consultation process as originally planned comprised 4 key stages. These are documented in Figure 1 overleaf.

Figure 1: Model of the Consultation Process

Of these 4 key stages, the first 3 were undertaken as timetabled, with the external reference group (stage 3) still ongoing. However stage 4, the conference with wider stakeholders, was always dependent on the broader Ministerial agenda on public sector service reform, and at the time of writing, has not taken place.

2.3.1 Informal Consultation

One-to-one "informal" scoping discussions were held between representatives of the Best Value and Performance Team within the Public Service Reform Group and ten external public sector bodies respectively.

Following these, a group feedback meeting was held at the Scottish Executive, to which all those involved in the informal discussions were invited. Findings from the individual scoping discussions were presented by the Scottish Executive team to the delegates who were asked for comments, including whether these findings appeared to reflect previous discussions and/or whether amendments should be made.

Finally, the level of support was gauged over the future direction of the consultation and its stated aims.

2.3.2 Formal Stakeholder Engagement Seminars

Following on from the group meeting, a series of 5 single-sector half-day stakeholder seminars was held in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Eighty public sector body representatives were invited to one of the seminars which covered the following policy areas:

• Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning
• Education, Tourism, Culture and Sport
• Finance and Communities
• Environment and Rural Affairs
• Justice

The Best Value and Performance Team also engaged directly through bilateral discussion with the Scottish Executive Health Department and NHS bodies. This evaluation does not encompass an assessment of this bilateral discussion.

Each seminar followed the same broad format:

• Context setting presentation by a representative of the Best Value and Performance Team
• Facilitated ground-rule setting
• Facilitated agenda-setting activity leading to a group vote
• Facilitated smaller group discussions on key issues identified in the agenda-setting exercise
• Closing plenary comprising feedback from smaller group discussions

In addition, participants were encouraged throughout the seminar to document examples of good practice, or the need for greater guidance, on 9 specially prepared wall charts, each representing one of the features of Best Value (eg Commitment and Leadership; Sustainable Development).

Three of the seminars also featured a context setting presentation on best practice in Best Value by a public sector representative.

2.3.3 External Reference Group

The Best Value and Performance Team invited delegates from the formal seminars to participate in an external reference group to take forward the more practical aspects of advising Ministers on the shape of revised guidance on Best Value and assessment materials.

Thus, members were self-nominated, with each of the previously designated policy portfolios represented. The core membership comprised 12 external public body representatives with the Best Value and Performance Team also represented. A member of this Team chaired the group.

The external reference group met regularly from November 2005, and at the time of writing, had met 5 times in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth, with future meetings planned.

2.3.4 Conference with Wider Stakeholders

The proposed conference with wider stakeholders was always dependent upon the wider Ministerial agenda on public services. Ministers will be discussing their wider plans for Public Service Reform including Best Value, during summer 2006.

2.4 DECISIONS TAKEN ON THE DESIGN OF THE CONSULTATION

The mapping of all participation activity undertaken by the Scottish Executive in 2004 (Nicholson, 2005b) demonstrated the prominence of the written consultation as a tool for policy makers, comprising 39% of all consultation activities. Seminars and meetings accounted for 21% of participation activity, with working groups used relatively rarely (4% of all activities). The design of the current consultation is therefore of particular interest in that it does not include a written consultation, but features instead the far less frequently deployed seminar and working group approaches. The commissioning team outlined their rationale for their choice of consultation tools during a group interview with the consultation evaluator.

2.4.1 Decision Against a Written Consultation

The commissioners confirmed that they had considered issuing a written consultation paper, but on balance had favoured face-to-face interaction between the policy team and stakeholders. In their terms, the latter approach constituted more of an, " opening of a dialogue and a conversation". Within the context of a previous written consultation on the Guidance on Best Value (2003/4) the key reasons provided against pursuing a written consultation approach were:

• Minister had strong view on opening a dialogue with the public sector about public service reform; his steer was for meeting people face-to-face
• Without speaking to people first, its difficult to know what to draft, and what the purpose of a written consultation is
• Encouragement from within the Scottish Executive to pursue an approach that did not have a written consultation at the forefront ("non-paper-based approach")
• Because there was a dedicated and adequately staffed policy team to handle the consultation, the support was there for the team to develop what they saw as a more comprehensive, inclusive consultation approach
• The non-statutory approach to Best Value in public services opened the way for the policy team to be more creative and innovative in approach to consulting and engaging with stakeholders

However, the team did identify risks associated with their decision against a written consultation. In particular, they felt that they had no back up should " these seminars not work or if the dialogue does not tell us much". A written consultation was viewed as a fail-safe approach through which, " we'll get our written responses in and someone will analyse them and we'll know what people will think".

In their interview with the evaluator, a few consultation participants also commented about the absence of a written consultation paper. One remark was particularly pertinent:

" In a written consultation, people don't want to reveal some things and may be more cautious about a response which is "for the record". In this (the BV consultation) they were not afraid to say what's gone wrong….the conversation was open" (Informal Consultee)

2.4.2 Decision Taken on Early One-to-One Discussions

The consultation team explained their reasoning for early groundwork comprising one-to-one discussions with representatives from a range of stakeholder bodies. Key reasons were:

• To get a sense of the views across all of the sectors
• To inform stakeholders of what the Scottish Executive thinking was on Best Value
• To sound out views of stakeholders on a major policy decision - not to legislate on Best Value at present
• To find out how organisations were currently handling Best Value
• To find out where organisations thought the Scottish Executive should be providing support in taking forward the Best Value agenda
• To "shake out" some of the burning Best Value issues to feed back to Ministers
• To get early "buy-in" around key issues
• To avoid getting further down the line without realising there are problems which had not been considered
• To be able to address misconceptions early on without waiting for written consultation responses to arrive and then having to deal with them

The consultation team selected 10 stakeholders to approach for these initial discussions. Decisions on who to approach were guided by the wish to represent each Ministerial portfolio, and also ensure large organisations (like Scottish Enterprise) and those with a particular reputation for change management were included. Advice on which stakeholders to approach was also taken from the Scottish Executive Public Bodies Unit and various sponsor teams. The consultation team reported no reluctance to participate from anybody they contacted.

Asked to sum up the one-to-one approach which commenced the Best Value consultation, the policy team described it as:

A two-way dialogue

Genuine Scottish Executive listening

2.4.3 Decisions Taken on Stakeholder Seminars

The policy team recognised that trying to involve all public bodies in one-to-one discussions was not feasible in terms of policy team input, but a more efficient means to permit a degree of face-to-face interaction was by hosting stakeholder seminars. A key added advantage of the seminars was identified as providing a forum for different organisations to talk to each other and make useful networks. The need for such networking had emerged in the previous written consultation with consultees indicating unmet requirements relating to exchanging knowledge and best practice.

The format of the seminars was steered by a decision to allow participants to set their own agenda for discussion. An "entry activity" saw participants identifying factors that facilitated the embedding of Best Value into their activities, and barriers which hampered this. A voting exercise prioritised these factors for discussion at subsequent smaller group discussions.

The policy team acknowledged that the approach they adopted of allowing participants to set the agenda had posed risks. In particular they had concerns that:

• Participants might not focus appropriately on Best Value issues, but range more widely
• What they identified for discussion may not be what the policy team wanted to discuss
• Topics for discussion might vary too much between seminars

On balance, however, and with encouragement from the Scottish Executive's Policy Skills Team it was decided to run without a pre-set agenda. Taking on board experience from previous Scottish Executive consultations, particular benefits of this approach were viewed as ensuring greater "buy-in" from participants; and being in-keeping with the Minister's request for a real dialogue on the issues (and not one where decisions are already taken on what can be discussed). One impact of the decision against the pre-set agenda was that the invitation letter to potential participants was not able to contain a detailed outline of the proceedings of the seminar as the content had to be decided (by the delegates themselves).

Other important decisions were taken on the design and running of the seminars. In particular, the decision to hold each seminar over half a day was a deliberate strategy to maximise turn-out from higher ranking officials who may not be able to devote an entire day to participation.

Another key decision was to use internal, Scottish Executive officials to facilitate the proceedings. Emphasis has been given within the Executive over recent years to building facilitating capacity within the organisation and a variety of courses and training has been provided to interested officials. Trained personnel are encouraged to provide their facilitation services to colleagues in different parts of the Executive, in order to maintain their skills and offer an alternative to commissioning external facilitators.

In interview, the Best Value and Performance policy team outlined the value they attached to using internal facilitators who, " had worked with Scottish Executive issues and know what would work in that context". It was felt that their advice could hold weight, and indeed, the policy team adopted what they saw as a higher risk consultation approach based upon the advice of the Scottish Executive core facilitating team. A further benefit of using internal facilitators was that costs of running the seminars were lower than had external facilitators had been commissioned. Choosing the more economic option was seen to be in the spirit of Best Value.

Finally, a decision was taken on dividing seminars along policy sector lines. The policy team had discussed categorisation by size of organisation but had dismissed this on account of their concerns that this might appear "patronising" to smaller bodies. On balance, they decided that there was no one " ideal way to cut the cake" and opted for what they saw as the logic of following Ministerial portfolios so that the seminars involved organisations that may already work together to deliver certain policies.

2.4.4 The External Reference Group

The external reference group was envisaged as a body of around 12 representatives who could advise on the practical aspects of preparation of guidance, a tool-kit, and possibly, training materials. The group was also seen as a way into identifying case study evidence. No firm decision was taken initially on whether meetings would be physical or virtual although in practice meetings have been physical with an element of email correspondence and electronic sharing of views also featuring in an informal way.

2.5 Summary of key points

• The consultation process comprised 4 key stages. Three have been undertaken as timetabled with one of these still ongoing. The fourth has not taken place.
• The stages which have proceeded are an informal consultation, formal stakeholder engagement seminars, and meetings of an external reference group.
• A deliberate decision was taken not to issue a written consultation paper but to favour instead face-to-face interaction.
• The decision not to issue a written consultation paper was considered to hold some risks for the consultation.
• One-to-one informal discussions held early on were seen by the commissioners as enabling fact-finding by the Scottish Executive whilst also allowing the consultation team to provide information.
• One-to-one informal discussions were viewed as a means to establish early public sector "buy-in" on key issues.
• Hosting stakeholder seminars was seen as an efficient way to widen the scope for face-to-face interaction and facilitate networking and sharing of information between public sector organisations.
• Deliberate decisions were taken to run the seminars over half a day, divide them along policy portfolio lines, use internal Government officials to facilitate and to avoid pre-setting the agenda.
• The external reference group was established to provide advice on more practical matters of refreshing and renewing Best Value in the public sector.

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