IX Articulating values
9.73 Consultation has an important role to play in publicising proposals, stimulating critical debate, and eliciting a broad range of comments on the practicability and desirability of proposals.
9.74 When environmental standards are set or other judgements made about environmental issues, decisions must be informed by an understanding of people's values. Traditional forms of consultation, while they have provided useful insights, are not an adequate method of articulating values.
9.75 Parliaments can have a significant influence on environmental standards by requiring Ministers and others to explain and justify their proposals on the basis of objective criteria, by independently seeking advice from experts, and in debate if proposals are laid before them. Parliaments are able to express public attitudes and values to some extent. Nevertheless, governments should use more direct methods to ensure that people's values, along with knowledge and understanding, are articulated and taken into account alongside technical and scientific considerations.
9.76 A more rigorous and wide-ranging exploration of people's values requires discussion and debate to allow a range of viewpoints and perspectives to be considered, and individual values developed.
9.77 Values should be articulated at the earliest stage possible in setting standards and developing policies. The public should be involved in the formulation of strategies, rather than merely being consulted on already drafted proposals.
9.78 The decision whether to use one of the new methods for eliciting people's values in any given context should depend on the nature of the issue under consideration.
9.79 In setting environmental standards, these new methods should be used primarily in connection with issues which are both complex or controversial and of broad scope. Rather than attempting to cover every proposed standard, efforts to elicit values should focus on general questions of principle or procedure.
9.80 No method for determining or articulating people's values, whether traditional or novel, provides a guaranteed solution. Novel approaches should be evaluated for their ability to elicit a full spectrum of values on the issue in question from representative participants, so that the procedures used can be refined in the light of experience and their full potential realised.
9.81 The cost of methods for articulating public values is significant: a judgement has to be made in each case as to whether gains in the quality and robustness of the decision are likely to outweigh the time and resources required.
83. The Government agrees that understanding public values is essential for good decision making. Selecting consultation and participation methods is therefore a key part of a standard-setting process, particularly since different groups in society may express very different values.
84. Different methods have different strengths and weaknesses. 'Traditional' consultation methods can be an effective way to gather views from a wide range of stakeholders, giving them the opportunity to articulate their views in some detail in written responses. Tailored surveys, involving random methods of selection and a good response, can sometimes be essential to ensure that responses are genuinely representative - poor responses and biased selection of participants can give misleading results with costly repercussions. On the other hand, as the Commission points out, traditional methods can fail to provide opportunities for interaction and for clarifying values.
85. Deliberative processes, such as citizens' juries and discussion groups, can help to overcome this problem. The Government accepts that they have a valuable contribution to make to policy making. They can, however, have their own disadvantages. For example, they can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, and do not necessarily eliminate conflict. They can also be unrepresentative and subject to capture by particular stakeholder groups. They can be dominated by the articulate with the loudest voices. So they should not be seen as a substitute for other methods, but as a complement. For example, focus groups can help draw out the issues behind responses to larger surveys.
86. There are also issues to consider which can be common to all types of consultation and participation processes. They can suffer from a problem of 'stakeholder fatigue', through seeking to engage the same people again and again. The terms of reference need to be considered carefully - it is difficult to achieve a truly 'neutral' deliberative process (though equally, of course, it is impossible to find a non-deliberative process that is 'neutral'), and there will be questions about the extent to which processes for articulating values should try to change preferences as well as seek them. There is also a danger that certain pieces of information assume inappropriate levels of importance - 'memorable quotes' being one example. The Government hosted a seminar in March 2000 entitled 'Science and Technology in Government Policy Making - Sharing Technologies for Wider Consultation' to explore the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches.
87. The Government will seek to tailor the approach used to the issue concerned. The Effective Performance Division in the Cabinet Office has published, as part of its series of best practice guides, a guide on 'How to Consult Your Users'. This offers advice on how to conduct consultation exercises, and the various techniques that can be used, including public meetings, focus groups and citizens' juries. While a focus of the guidance is how to ensure service users have a say in how to improve public services, the material in the guide is more widely applicable.
88. Because written consultation exercises will, alongside other methods, continue to be an important way of seeking views, the Cabinet Office has also produced guidance on how to conduct a written consultation exercise. This includes five guiding principles: building consultation into plans; consulting early; writing documents in simple language; giving consultees time to reply; and reporting back on consultation.
89. A key message from the Cabinet Office guidance is that reliance on a single method of consultation is unlikely to be sufficient. To make the most of resources, a mix of methods, allowing assessment from a range of perspectives, may be appropriate. The Government has frequently adopted such an approach. For example:
- consultation on the Government's current Sustainable Development Strategy involved a detailed written consultation exercise aimed largely at organisational stakeholders, supplemented with consultation conferences organised by Government itself (for example, meetings of regional stakeholders) and other bodies (such as the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health and the Sustainable Communities Action Network). Wider public views were sought through a shorter leaflet and through focus groups which discussed the headline indicators of sustainable development, a key aspect of the strategy;
- the process of drawing up a new rural white paper has involved not only a consultation paper but also a series of regional seminars, attended by a DETR or MAFF Minister, and frequent meetings between ministers and key stakeholder groups
- the Chemicals Stakeholder Forum (paragraph 59) will bring together stakeholders with an interest in chemicals issues.
90. For the future, the Government will continue to develop better ways of involving people. For example, the Department of Health and the Health and Safety Executive are currently funding research on evaluating public participation methods such as focus groups and citizen's panels. This includes a review of the advantages and disadvantages of different methods and an assessment of the most appropriate method in a particular context. The aim is to provide guidance for policy makers who need to involve the public in decision-making. The Department of Health is also considering work specifically aimed at understanding and responding to the public's values and concerns on risks to health.
9.82 Local authorities should review existing provision for public participation in relation to their environmental functions, and seek to extend this as appropriate. Greater use should be made of community fora to create consensus on local issues. The aim should also be to expand the local partnerships established through Local Agenda 21 initiatives to embrace consideration of policy issues.
91. A number of local authorities have already made significant progress in involving communities in policy formulation through the Local Agenda 21 process, often using techniques such as 'visioning'. Under the Local Government Bill, currently before Parliament, the Government proposes to require each council to secure the development of a comprehensive strategy for their areas. The approach to Community Planning will not, however, be imposed by central Government. Rather, the aim is that local authorities will seek greater partnership working with other bodies, both public and private, and engage their communities as a whole in promoting economic, social and environmental well-being.
9.83 The Environment Agencies should explore ways of stimulating public input into policies relating to all aspects of their work at the earliest stage possible. Local Environment Agency Plans are a welcome innovation. The Environment Agency should consider how procedures can be introduced which will be more effective in articulating values of all sections of the relevant communities.
92. Responsibility for the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency now falls to the Scottish Executive.
93. The Environment Agency continues to seek ways to improve public involvement in its decision making, and the Government supports these efforts. It has actively considered these issues for some time. In March 1998 the Agency produced 'Consensus Building for Sustainable Development' as a means to promote discussion within the Agency about consensus building and communication techniques. It considered past experience within the Agency - for example, the New Forest Local Environment Agency Plan (LEAP) to which the Commission referred in its report.
94. The report includes tables which highlight some of the key factors which the Agency has to bear in mind in its approach to public involvement. These include 'rules for risk communication' and a short summary of the advantages, disadvantages and effectiveness of different methods for information provision, consultation and consensus building. It suggests criteria for effective communication, and how they might be evaluated. As such, it has helped decision-makers in the Agency to decide when and how to use the techniques described.
95. Subsequent work in the Agency has built on this report. It has involved further research and assessment of experience, as well as examples of initiatives to improve public involvement. This work is summarised below.
96. In 1999 the Agency published a report it commissioned from University College London on An Analytical and Descriptive Model of Sustainable Development for the Environment Agency. That report highlighted the increased emphasis on social welfare as part of sustainable development, and of the place of dialogue and participation in determining objectives and priorities. It noted that one of the Agency's main tasks is to ensure that this approach is reflected in its policies and working methods, and that this will involve the Agency in:
- building partnerships, including with business;
- ensuring that disadvantaged groups are not further disadvantaged by policies;
- engaging regional and local interests in decision-making processes; and
- promoting a higher profile for Local Agenda 21 in local communities.
97. To do that, the Agency has to move from techniques which simply view the public as a constituency to inform or listen to, to develop approaches which involve the public as stakeholders who have a right to inform and benefit from the Agency's activities.
9.84 Improving the mechanisms for articulating values should be high on the agenda for the future development of European institutions.
98. The European Commission is placing an increasing emphasis on stakeholder involvement. This will be an important element of the EU's Sixth Action Programme on the Environment. However, it would not be feasible for the European Commission to undertake adequate consultation with all interested parties across the EU for every measure proposed. The UK, like other Member States, consults domestically on EU proposals for environmental legislation. The European Parliament, which now has an enhanced role in approving environmental legislation, also offers an important mechanism for reflecting different values within the European legislative process.
99. The nature of EU legislation can also be relevant. In particular, the use of Framework Directives (which leave scope for differing ways of meeting objectives) can provide flexibility for Member States to apply their own values.
9.85 The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, in consultation with other government Departments, should:
(a) consider how the new methods should be incorporated into the procedures for considering environmental issues and setting environmental standards, including the framing of questions to be addressed in analysis and communicating the results of scientific assessments in a comprehensible form;
(b) collate the experience gained, and draw up a code of practice for use of the new methods, designed both to maximise their effectiveness and preserve their integrity.
Some bodies may require additional resources for this purpose.
100. The Cabinet Office has already published guidance on best practice in consultation. This encourages people to consider citizens' juries, focus groups and other methods as well as traditional consultation exercises. The Government does not therefore believe that a new code of practice is necessary, though efforts to identify and share best practice will continue.
Published 21 November 2000
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