Civic Participation in Public Policy-Making: A Literature Review

Civic Participation in Public
Policy-Making:
A Literature Review
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CIVIC PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC POLICY-
MAKING: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Linda Nicholson
The Research Shop
Scottish Executive Social Research

2005
This report is available on the Scottish Executive Social Research
website only www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch.
The views expressed in this report are those of the researcher and
do not necessarily represent those of the Department or
Scottish Ministers.
© Crown Copyright 2005

Limited extracts from the text may be produced provided the source
is acknowledged. For more extensive reproduction, please write to
the Chief Researcher at Office of Chief Researcher,
4th Floor West Rear, St Andrew’s House, Edinburgh EH1 3DG
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks go to Vikki Milne and Alison Platts of the Scottish Executive Civic Participation
Research Team for their support throughout. I am also very grateful to the help provided by
Kerry Jardine of the Scottish Executive library.
Linda Nicholson
The Research Shop
March 2005
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 6
1.1 Background 6
1.2 Remit of literature review 7
1.3 Methodology 8
1.4 Comment on the literature identified 8
1.5 Structure of the review 9
PART 1: RANGE, NATURE AND TRENDS IN CIVIC

PARTICIPATION MECHANISMS 10
CHAPTER 2: STOCKTAKE OF CIVIC PARTICIPATION IN THE UK 11
2.1 Assessment of innovative approaches to testing community opinion in Scotland 11

2.2 Public participation undertaken by local government in England 13
2.3 Other smaller-scale studies of public participation activities 17
2.4 Summary of main points 18
CHAPTER 3: USE OF INDIVIDUAL APPROACHES 19
3.1 Citizens’ juries 19

3.2 Consensus conference 22
3.3 Written consultations 24
3.4 People’s/Citizens’ panels 25
3.5 Web-based approaches 27
3.6 Other approaches 30
CHAPTER 4: THE DELIBERATIVE PROCESS IN PUBLIC

PARTICIPATION 32
4.1 Rationale for use of deliberative methods 32

4.2 Pros and cons of using deliberative methods 32
4.3 Impact of deliberative approaches on public views 34
PART 2: OVERARCHING LESSONS AND ISSUES 35
CHAPTER 5: GENERAL LESSONS TO EMERGE 36

CHAPTER 6: ENGAGING THE “HARD-TO-REACH” 39
6.1 Introduction 39
6.2 Positive action 40
6.3 Examples of civic participation with hard-to-reach groups 41
6.4 Policy lessons 42
CHAPTER 7: EVALUATING CIVIC PARTICIPATION ACTIVITY 44
7.1 State of play 44

7.2 Challenges in designing civic participation activity evaluations 44
7.3 Examples of evaluation indicators deployed 45
7.4 Examples of evaluative frameworks 47
CHAPTER 8: THE CITIZENS’ VIEWS 49
8.1 Views of feedback on and impact of participation 49

8.2 Need for appropriate and legitimate information 50
8.3 Process matters 50
8.4 Maximising participant role 50
CHAPTER 9: CONTEXTUAL ISSUES 52
9.1 Policy context 52

9.2 Geographical context 54
9.3 Governance context 54
9.4 Nature of topic 55
CHAPTER 10: CHALLENGES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 56
10.1 Issues and challenges 56

10.2 Future developments 59
ANNEX: GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS 61
REFERENCES 63
TABLES
Table 1: Use of public participation techniques by Scottish public authorities 12

Table 2: Use of public participation approaches reported as used by English local
Authorities in 1997 and 2001 and planned for 2002 14
Table 3: Frequency of use of different techniques by local authorities during 2001 16
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This literature review forms one part of a wider study aimed at investigating civic
participation activity undertaken by the Scottish Executive. The commissioning of the study
reflects a growing interest in the use of civic participation in Scottish national policy-making.
There have been many drivers behind the increased use of civic participation in Scotland in
recent years including the recommendation by the Consultative Steering Group on the
Scottish Parliament that the latter should be accessible, open, responsive and develop
procedures that make possible a participative approach to policy-making.
The aims of the review were to provide a picture of the range of civic participation activity in
public policy-making undertaken across different national jurisdictions, where possible to
explore the reasons for using specific activities within particular contexts, and to draw out
generalisable lessons and issues to emerge where these are of relevance to the Scottish
Executive.
The method was desk-based and involved several different approaches to locating relevant
published and unpublished material. Key amongst these were web-based searches of major
databases, especial searches of relevant websites and personal contact with a small number of
relevant contacts working in the field.
Overall, the literature reviewed encompassed civic participation activity ranging from the
more “traditional” forms such as public meetings to the more novel approaches such as
consensus conferencing, and from mechanisms that seek responses from participants acting
alone (surveys) to those involving deliberation between different members of the public
working in groups (eg focus groups). Although much of the material reviewed was UK-
based, the review included literature from international sources extending from Canada and
the United States through to Europe and Australia.
Most of the literature available tended to take a relatively uncritical view of civic
participation activities, with a paucity of rigorous evaluative approaches emerging. This
limited the extent to which lessons could be drawn on what works, in what context and why.
The review was divided into 2 main parts. The first part focused on outlining the range,
nature of and trends in civic participation mechanisms deployed by large public bodies in
policy-making. The second part took an over-arching perspective and drew out generalisable
issues, lessons and challenges from across the board where these were seen as relevant to the
Scottish context. A summary of the main points to emerge follows:
Stocktake of Civic Participation in the UK (Chapter 2)
• The summary of several main surveys and studies of public participation over national
and local jurisdictions demonstrated a number of trends to emerge over recent years.
• There was a general broadening of the range of activities undertaken from an average
of 9.1 initiatives used in 1997 by local authorities in England to an average 10.5 in
2001.
• Whilst authorities have held onto many of the traditional approaches which have
stood the test of time, local government has appeared to be at the forefront of pushing
forward the boundaries on innovation in techniques, with examples of some
1
authorities showing particular willingness to try out new approaches and share their
experiences with others.
• Lagging someway behind this pioneering work appears to be evidence of strategic
planning regarding public participation with much activity reflecting a reactive rather
than pro-active schedule of activities.
• The survey reports make little mention of systematic evaluative processes except to
comment that the few evaluations that had been undertaken had focused on the
process of public participation rather than its impact and tended to be of an informal
and subjective manner. Such limitations curtail further exploration at this point of
what works best in which contexts.
Use of Individual Approaches (Chapter 3)
• A general lack of critical assessment and systematic evaluation curtails the

identification of lessons to be learned from previous civic participation activity.
• Those activities attracting most critical assessment include citizens’ juries, the
consensus conference, written consultations, people’s/citizens’ panels, web-based
approaches and public meetings.
• Citizens’ juries were seen to have advantages such as making policy-makers think
through and articulate the policy arguments, engaging people not otherwise likely to
become involved, and bringing another set of values to public policy issues.
• Many concerns were raised about citizens’ juries including the representativeness of
the juries, their value for money and their power to affect decisions.
• Consensus conferences were seen as tools for involving the public in matters of great
complexity.
• Disadvantages of using the consensus conference included dealing with citizens’
heightened expectations of the outcome, the relatively high human and financial costs
involved, and the need for careful preparation to ensure its effectiveness.
• There has been a rapid rise in the use of written consultations particularly by central
Government.
• Concerns regarding written consultations focused around the need to balance the
views of different respondents including large lobby organisations, avoiding
consultation fatigue amongst regular targets of consultations, needing to be more
transparent about handling of responses and the time-consuming process of analysing
responses.
• The suggestion was made for a “Consultation Charter” to be adopted which sets out
visible and demanding standards for practice.
• There were indications that citizens’ panels had made some impact on policy
decision-making.
• Problems associated with citizens’ panels focused around their representativeness and
low response rates.
• A growing use of web-based approaches to civic participation was witnessed across
western democracies and represented an area of rapid development, experimentation
and learning from experience.
• Issues to emerge were the need for commissioners to use ICT expertise in setting up
and maintaining their on-line systems, the continued existence of a “digital divide”
which excludes some sectors from web-based participation, the need for impartial
moderators and the possible need for a code of conduct for civil servants engaged in
responding to on-line messages.
2
• A general view was that public meetings tended to influence policy decisions and
were judged by participants largely by the apparent fairness of the process and the
way they considered the commissioning agency to have responded to their
contribution.
The Deliberative Process in Civic Participation (Chapter 4)
• The deliberative process attracted a significant body of comment in the literature

reviewed, not only on account of its gradual increase in use, but also because of the
many perceived benefits of adopting such approaches.
• Much early experimentation with deliberative methods has taken place within the
NHS.
• Deliberative techniques were seen as offering a less confrontational and more
constructive approach than other approaches such as public meetings.
• Successes were seen in terms of the outputs from deliberative techniques informing
creative new policies and fostering a sense of civic engagement. However, the
handling of outputs from deliberative exercises needed to be more carefully
considered in some circumstances, for example, where these brought together
professional expertise with lay views.
• Compared with other approaches deliberative techniques were seen as making
participants more amenable to change and making more dominant views less
entrenched.
General Lessons to Emerge (Chapter 5)
• Several international studies have drawn together lessons to emerge from across a
wide variety of different experiences of civic participation.
• Lessons learned need to be assessed for their transferability across jurisdictions and
policy contexts.
• One broad lesson to emerge in several different contexts is that citizens should be
involved at an early stage in policy decision-making.
• It was acknowledged that a high quality of public participation may take an
organisation several years to develop.
• The problem of engaging with “hard-to-reach” sectors emerged and is addressed in
more depth in the next Chapter.
Engaging the Hard-To-Reach (Chapter 6)
• Concerns were raised in the literature regarding difficulties in engaging with

particular groups such as MECs, young people, older people, local business people
and those living in rural locations.
• Two main approaches to tackling such under-representation were observed. These
were taking positive action to build a level playing field for participation and
undertaking especial exercises tailored to the particular target group.
• Many examples of initiatives to engage with young people have been supported by
the Scottish Executive.
• A key message to emerge was that engaging such sectors required an adaptation of
methods of participation, not an adoption of ready-made approaches.
3
Evaluating Civic Participation Activity (Chapter 7)
• The rapid increase in both use and nature of civic participation activity in public
policy-making does not appear to be grounded in empirical evidence of what works
and why.
• Many commentators have identified difficulties in designing robust evaluations of
such activity.
• Where evaluations have been attempted these have tended to focus on the process of
the activity rather than its outcome.
• Different views emerged on what constituted effective civic participation.
• There were mixed views on whether participants’ opinions on the participation
activity were relevant to an evaluation of its effectiveness.
• There has been a move over recent years to construct formal frameworks for
evaluating civic participation activities.
The Citizens’ Views (Chapter 8)
• Although many people who have participated in civic participation in Scotland felt
that their contribution had been listened to by policy-makers, others were not sure
what had happened to their input and if it had affected policy.
• The importance of previous participants finding out “what happened next” emerged
repeatedly in the literature.
• Participants were concerned that any information they were provided with as part of
the activity should be credible and legitimate.
• Participants’ perceptions of their experience are greatly influenced by aspects of the
participation process.
• Some participants felt that they had more to offer and did not demonstrate signs of
consultation fatigue.
• Participants were seen as becoming more critical of the participation process and
more discerning about their involvement.
Contextual Issues (Chapter 9)
• Previous innovative developments in civic participation have been dominated by

examples from the health policy domain.
• Previous experience of civic participation within the regeneration context has
demonstrated mixed success with a variety of barriers cited in relation to resourcing
activity, changing organisational structures and need for capacity-building.
• Within the transport policy context, there appears to be little substantive evidence on
how public involvement in policy decision-making has impacted on overall outcomes.
• There was some evidence to suggest that local authorities in urban areas tended to be
more active in promoting civic participation than those in rural locations.
• Across different jurisdictions, the nature and ethos of governance appeared to exert an
influence over the effectiveness of civic participation. The notion of civic “self
confidence” emerged and was viewed as a pre-requisite to effective civic involvement
in public policy-making.
• In general, topics which it was suggested engaged the public most effectively were
concrete, distinct, contentious and of relevance to the lives of the target sector.
4
Challenges and Future Directions (Chapter 10)
• Several generalisable challenges for successful civic participation emerged from the
literature reviewed.
• Across many different contexts there was concern that to date civic participation
appeared not to have made a significant impact on decision-making.
• The public’s lack of awareness of the scope of power at different levels of
governance created difficulties in meeting their expectations of impact.
• The need to clarify the respective roles of participatory and representative democracy
emerged in order to address the perceived tension between them, particularly within
the context of regeneration policy.
• There was a growing need for guidance on how to handle any weighting of views
provided by different sectors of respondents to civic participation exercises.
• Accurate estimation of the resources required for civic participation appeared to be
challenging with lack of adequate resources identified as a key problem by local
authorities.
• The notion that public apathy towards civic participation could explain low response
rates was contested by some commentators who argued that apparent unwillingness
to engage may reflect negative perceptions of representative democracy rather than
the participatory process per se.
• A number of influences on future development of civic participation were identified
and included: advances in e-Government; further growth of civic society
organisations; increasing globalisation; increasing complexity of issues and tighter
time frames; the development of systematic civic participation evaluation
frameworks; and increasing strategic planning of civic participation activity.
5
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
This literature review forms one part of a wider study aimed at investigating civic
participation activity undertaken by the Scottish Executive1. Other elements of the overall
study comprise a survey of civic participation activity undertaken by the Scottish Executive
in 2004 and a mapping of Scottish Executive activity undertaken since devolution which aims
to build capacity for, facilitate or assist public participation in policy making. A separate
report presents the findings from the survey and mapping components of the research study.
The commissioning of the study reflects a growing interest in the use of civic participation in
Scottish national policy-making fuelled in particular by the principle enshrined in the report2
of the Consultative Steering Group on the Scottish Parliament that:
“the Scottish Parliament should be accessible, open, responsive, and develop

procedures which make possible a participative approach to the development,
consideration and scrutiny of policy and legislation” (Section 2, paragraph 2)
The Scottish Executive’s strategic vision for Modernising Government by increasing its
openness, accountability and focus on the citizen has also provided a major impetus for the
development and use of participatory mechanisms. The Scottish Executive continues to work
with voluntary organisations and civic society, both directly and through organisations such
as the Scottish Civic Forum and Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations, to promote
wide participation in the legislative process. The overarching policy framework of Social
Justice has also encouraged equality of participation and empowerment of various sectors of
the community with Government funding in 1999 underpinning the large-scale Listening to
Communities Programme to develop People’s Juries and People’s Panels within area-based
Social Inclusion Partnerships.
The role of civic participation in policy-making has been steadily formalised by careful
placement of relevant clauses within new legislation. For example, the Race Relations
(Amendment) Act 2000 requires designated public sector organisations to consult with
minority ethnic communities on a range of policy issues. Likewise, the Housing (Scotland)
Act 2001 obliges landlords to “inform, consult and involve tenants” (S.53-56) in matters
affecting them.
Within the context of local democracy, initiatives such as Best Value and Community
Planning have also demanded innovative and inclusive approaches to involving communities
in policy development. Indeed, it has been estimated that up to 10,000 UK public sector staff
are engaged for a significant proportion of their time in organising consultations with Central
Government and its Agencies issuing about 1,000 consultation exercises per annum (Jones
and Gammell, 2004).
Increased deployment of civic participation within the context of public policy-making is

mirrored across western democracies with commentators differing in their interpretation of
the underlying drivers of this trend. Within the UK it is generally acknowledged that since
1
A Glossary of terminology and definitions is provided in the Annex
2
www.scotland.gov.uk/library/documents-w5/rcsg-04.htm
6
1997 the Labour Government has promoted public engagement strongly as one means of
modernising public services (eg Jones and Gammell, 2004). It is argued that, “today’s
citizens are far more educated, more knowledgeable and more confident than their
predecessors” (Mulgan, 2003, p15), with people now expecting that their voices should be
heard and views considered in decision-making by Government (OECD, 2001). Civic
participation was considered one way to address the perceived “democratic deficit” created
by the previous role of the citizen in representative democracy which appeared to some as
little more than infrequently casting a ballot (Curtain, 2003).
Other drivers of the movement for increased civic participation have been suggested and
include the gradual acceptance of the notion of evidence-based policy-making, expectations
of greater transparency in decision-making and recognition that many of the long-established
frameworks of governance may be ill-suited to some of the complex modern issues to be
addressed. The parallel rapid advances in information and communication technology (ICT)
are cited by some as a key facilitator in the development of civic participation with claims
that ICT is transforming relations between governments and citizens:
“All OECD countries regard new information and communication technologies

as a powerful tool and are making significant efforts to bring their
administrations and their citizens ‘on-line’” (OECD, 2001)
Whilst commentators tend to stress the ideological motivations for increased civic
engagement (transparency, accountability, and so on) more cynical views include the
suggestion that involving the public may on occasions be driven by more pragmatic
rationales such as needing to achieve popular support for potentially unpopular decisions
(Rowe and Frewer, 2000) with the civic participation movement criticised for developing,
“without either conceptual clarity or practical direction” and governments being, “slow to
articulate what they hope to achieve or how they intend to get there” (Church et al, 2002).
Indeed, Curtain (2003) argues that experience of civic participation on the ground has
produced mixed signals with many government officials privately doubting its place in
representative democracy, whilst Walters et al (2000) described approaches to involving the
public as potentially time consuming, expensive, complicated and emotionally draining.
Within the context of a general increase in civic participation activity across Western
democracies and changing trends in the nature and type of mechanisms deployed, this
literature review was commissioned to identify and summarise key literature relating to the
use of civic participation in national policy-making.
1.2 REMIT OF LITERATURE REVIEW
The remit for the review was to provide a picture of the range of civic participation activity
undertaken across different national jurisdictions within the policy-making context. The
focus is on the participant as a citizen rather than a consumer. Further aims were to explore
the reasons for using specific activities within particular contexts and to draw out
generalisable lessons and issues to emerge from their use where these are of relevance to the
Scottish Executive. The literature review was envisaged as providing a different perspective
on the nature of and trends in civic participation activity over recent years, to complement
rather than repeat the variety of descriptive guides available which outline, inter alia, how to
go about running such activities (eg. CoSLA, 1998; Scottish Parliament, 2004; Cabinet
Office, 2004).
7
1.3 METHODOLOGY
The literature review was desk-based and involved the identification of both published and
unpublished material. Several different approaches to locating relevant literature were
adopted:
• Web-based searching of major databases including PubMed and the NHS e-library
database
• Search of the IDOX Information Service database which incorporates unpublished
material and focuses on the public sector
• Scottish Executive library literature search of key databases ASSIA, OCLC and SSCI
• Searches of the websites of key international institutions including OECD and the
World Health Organisation
• Searches of the websites of UK Government and Government agency websites
• Personal contact by email with a small number of researchers who have experience of
working in the field of civic participation
• Examination of literature held on civic participation by the Scottish Executive Civic
Participation Research Team
Where database searches were undertaken the most commonly used keywords were:
• Civic participation
• Public participation
• Active citizenship
• Success or evaluation or trends
1.4 COMMENT ON THE LITERATURE IDENTIFIED
The literature available on the use of civic participation activities in national policy-making
presented a challenge to this investigation of rationale for approach and the search for lessons
on what worked and why. As noted by previous reviewers (eg Jenkins et al, 2002), much of
the material of relevance appeared to be lacking in empirical grounding, reflecting a rapid
spread in activity but with relatively little academic or professional foundation. So, for
example, the emerging trends in the nature and use of various forms of civic participation
activity appeared, to some extent, to be a manifestation of the desire to try out innovative
approaches rather than build upon a growing base of evidence on what works in which
contexts.
The literature abounds with guides to good practice yet tends to take a rather uncritical
stance, leaving doubts about the potential application of practice to other jurisdictions and
circumstances. For example, Abelson et al’s (2003) review of deliberative methods in the
health sector failed to find any systematic comparison of deliberative and non-deliberative
methods within the same context, nor any assessment of the relative costs and effectiveness
of such methods.
There was little evidence of attempts to identify the difference that civic involvement had
made with a common starting point seeming to be the assumption that civic participation is
intrinsically beneficial, leaving no need for in-depth consideration of its impact on strategy.
Experience of what did not work was scarce. The paucity of rigorous evaluations of civic
8
participation methodologies is a concern to those wishing to draw generalisable lessons for
national policy makers and this review returns in Chapter 7 to consider issues of evaluation
and its challenges.
The review focused on the civic participation experiences of large public bodies and sought,
wherever possible, to identify participation relating to national policy-making. However, an
examination of the literature revealed a preponderance of civic participation activity within
the UK at local authority rather than national level with the weight of findings and lessons
learned reported in this review emerging from this local experience (where this has been
deemed relevant to national policy-making).
The literature reviewed also demonstrated the spectrum of definitions, understandings and
frameworks deployed by different commentators in their examination of civic participation.
Frequently referred to as “public participation” the concept was viewed as ambiguous and
meaning, “many different things to many different people” (Steelman and Ascher, 1997, p.2)3.
One broad definition which appeared to capture the main body of opinion was that of Rowe
and Frewer (2004):
“public participation may be defined at a general level as the practice of

consulting and involving members of the public in the agenda-setting, decision-
making and policy-forming activities of organisations or institutions responsible
for policy development” (p512)
However, even within this broad definition, the variety of different typologies of activities
constructed by different commentators (eg Lowndes et al, 2001; Leach and Wingfield, 1999)
complicates attempts to make cross-comparisons between different studies and experiences.
Overall, the literature reviewed encompassed civic participation activity ranging from the
more “traditional” forms such as public meetings to the more novel approaches such as
consensus conferencing, and from mechanisms that seek responses from participants acting
alone (surveys) to those involving deliberation between different members of the public
working in groups (eg focus groups). Much of the material reviewed was UK-based although
the OECD Citizens as Partners project provided a particularly rich source of cross-national
experience along with other international sources extending from Canada and the United
States through to Europe and Australia.
The findings from the review need to be understood within the context of the relatively sparse
evidence base from which to draw and with a caution over the potential for transferability of
some lessons across different circumstances.
1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE REVIEW
The remainder of this review is divided into 2 parts. Chapters 2 – 4 in Part 1 focus on
outlining the range, nature of, and trends in, civic participation mechanisms deployed by
large public bodies in policy-making across Western democracies. Chapters 5 – 10 in Part 2
take an over-arching perspective and draw out general issues, lessons and challenges from
across the board where these are of relevance to the Scottish context.
3
Throughout this review the phraseology follows that of the literature under review. So terms may change from
say, “civic participation” to “public participation” depending on their specific use by different authors.
9
PART 1: RANGE, NATURE AND TRENDS IN CIVIC
PARTICIPATION MECHANISMS
Part 1 of the review provides examples of the types of civic participation techniques adopted
by western democracies over recent years. It provides information on trends in civic
participation within the UK and concentrates in more detail on 5 approaches of particular
relevance to modern public policy-making faced with ever increasing complexities of
decisions to be addressed, but also with emerging opportunities such as greater sophistication
of Information and Communication Technology and increased public access to the internet.
Finally, issues relating to the use of more innovative deliberative approaches are discussed.
10
CHAPTER 2: STOCKTAKE OF CIVIC PARTICIPATION IN THE
UK
A useful starting point is to highlight the small number of studies which have captured the
state of play of civic participation methodologies at a national level. Those of key relevance
to emerge in this literature review comprised the stocktake in Scotland of innovative
approaches to testing community opinion (George Street Research, 2000) and in England, 2
surveys of local authority deployment of public participation, in 1997 and 2001 respectively.
Taken together these surveys are very useful in revealing general trends in the range of
participation activities used by large public bodies in the UK over a period of rapid change in
governance.
2.1 ASSESSMENT OF INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO TESTING

COMMUNITY OPINION IN SCOTLAND
This research constitutes the most comprehensive attempt to date to capture the range of
public participation approaches used by Scottish public authorities. Commissioned by the
Scottish Executive and undertaken in 1999-2000 by George Street Research (2000), the study
focused on innovations in gauging public views across local authorities, local enterprise
companies (LECs), health boards, housing associations, and the Scottish Executive’s then
recently established Social Inclusion Partnerships (SIPs) and Working for Communities
Pathfinders.
Describing the picture to emerge as “rapidly changing” (p26), particularly in the light of
constantly changing funding streams (for example, the Government made new funding
available for the development of People’s Panels in SIPs shortly after the fieldwork had been
completed), the researchers found that only 3 of the 126 organisations involved in their study
claimed not to have used any method of public engagement at that time. As might be
expected, the more traditional forms of participation such as surveys and public meetings
dominated the picture with approaches least likely to have been used including “newer”
techniques such as citizens’ juries, citizens’ panels and deliberative polling. Table 1 overleaf
summarises the range of activities reported by public authorities.
The activities identified represented those aimed at the public as “citizens” (eg deliberative
polling) in addition to those with a greater “consumer” slant (eg mystery shopping4). The
researchers noted that the longer established bodies such as local authorities, health boards
and LECs were making use of the widest range of approaches. Health boards particularly
were at the forefront in the use of focus groups, exhibitions and staff suggestion schemes.
Local authorities led the way in use of citizens’ panels and juries, perhaps reflecting the start-
up investment in resources demanded by these techniques and the greater capacity of local
authorities to bear the higher risks they posed because of their novelty. However, many
organisations described their plans to make more use of innovative approaches in the future.
4
Mystery shopping is a technique long used in retail where researchers pose as service users to experience the
service from the users’ perspective. Mystery Shopping is used by the public sector for various reasons such as
testing out whether protocols are being followed.
11
Table 1: Use of Public Participation Techniques by Scottish Public Authority (George
Street Research, 2000) (Percentage use)
Base = 126 LAs SIPs Health Working for Local Housing All
respondents Board Communities Enterprise Association Repsond-
Pathfinders Company ents
High Levels of Use (%)
Links with 97 85 100 100 85 91 91
community
groups
Open/public 97 73 100 100 92 91 88
meetings
Local 84 75 80 100 85 100 84
newsletters
Exhibitions 91 63 100 75 92 73 79
Focus groups 81 63 100 100 85 73 77
Surveys 94 73 87 100 100 95 87
Variable Levels of use (%)
Users 97 65 87 50 100 100 85
comments &
complaints
Written 97 80 93 75 100 59 84
consultation
Workshops 94 80 93 100 100 55 83
Pilot 78 73 53 75 92 55 71
initiatives
Staff 63 30 80 25 85 73 57
suggestion
schemes
Depth 63 45 53 50 77 27 51
interviews
IT (internet; 63 35 67 50 77 14 47
kiosks)
Low Levels of Use (%)
Mystery 19 8 7 0 46 0 13
shopping
Deliberative 16 8 7 50 8 5 10
polling
Freephone no. 44 13 40 0 38 14 26
for comments
Citizens’ 41 10 27 25 31 14 23
Panels
Citizens’ 16 5 13 0 8 0 8
Juries
Other (eg 22 23 13 0 15 9 17
Planning for
Real, Open
Space,
Business
Panels, Public
Surgeries)
12
Another feature of the use of public participation to emerge was the tendency for many of the
public bodies to combine different approaches in addressing an issue. For example, South
Lanarkshire Council had used both qualitative and survey-based approaches to explore the
issue of budget setting with members of the public. Examples of joint working between
different bodies also emerged. Frequently joint working arrangements appeared to have
evolved over time, sometimes in a “loosely structured” manner and developing in response to
specific contexts rather than in any formally planned manner. The most formalised
partnership arrangements between agencies often focused on shared funding of, and access to
pre-recruited panels as a cost effective means of partner organisations undertaking
consultation with the public. Other less formal arrangements included provision of “expert
witnesses” to assist with citizens’ juries or simply meeting to share experiences across
organisations.
Overall, the picture appeared to be one of change without much evidence of strategic
direction. Drivers included the need for organisations to respond to statutory requirements to
consult and also, interestingly, the enthusiasm amongst a small number of pro-active bodies
to “try out” more innovative techniques rather than any rationale grounded in empirical
evidence of “fit for context”. Although a number of agencies had developed consultation
strategies, the researchers remarked that in practice:
“the actual planning and co-ordination of consultation programmes may have

received less attention as the enthusiasm to maintain momentum has pushed
along the consultation process” (p36)
2.2 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION UNDERTAKEN BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN

ENGLAND
The most useful data to provide a national perspective on the range of participation methods
being deployed in England has emerged from 2 comprehensive surveys of local government
activity undertaken in 1997 (DETR, 1998) and 2001 (ODPM, 2002). The second survey
aimed to replicate the original exercise as far as possible in order to produce valuable time-
series data on trends in methodologies. The surveys involved postal questionnaires to local
authorities in England which requested comprehensive details of current and planned public
participation activities and information on related issues such as the context and impact of
use. Table 2 overleaf summarises the methods which authorities reported that they had used
in 1997 and in 2001 and also their plans for usage in 2002.
These surveys provide a significant insight into the involvement of the public in policy-
making on account of their scale and depth of detail. For example, the 2001 survey involved
216 authorities executing public participation activity across wide-ranging contexts such as
environmental issues, community safety and housing, often in conjunction with other
agencies, for example, police, health bodies and voluntary groups.
13
Table 2: Use of Public Participation Approaches Reported as Used by English Local
Authorities in 1997 and 2001 and Planned for 2002
Public Participation Approach % of LA Use in % of LA Use in % of Planned

1997 2001 Use in 2002
Service Satisfaction Surveys 88 92 87
Complaints/Suggestion Schemes 92 86 87
Consultation Documents 85 84 79
Focus Groups 47 81 76
Public Meetings 85 78 70
Service User Forums 65 73 72
Citizens’ Panels 18 71 75
Area/Neighbourhood Forums 61 64 64
Community Plans/Needs Analysis 45 58 69
Other Opinion Polls 46 56 51
Interactive Website 24 52 64
Question and Answer Sessions 47 51 52
Co-option/Committee Work 61 48 50
Issue Forums 50 44 43
Shared Interest Forums 40 38 34
Visioning Exercises 26 38 38
User Management of Services 23 18 19
Referendums 4 10 6
Citizens’ Juries 5 6 5
2.2.1 Findings from the 1997 Survey of Public Participation
The analysis of the findings emerging from the 1997 survey (DETR, 1998) revealed that:
• The traditional forms of public participation were well established and well used
• There was a growing interest in more innovative techniques, sometimes tried out on a
one-off basis (where relatively little up-front investment was required) or on a steadier
basis (where significant resourcing was required, for example to establish a citizens’
panel)
• With respect to ICT, work was in progress to help people to become more familiar
with computers and to increase access opportunities such as positioning computers in
public places
• Local authorities located in urban areas tended to be more active than those in more
rural locations
• Different political control of the authority made little difference to the patterning of
activity
• The number of activities reported represented a significant increase over previous
years
• Local authorities appeared to be helping to set the public participation agenda and not
simply responding to Government-led preferences for activity. Indeed, there was a
distinct lack of support for central Government prescriptive guidance on public
participation
• Overall, the picture was one of maintaining the older, traditional methods of involving
the public whilst adding new ones to this portfolio
14
Again, instances of inter-agency collaborative working were reported, notably in the policy
domains of regeneration, health and education, although there was evidence of some
difficulties in sustaining such partnerships over time. It was noted that some joined-up
working had emerged in response to the views of citizens who tended, in their contributions,
to show little respect for formal agency demarcations in authority and remit.
Across the range of traditional and more innovative forms of public participation, the
majority of exercises reported in 1997 were conducted in relation to individual service rather
than corporate policy issues. The authors remarked that perhaps many corporate issues were
deemed inappropriate for public engagement. It was also noted that, perhaps due to their
technical nature, some policy fields such as planning appeared to rely more on the traditional
forms of approach like public meetings and consultation papers. These findings are
interesting when set against later international experience in tackling more complex issues
with the public via deliberative participatory methods (see Chapter 4).
2.2.2 Findings from the 2001 Survey of Public Participation
The analysis of the 2001 data (ODPM, 2002) provides rich data on changing trends and also
on perceptions of impact on policy-making. There was a general broadening of the range of
activities undertaken from an average of 9.1 initiatives used in 1997 by local authorities in
England to an average 10.5 in 2001.
As demonstrated in Table 2 above, the trend data revealed a general slowing down of
“traditional” activities such as public meetings, committee work and complaints/suggestions
schemes, balanced by sometimes large increases in innovative and deliberative approaches.
For example, the use of citizens’ panels rose from 18% of local authorities who responded in
1997 to 71% of those responding in 2001. Plans for use in 2002 suggested the upward trend
was set to continue. Likewise, a significant rise in the use of focus groups emerged from
47% of authorities in 1997 to 81% in 2001. It is also of interest to note the increased use of
interactive websites from 24% to 52% between 1997 and 2001 with plans to increase this to
64% of local authorities in 2002.
The 2001 survey provided another dimension to data on the use of public participation
techniques by seeking information on frequency of use within 2001. Table 3 overleaf
presents the findings of this enquiry which gives some indication of “depth” of public
participation.
As might be expected, referenda are used on a one-off basis by local authorities. The
researchers surmised that the high cost of referenda and this high profile way of engaging the
public rendered their use appropriate only when very important issues were at stake. By
contrast, some methods such as public meetings and various community fora appear to be
used on a regular basis across local government. One suggestion for this was that once
forum-based initiatives have been set up, they provide a “useful, readily-available resource
for finding out the public’s views on a particular issue – possibly at relatively short notice”
(ODPM, p18).
15
Table 3: Frequency of Use of Different Techniques by Local Authorities During 2001
Technique Average no. of times % of authorities using

used method in 2001
Referendums 1 10
Citizens’ Juries 1 6
Citizens’ Panels 3 71
Other Opinion Polls 3 56
Community Plans/Needs Analysis 3 58
User Management of Services 3 18
Visioning Exercises 3 38
Interactive Websites 4 52
Consultation Documents 6 84
Focus Groups 7 81
Shared Interest Forums 8 38
Service User Forums 8 73
Service Satisfaction Surveys 9 92
Complaints/Suggestion Schemes 10 86
Issue Forums 10 44
Co-option/Committee Work 10 48
Public Meetings 11 78
Question and Answer Sessions 12 51
Area/Neighbourhood Forums 15 64
The researchers also noted the relatively moderate use of consultation documents across local
government and suggested that the resources required to manage the process and analyse the
responses provided a limiting factor on use of this tool. Indeed, the results of the 2001 survey
revealed a tendency for authorities to run their participation activities in-house, with the
exception of citizens’ panels and other specific elements of activities which were particularly
resource intensive or which required specific skills to conduct competently. In contrast to the
picture in 1997 where no particular trend was discernable, by 2001 Labour and Liberal
Democrat controlled authorities were displaying higher public participation activity levels
than those controlled by other parties.
The 2001 survey introduced a question module investigating perceptions of impact of public
participation activity on policy-making. Overall, most authorities (70%) considered that
initiatives were “often” or “fairly” influential on final decision-making. A common concern,
however, was that approaches adopted had captured just the most dominant views (56%) with
difficulties reported in engaging some sectors of the community like minority ethnic
communities or young people (44%).
Local authorities also specified the contexts in which they considered public participation to
be inappropriate. These included:
• Confidential issues 78%

• Internal management issues 77%
• Commercially sensitive issues 66%
• Issues that might raise public fears unnecessarily 22%
• Activities prescribed by statute 21%
16
• Issues requiring a quick decision 19%
• Clear manifesto commitment or policy statement 10%
• Issues on which it is difficult to achieve consensus within
the community 5%
Authorities indicated that where activities are prescribed by statute, or where a quick decision
is required or where prior manifesto or policy statement commitments have been given, the
public cannot realistically influence decisions.
2.3 OTHER SMALLER-SCALE STUDIES OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

ACTIVITIES
Examples of smaller-scale examinations of the use of public participation were identified in

the literature reviewed. For example, in its “Policy Maker’s Guide to Public Involvement”,
the Cabinet Office provided typical examples of involvement tools utilised by different
Whitehall departments (Cabinet Office, 2002).
Another study of particular relevance was conducted in Scotland by Jenkins et al (2002a).

Their telephone poll was undertaken amongst planning authorities to identify examples of
good practice in public participation and issues arising. Amongst the 18 authorities which
responded, it emerged that many had been expending considerable effort on a variety of
activities involving public participation over and above their statutory responsibilities. They
considered that these led to improved decision-making.
The researchers commented that:
“Planning officers tended to have a positive view of such initiatives, which

included: decentralised and devolved decision-making mechanisms; a corporate
approach to participation; phased programmes of consultation; links to the
democratic process; innovations in development planning; innovative methods
for raising awareness and decision-making in development control; capacity-
building and community-led consultation; and the use of ICT. Planning officers
noted, however, the existence of a range of barriers to participation. These
included: scarce staff resources; the scope for political manipulation; and
logistical problems related to geographic dispersion in rural areas.” (2002b, p2).
Such issues and barriers will be followed up in later Chapters of this review.
A further example of a survey which raised important issues regarding public participation
was conducted as part of the ESRC programme of work on Democracy and Participation.
Newman et al (2004) mapped the range of deliberative forum initiatives deployed in 2 UK
cities across local government, the health service and community organisations. They
identified the development of a wide variety of local fora based on geography, services,
issues and presumed communities of identity. However, this research is illustrative of an
expanding genre of more critical examination of public participation. In particular it raised
important questions regarding where the line should be drawn between issues appropriate for
public consideration and issues which should be kept within the realms of professional and/or
representative decision-making. One Director of Public Health interviewed for the study
remarked:
17
“…what we haven’t really resolved yet is how far does public involvement go?
How far does the public say, “That’s your business, it’s not for me to decide.” In
fact, when you push people into priority setting, there comes a point where they
say, “That’s your judgement, that’s what you’re paid to decide”” (p209-210)
The issue of appropriate balance between representative and participative democracy is one
which emerges across many contexts and will be returned to later.
2.4 SUMMARY OF MAIN POINTS
• This summary of several main surveys and studies of public participation over
national and local jurisdictions demonstrates a number of trends to emerge over
recent years.
• There was a general broadening of the range of activities undertaken from an average
of 9.1 initiatives used in 1997 by local authorities in England to an average 10.5 in
2001.
• Whilst authorities have held onto many of the traditional approaches which have
stood the test of time, local government has appeared to be at the forefront of pushing
forward the boundaries on innovation in techniques with examples of some
authorities showing particular willingness to try out new approaches and share their
experiences with others.
• Lagging someway behind this pioneering work appears to be evidence of strategic
planning regarding public participation with much activity reflecting a reactive rather
than pro-active schedule of activities.
• The survey reports make little mention of systematic evaluative processes except to
comment that the few evaluations that had been undertaken had focused on the
process of public participation rather than its impact and tended to be of an informal
and subjective manner. Such limitations curtail further exploration at this point of
what works best in which contexts.
18
CHAPTER 3: USE OF INDIVIDUAL APPROACHES
Although the literature abounds with details of use of specific civic participation activities by
a wide variety of bodies, generalising from these to provide practical lessons for public
policy-makers in Scotland is hampered by their individualised contexts, general lack of
critical assessment and any systematic evaluation. This Chapter attempts to identify and
draw from this international body of literature the more useful information which has the
potential to inform the use of specific approaches within the Scottish policy-making context.
Given the wide variety of techniques deployed by public bodies throughout Western
democracies, this Chapter focuses on those subjected to most critical analysis in the literature
and which appear of most relevance to modern public policy-making faced with ever
increasing complexities of decisions to be addressed.
It was interesting to note that amongst the literature reviewed, deliberative methods,
particularly the Citizens’ Jury, attracted most critical attention.
3.1 CITIZENS’ JURIES
3.1.1 Examples of Use
The citizens’ jury, also known as “planning cells” in Germany, was pioneered in Germany
and the United States in the 1970s and taken up in the UK in the mid-1990s. These
approaches typically involve between 10 to 25 participants, selected to represent a cross-
section of the wider population who meet to deliberate on specific policy issues over 3-5
days. During this time they have the opportunity to cross-examine expert witnesses, the
entire process being facilitated by a trained moderator.
Topics tackled by citizens’ juries in Germany ranged from the 1980 Cologne Town Hall
project, to the 1996 review of the public transport system in Hanover. In the United States,
topics have included the impacts of agriculture on water quality in Minnesota (1984) and
local congestion pricing (1995).
Within the UK the first citizens’ jury was conducted in 1996 by the Institute of Public Policy
Research and concerned drugs and community safety in Lewisham. Many of the early
examples of this technique within the UK were funded by the NHS and involved local health
authorities. For example, in 1996 Walshall Health Authority ran a jury on priorities for
improving palliative care in Walshall - how best to spend £600,000 to improve the services
for terminally ill people. Other policy fields also made use of this innovative method.
Hertfordshire County Council provided its 1996 jury with the question of whether the county
should manage its entire waste disposal within the county boundaries. Not all of the jury’s
recommendations were accepted by the Council but the latter provided reasons for any not
taken up.
Within Scotland, the first citizens’ jury was commissioned by South Lanarkshire Council in
1997 with a focus on finding solutions to problems of vandalism and graffiti in Hillhouse.
Others followed on the topics of services for the elderly in rural areas (1997) and access to
leisure and entertainment for young people in East Kilbride (1998). Fife Council was another
early pioneer of the technique in Scotland. Its 1997 jury considered what public agencies and
local communities can do to create employment opportunities in Levenmouth and produced
50 recommendations for action.
19
The Scottish Executive was also pro-active in encouraging the development of jury
approaches in Scotland. Its early input involved the piloting of “People’s Juries” (16
randomly selected members of the public) working in parallel with “Stakeholder Juries”
(representatives from public, private and voluntary sectors) to agree a plan of future action.
The pilots were conducted in the Great Northern SIP and East Ayrshire Coalfield SIP areas
before the method was rolled out across SIPs, underpinned by new Government funding.
Amongst those SIPs which took up this offer of support, citizens’ juries were focused on a
variety of policy fields and topics including transport, drugs, education, facilities for young
people, barriers to employment and community involvement.
A four-day citizens' jury on Lifelong Learning run by the Scottish Council Foundation with
Opinion Leader Research on behalf of Scottish Enterprise Glasgow was the first city-wide
citizens’ jury in Britain. Having heard evidence from numerous expert witnesses on the role
of further and higher education, community education and workplace learning, jury members
then reached a set of conclusions and recommendations for policy makers and practitioners.
The jury played a key role in preparing the ground for successful implementation of the city-
wide REAL partnership that has since brought 20,000 adults back to learning in Glasgow.
Funding from the Scottish Executive enabled a citizens’ jury on drugs to be held in Glasgow,
co-ordinated by the Glasgow Alliance and involving 3 separate juries including one
comprising 14-17 year olds. Jury members considered a plan of action to address issues of
prevention/education; treatment and rehabilitation; and criminal justice in relation to dealing
and trading in drugs. Responses from leading decision-makers were considered at a one-day
forum and key recommendations were taken forward locally by the Drug Action Team as
well as by the Scottish Executive.
3.1.2 Issues to Emerge
It can be seen from the examples provided above that not only have different authorities been
willing to test the relatively innovative citizens’ jury approach, but, particularly in Scotland,
commissioners have been active in developing different versions of the basic model to meet
their requirements in different contexts. In contrast to the situation of many of the other
public participation techniques, evaluation of the citizens’ jury has attracted considerable
attention and has produced a substantial volume of lessons to inform future use.
One key commentator on the early use of citizens’ juries in the UK was Delap (1998) who
drew together the views of delegates at the IPPR symposium in 1997. Delap argued that
citizens’ juries were effective in obliging policy makers to think through and articulate policy
arguments whilst engaging with ordinary people. In addition, policy-makers had to
rationalise any decisions taken following the jury’s deliberations. Raising the issue of the
balance between participative and representative democracy (which emerged as an issue in
Chapter 2) Delap stressed that juries should be viewed as augmenting existing mechanisms of
representative democracy, with jury decisions classified as advisory in nature, and adding to
the quality and legitimacy of existing authority, rather than detracting from it.
Citizens’ juries were seen by other commentators as an effective way to involve people who
may otherwise be unlikely to become engaged in public policy issues. It was noted by
several commentators that members of local communities appeared both willing to be
involved and able to address even complex policy matters discussed in citizens’ juries (eg
Coote and Lenaghan, 1997). Many juries in SIP areas involved young people and appeared
20
to be particularly suitable for engaging them (Stevenson et al, 2004). In particular, young
people were perceived to enjoy the concentrated event without having to commit to any long-
term involvement.
Some commentators considered which contexts were most effective for citizens’ juries to
operate in. One recommendation was for the jury approach to be utilised in the early stages
of policy development before stakeholder views become entrenched (Abelson et al, 2003).
SIPs considered it sensible to time the jury to fit with existing policy and budgetary cycles
(Stevenson et al, 2004). It was suggested that juries may be best used where a number of
possible options had already been identified and the jury’s task was to choose between these
(McIver 1998; Abelson et al, 2003; Delap, 1998). Others envisaged juries working well
where priorities needed to be set and where the jury members may bring another set of
values, other than those of the policy makers and professional stakeholders, to bear on the
public policy issues under consideration (Pickard, 1998).
However, some commentators raised cautions about the wider use of citizens’ juries. The
key concerns included:
• Representativeness of the jury (eg Delap, 1998; Pickard, 1998; Scottish Office
Consultative Steering Group, 1998; OECD 2001)
• Value for money in view of the relatively high costs of juries (eg Delap, 1998;
Pickard, 1998 ; Scottish Office Consultative Steering Group, 1998)
One comment was that whilst the intensive resource costs may result in an educative process
for the few involved, this could only take place at the expense of other forms of involvement
for the many (Pickard, 1998).
Other issues concerned the scope of the jury, the need for the commissioner to make clear
where the goal posts lay and what was within the jury’s power. For example, Pickard (1998)
argued that it was important to ask the jury only those questions the answers to which the
commissioning body was able and willing to act upon. Stevenson et al (2004) stressed the
need to strike the right balance between giving the jury the freedom to set their own agenda
and encouraging them to focus on the achievable. Linked to these concerns was the caution
that care should be taken in managing the power balance between the jury sponsor and jury
members. One view was that the jury had great potential for meaningful public involvement
but the tight hold that decision makers and sponsors sometimes maintained over its design
could undermine its legitimacy (Abelson et al, 2003).
Other common issues raised included:
• Questioning whether juries could tackle national issues

• Concerns that policy makers may become adept at using jury decisions only when it
suited them
• Questioning the accountability of an approach which disbands on completion of its
task, leaving no opportunity for on-going dialogue
• Tendency for jurys to be consultative mechanisms rather than truly participatory
• Concerns over the quality and bias of witnesses which places a “heavy burden…on
the citizen to act as judge, lawyer and jury” (Abelson et al, p246)
21
It was noted that, in general, jurors tended to find their involvement in a jury to be an
enjoyable experience. One commentator described the benefits perceived by jurors to include
the chance to meet new people, learn about a policy issue, participate in decision making and
foster a sense of community (Lenaghan, 1999).
3.2 CONSENSUS CONFERENCE
The consensus conference provides another type of deliberative technique and, from its
origins in the health care sector in the United States in the 1960s, has gradually increased in
use across different democracies and disciplines.
A consensus conference is a forum at which a citizens' panel, selected from members of the
public, questions 'experts' (or 'witnesses') on a particular topic. The panel then assesses the
responses, discusses the issues raised, and reports its conclusions at a press conference. A
distinctive feature of this approach is that the citizens' panel is the main actor throughout: it
decides the key aspects of the debate, including the choice of questions and selection of the
witnesses, and formulates its own conclusions. At the end of the conference, the panel
produces a report outlining its conclusions and recommendations, which is circulated to key-
decision makers in the government and industry and to other interested parties.
Although entitled 'Consensus Conference', the citizens' panel is not forced to reach a
consensus, but rather is encouraged to explore the extent to which they are able to agree. The
citizens' panel's decisions and observations are not binding on the various parties it consults
as part of the process, or on any other body.
Although the origins of the technique can be traced to the United States, the method was
further developed in Denmark with conferences held in 1989 on Human Genone Mapping
and 1993 on the Future of Private Transport. The technique was taken up by other countries
during the 1990s with consensus conferences held in the UK (1994), New Zealand (1996),
Norway (1996), France (1998), Australia (1999), Denmark (1999), Canada (1999), New
Zealand (1999) and Switzerland (1999).
The approach has been deemed especially suited to dealing with controversial issues of
public concern at a national level which are often perceived as especially complex or
dominated by experts. Indeed, between 1994 and 1999, 9 consensus conferences were held
on Genetically Modified Crops and Food. The first UK consensus conference focused on
Plant Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture and was funded by the Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences Research Council. Others in the UK followed, for example in 1999 in
London on Radioactive Waste Management. Other UK topics noted amongst the literature
include Physician Assisted Suicide (2000) and Hepatitis C (2004). In March 2005, the first
“European Consensus Conference” was held in Paris, on the Treatment of Hepatitis B and C
in HIV co-infected patients.
Again, a lack of formal evaluation of the use of the consensus conference as a deliberative
technique hampers the task of drawing out generalisable lessons. However, some reflective
22
commentary does exist and highlights what was perceived to have worked well and what
created difficulties.
It was generally acknowledged that this method provides the potential to involve lay
members of the public in inputting to decisions on complex topics:
“it provides a way for citizens to be able to provide informed input into
technically complex subjects without having to defer solely to the judgement of
technical experts” (Blume, 2001, p117)
In Norway for example, the increasing complexity of many central policy issues during the
1990s had created a challenge to find methods that struck the right balance between, “the
expert knowledge necessary for guidance and the need for popular insight, understanding
and control” (Morkid, 2001, p225). Their first conference, held in 1996 focused like many
others on the genetic modification of food. Despite the apparent advantage of the technique
in tackling seemingly complex topics, many concerns have been raised following mixed
success particularly in relation to integration of the process and outputs within policy-
making.
Experience from Denmark suggests that the heightened expectations of citizens taking part
were difficult to deal with in the light of challenges in merging the outcome into decision
making. In Norway relatively “conservative” conclusions emerged which created no real
impact on subsequent policy. However, unlike many other versions of the consensus
conference, their early models aimed to reach a consensus rather than permitting a final
difference of opinion. One conclusion to emerge from early Norwegian experience was that
more effort needed to be put into integration of the process with the decision-making
framework.
Many commentators expressed concern about the relative high financial and human costs of
the technique, the importance of using an impartial facilitator of high quality, the potential for
the media to sway opinion and the importance of impartial and organised framing of the
event. For example, Mirenowicz (2001) compared 2 conferences held in Switzerland and
France in 1998. He judged the Swiss experience (on Electricity and Society) to be successful
largely on account of the careful preparation which included commissioning a professional
journalist to produce layman’s fact sheets on the 11 topics for discussion, the issue of these
well before the event, and the wide scope of their approach in ensuring that participants were
able to base their deliberation on their own values and look at the topics from a variety of
angles. The French approach (on Gene Technology) had, in comparison, appeared to be
hurried in preparation, with no pre-event information for participants who were subjected to
hour-long lectures by “experts” on each topic before being confined to a relatively narrow
remit for deliberation. The lack of opportunity to explore the full range of choices and
alternatives was viewed as a key flaw in the French model.
Other commentators identified another key to success as including a sensible choice of topic
which was not too abstract, was high profile, on the political agenda with conflicting view
points amongst professionals and of popular interest. Media coverage of the event was
viewed as essential with television, radio and press all contributing to increase public
awareness. One comment of a Dutch science writer reported by OECD (2001) was that
without media coverage, the extent of public involvement could be quite limited and would
amount to a very expensive way to inform 15 people on an issue.
23
Overall, the consensus conference, whilst not appearing to have represented a major
contribution to the democratic process may have the potential, if organised appropriately to
supplement other approaches in the context of complex, technical fields. OECD (2001)
concluded that the technique may be particularly suited to countries with a minimum tradition
and experience of public participation.
3.3 WRITTEN CONSULTATIONS
Another civic participation technique receiving some attention by commentators especially

over recent years is the written consultation. At time of writing the Scottish Executive
website displays 33 “live” consultations focusing on a wide range of topics such as the
National Strategy for the Development of Social Service Workforce in Scotland, a Review of
Health and Care Statistics, a Police Bill and a Consolidation of Plant Health Legislation. The
rapid rise in use of this traditional and well established approach particularly by central
government since devolution demands a body of evaluative critique in order to ensure that
best practice is being identified and followed. However, such material appears not to exist,
with limited feedback to emerge within the literature reviewed here. Notable amongst the
literature, however, was commentary from the Consultation Institute and from the Scottish
Civic Forum. Both focused on the use of written consultation exercises within the context of
central policy-making in Scotland.
Jones and Gammell (2004) of the Consultation Institute, summing up their perception of the
state of play, noted the current variety of approaches to written consultation adopted by
different consulters and the confusion surrounding terminology and best practice. They
raised what they saw as the key issues to address to improve the effectiveness of this
technique. Of prime concern was the confusion over the issue of weighting of responses:
“can consumer bodies feel confident that their contributions can avoid being
judged second best to lavish submissions drafted with teams of lawyers and
lobbyists, trade associations or those with strong commercial incentives to secure
a particular result?” (p10)
Related to this was the handling of, and weight attached to, different volumes of responses. It
was suggested that groups such as conservationists, those representing older people and
disabled people were amongst those becoming increasingly sophisticated in their drumming
up of large volumes of responses to Government consultations.
Another problematic issue raised was dealing with consultation fatigue created by the sheer
number of consultations issued by civil servants, frequently with overlapping respondent
lists:
“consultation fatigue is a real problem. Now that we have arrived at a time when
civil servants and others have accepted the need to consult comprehensively, it is
important not to overburden a small number of usual suspect respondents” (p12)
24
Jones and Gammell (2004) also highlighted respondents’ views that they were sometimes
faced with inadequate time to compile their response and the need for wider publicity of
consultation exercises in order to increase awareness and encourage broader response. The
researchers made a recommendation for the introduction of the “Consultation Charter”
(published by the Consultation Institute) in order to set a “visible and demanding standard”
for written consultations. They argued that the prominence of such overt standards would
encourage stakeholders to invest more time in participating in such exercises.
The Scottish Civic Forum (2002) acknowledged the steps which they considered the Scottish
Executive had taken in recent years to improve the transparency of the consultation process
but still saw the need for greater clarity on how the civil service uses consultation responses
from wider society to shape legislation. Emerging from their series of “Participation
Summits” the Scottish Civic Forum (2003) identified a number of concerning issues relating
to written consultations, including:
• Certain community groups feeling over-consulted

• Tendency to involving the public too late in the policy-development process
• Perceptions that the consultation represents a fait accomplis
• Responses not reflected in the final policy
• Some consultation documents being very large with a lot of sifting through required
by respondents
• Some consultation documents being full of jargon
• Large-print versions of documents being required by some
Interestingly, people at the summits requested that written exercises be supported by human
contact, for example, Government officials meeting them at small events to outline the issues
and discuss the consultation exercise. Other suggestions were for the use of a website and
special telephone lines as back-up sources of information.
The significant resource impact of written consultations on the commissioning body was
highlighted by ODPM (2002) who suggested that a key factor in its relatively infrequent use
by local government could be the time-consuming process of analysing the responses,
making this approach more resource intensive than other traditional methods.
3.4 PEOPLE’S/CITIZENS’ PANELS
People’s or citizens’ panels comprise a group of people who have agreed to be consulted
periodically for their views. The intention is for the panel to be representative of the wider
population. Panels vary in size but usually involve between around 750 to 2000 people. The
membership of the panel should be changed regularly and systematically, for example, by
replacing one-third of the members each year on a rolling basis in order to allow for attrition
and to enhance its representativeness. An example of an early very large panel was the
Cabinet Office’s national people’s panel comprising 5,000 people representative of the UK
population.
25
In 1998 South Lanarkshire Council launched the first Scottish citizens’ panel of 1600 people.
The venture was undertaken in conjunction with Greater Glasgow Health Board, Scottish
Homes, and the local development agency. A second panel followed in the City of
Edinburgh and involved 2,000 people citywide. Two “booster panels” were introduced to
represent the partnership areas of the South Edinburgh SIP and the West Edinburgh
Community Planning area.
An increase in the formation of panels in Scotland followed, supported by Scottish Executive

with funding in 1999/2000 of area-based SIPs wishing to establish their own panel.
Amongst the limited volume of critical literature identified for the review, there were
indications that panels had made some impact on policy decision-making. The national
people’s panel was reported to have been used as a “sounding board” for national policy
decision makers (Martin and Boaz, 2000). The Southampton Community Council panel
responded to an annual questionnaire with their responses perceived to have influenced the
direction of subsequent policy (Scottish Office Consultative Steering Group, 1998).
Stevenson et al (2004) reporting on the use of people’s panels in Scottish SIPs described
some examples of the panel being influential, for example in relocating SIP monies to reflect
issues and practices identified by the panel, or to encourage more investment in childcare
facilities. Nove et al (2001) concluded in their evaluation of the South Lanarkshire citizens’
panel that the panel had had no major impact on policy. However, they did concede that fine-
tuning and small changes to policy had resulted from the panel’s contribution, in addition to
giving policy-makers more confidence in policy decisions already taken. It was interesting to
note from Stevenson et al’s (2004) evaluation of the SIP panels that panel members were
generally unable to identify any policy changes which had resulted from their contributions.
Indeed, this emerged as a major source of frustration to them in addition to their perception of
a general lack of feedback from the panel commissioners.
Another problematic issue to emerge in several studies was that of the representativeness of
the panel sample. Relatively high attrition rates featured amongst the SIP panels, possibly
due to their location within areas of high mobility. Nove et al (2001) questioned what they
perceived to be the “assumed strengths” of people’s panels and suggested that although some
panels may be representative in terms of demographic characteristics, their representativeness
in terms of behavioural or attitudinal traits was not always evident. Furthermore, their
evaluation of South Lanarkshire citizens’ panel revealed variable response rates of between
47% - 71%, apparently affected by subject matter, layout and complexity of questionnaires,
issue of reminders, timing in relation to other consultations and people’s beliefs as to whether
any notice would be taken of the results. The researchers concluded that people’s panels
were perhaps most suitable amongst better educated populations.
Low response rates were also identified in a Scottish Parliament Social Justice Committee
investigation (2002) as a problem associated with people’s panels. They concluded that this
approach faced difficulties in the recruitment and retention of panel members and required
substantial resources to maintain and operate. They summarised:
“people’s panels, among all methods appeared to be the most problematic,

although there was still support for them from a number of SIPs” (2002, p61)
26
Stevenson et al’s (2004) evaluation of SIP people’s panels uncovered further problems. They
found that only 24 of the 34 area-based SIPs had taken up the available funding and recruited
panels. Amongst these, some had never used them or had made limited use of this facility. A
further issue was that, in some instances, the establishment of the panel had raised suspicions
amongst the traditional network of community representatives as to the new balance of
participatory roles within the SIP.
In contrast, however, Stevenson et al (2004) identified a range of “good practice” to emerge

which included:
• The maintenance of panel interest with regular feedback, rewards and incentives
• Well designed questionnaires
• Attention to the representativeness of the panel
• Utilising inclusive mechanisms such as large print and minority ethnic languages
where required
• Involving and educating stakeholders in appropriate use of panels
• Avoiding over-use of the panel
3.5 WEB-BASED APPROACHES
The literature review revealed a growing use of web-based approaches to civic participation
across western democracies. Use of ICT in participation tends to revolve around either the
provision of information or consulting on policy development. In its round-up of the use of
web-based approaches by Governments in OECD countries, OECD (2001) reported the use
of ICT for feedback and consultation to be still in its infancy with only a few Governments
beginning to experiment with on-line tools to actively engage citizens in policy-making.
Against this background, it is interesting to note that the recent e-Government Bulletin (2005)
cited the UK as a world leader in facilitating electronic participation amongst its citizens.
Considering the geographical nature of Scotland, with its dispersed and rural communities
and ageing population, the potential for building on good practice and exploiting the potential
for web-based participatory mechanisms is of particular relevance.
Several examples of use of web-based approaches in policy-making emerged in the literature,

with a selection of these outlined briefly below.
Aberdeen City Council ran a citizens’ panel of 1350 residents. However, the placement of
the panel’s questionnaire on a dedicated website allowed non-panel members to respond to
the issues too. Such an approach enabled the Council not only to discover the public demand
for participating in policy issues in this way, but also to make comparisons between
unsolicited responses and those of their “representative” panel.
The Czech Republic’s Ministry for Education used an integrated approach involving web-
based approaches to encouraging public debate on its “Concept for Education and for the
Development of the Education System in the Czech Republic”. Set within a jurisdiction
without a strong history of web usage, the document was published on the internet with
public views invited but attracted limited response. This approach was supplemented by
27
round table discussions and other public meetings with further publicity gained through
media involvement.
In Korea the use of ICT has grown rapidly since the 1990s. Indeed, the internet has helped to
facilitate an “information revolution” (Im and Jung, 2001), which has enabled citizens to
access public information easily and efficiently. The Government has capitalised upon this
trend to introduce “Dialogue Rooms”, in essence, virtual rooms where specific issues of
policy interest can be discussed on-line. An evaluation of the use of ICT by the Korean
Government (Im and Jung, 2001) remarked that:
“previously, policy-making was generally conducted by a few public officials in

isolation with little public input, leaving room for distortions……generally speaking,
information and communication technologies, more than any other tool or non-
government organisation enables citizens to participate more actively in the decision-
making process” (p218)
Birmingham Health Authority attempted to open up involvement in a citizens’ jury by setting

up internet access points and inviting people to cast comment on the jury’s recommendations.
Norway introduced its “Electronic Government Action Plan” as a strategic approach for
utilising the internet as a tool for facilitating a more open and user-friendly administration.
This built upon the country’s tradition of using public organisations’ websites for dialogue
with the public and relied on the preconditions of a relatively high public internet access and
high-speed internet connections to the public.
The National Dialogue on Public Involvement in the United States Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) brought together 1,166 people in 2001 for a 2-week on-line discussion of
public participation at the EPA. The dialogue took the form of messages posted to a web-site
and linked together into ongoing conversations among participants. Participants read and
posted messages at their convenience, resulting in exchanges that evolved over hours and
days. As an early experiment in on-line public participation the dialogue was considered to
be highly successful and “turned a static commenting process into an interactive and
dynamic discussion” (Beierle, 2002).
An unpublished survey by Dundee City Council for their e-Planning Group in 2001, reported
that the majority of local authority websites contained planning information and most were
considering further developments to these.
In Germany the Federal Ministry of the Interior set up an on-line discussion forum to make
the draft Freedom of Information Bill available for public comments at an early stage in its
development. The input from the public was reported as being of high quality and led to
changes in the original draft.
In Western Australia, Fremantle City Council provides a link on its home page to “current
projects for public comment” which invites interested members of the public to have their
say. The home page also contains a “quick poll” where virtual visitors can vote on a
straightforward issue, combined with a link to viewing the poll results. They can also
participate in the “Fremantle Forum”, a local Government community forum for interactive
deliberation over ideas and topics.
28
The Finnish Government’s Ministry of Finance hosts internet discussion forums under the
banner “share your views with us”. The aim is to provide citizens with opportunities to input
views at an early stage in policy formation. Between 2 and 6 discussions take place at any
one time on topics chosen by Ministers who are also responsible for providing any
background material requested and moderating the virtual discussions. Summaries of
responses are published.
The picture of public participation in policy-making via web-based approaches is one of rapid
development, experimentation and learning from experience. It is also one domain in which
it appeared easier for commissioners to reveal practice which was relatively unsuccessful, but
nonetheless produced lessons which were very useful in fine-tuning subsequent web-based
developments.
The level of take-up of opportunities to participate in public policy-making via the internet
appeared to vary to some extent according to the general level of access to computers and
tradition of ICT within the commissioning jurisdiction. Several OECD countries reported
significant increases in the volume of feedback they had received from citizens since they
introduced email addresses on their websites (OECD, 2001). On-line exchanges between the
public and Government were reported by some as becoming faster and more informal.
However, a significant contrast can be seen between the Czech Republic and the Korean
experience outlined above. Whereas the latter built upon the strong tradition of ICT usage in
the country to establish close dialogue between the Government and its citizens, there was no
such established practice in the former resulting in only 6 on-line responses from individuals
and 14 from organisations in response to their national debate on education. The success of
the Norwegian “Electronic Government Action Plan” was explained in part by the pre-
conditions of high public access to the internet and speedy internet connections.
Another prevalent issue to emerge from the literature reviewed was the need for
commissioners to utilise ICT expertise in setting up and maintaining their on-line systems.
For example, in its examination of e-democracy across different national jurisdictions, OECD
(2003) recommended that Governments consider what aspects of their structure, organisation,
resource allocations and skill needed to change in order to respond to the new standards of
on-line interactions. The “virtual” citizens panel run by Aberdeen City Council was reported
as, “almost dismantled” due to lack of in-house ICT expertise with “considerable efforts
required to meet the timetable for delivering a panel and monitoring the results” (Demos,
2004, p9).
The potential exclusion of particular sectors of society from participating in web-based

exercises due to a “digital divide” in the population emerged in a few studies reviewed. For
example, Delap (1998) commented on the possible exclusion of the poor, the elderly and the
computer illiterate from participating in the Buckinghamshire electronic “virtual” citizens’
jury. Experience from the United States EPA on-line national dialogue was that “certain
segments of the population that EPA has had a hard time reaching in the past” continued to
be excluded by a “digital divide” (Beierle, 2002). Even in Korea, with its tradition of on-line
communication, a digital divide was identified which tended to exclude members of the older
population and people from rural areas (Im and Jung, 2001).
29
The difficulties associated with moderating web-based participation approaches were raised
as an issue by some commentators. Indeed, one reason cited at the Office of the e-envoy
workshop for the failure of the e-forum located on the Citizenspace section of UK Online was
difficulties in moderating the contributions. Some people responding to the United States
EPA dialogue criticised what they saw as the downplaying by moderators of critical
messages in discussions and daily summaries (Beierle, 2002). The related issues of the legal
status, confidentiality and appropriate handling of any on-line communication were raised by
OECD (2003) who recommended the need to clarify the status of civil servants responding to
on-line messages perhaps in a newly developed code of conduct.
3.6 OTHER APPROACHES
As mentioned previously, although an abundance of literature on other approaches exists,

much of this relates to idiosyncratic descriptive narratives or “how to” texts rather than
providing critical evaluative insights into what works in which context and why. Amongst
the approaches not covered in depth above, some limited material of relevance emerged in
relation to public meetings, workshops and public discussion in general.
A particularly useful overview of relevant studies was undertaken by Chess and Purcell
(1999). In their examination of the use of public meetings, they identified a concern over the
apparent over-representation of opponents of the issues as opposed to proponents. Another
issue raised was the experience of demographic differences between the general public and
the meeting participants. However, an opposing finding was that although such differences
in demography had been observed, the range of views of people attending public meetings
was similar to that of the non-attenders. Interestingly, amongst the studies reviewed by Chess
and Purcell (1999), the majority reported that the meetings had influenced the policy decision
in question.
The success of public meetings was seen as being promoted by:
• holding them in combination with other forms of participation

• providing significant technical assistance to citizens
• conducting vigorous out-reach meeting activities
• discussing topics of social interest
• fielding questions adequately
The success of meetings and workshops was judged by participants largely in terms of the
apparent fairness of the process and their perception of the commissioning agency’s
responsiveness to their contribution.
• A general lack of critical assessment and systematic evaluation curtails the

identification of lessons to be learned from previous civic participation activity.
• Those activities attracting most critical assessment include citizens’ juries, the
consensus conference, written consultations, people’s/citizens’ panels, web-based
approaches and public meetings.
• Citizens’ juries were seen to have advantages such as making policy-makers think
through and articulate the policy arguments, engaging people not otherwise likely to
become involved, and bringing another set of values to public policy issues.
30
• Many concerns were raised about citizens’ juries, including the representativeness of
the juries, their value for money and their power to affect decisions.
• Consensus conferences were seen as tools for involving the public in matters of great
complexity.
• Disadvantages of using the consensus conference included dealing with citizens’
heightened expectations of the outcome, the relatively high human and financial costs
involved, and the need for careful preparation to ensure its effectiveness.
• There has been a rapid rise in the use of written consultations particularly by central
Government.
• Concerns regarding written consultations focused around the need to balance the
views of different respondents including large lobby organisations, avoiding
consultation fatigue amongst regular targets of consultations, needing to be more
transparent about handling of responses and the time-consuming process of analysing
responses.
• The suggestion was made for a “Consultation Charter” to be adopted which sets out
visible and demanding standards for practice.
• There were indications that citizens’ panels had made some impact on policy
decision-making.
• Problems associated with citizens’ panels focused around their representativeness and
low response rates.
• A growing use of web-based approaches to civic participation was witnessed across
western democracies and represented an area of rapid development, experimentation
and learning from experience.
• Issues to emerge were the need for commissioners to use ICT expertise in setting up
and maintaining their on-line systems, the continued existence of a “digital divide”
which excludes some sectors from web-based participation, the need for impartial
moderators and the possible need for a code of conduct for civil servants engaged in
responding to on-line messages.
• A general view was that public meetings tended to influence policy decisions and
were judged by participants largely by the apparent fairness of the process and the
way they considered the commissioning agency to have responded to their
contribution.
31
CHAPTER 4: THE DELIBERATIVE PROCESS IN CIVIC
PARTICIPATION
Amongst the numerous participatory methods described in the literature, many contained an
element of deliberation on the part of the participant, whereby respondents could find out
more about a topic, and consider its various aspects before presenting their views. The
deliberative process attracted a significant body of comment in the reviewed literature, not
only on account of its gradual increase in use, but also because of the many perceived
benefits of adopting deliberative approaches in an increasing variety of contexts. In view of
the relevance of the deliberative process to policy-making in Scotland, a summary of issues
raised is presented briefly here.
4.1 RATIONALE FOR USE OF DELIBERATIVE METHODS
It has been argued that increased citizen engagement through the deliberative process can be
viewed as a direct response to public discontent with previous public participation
experiences and loss of deference to, and trust in, public officials (Abelson et al, 2003).
Involvement in deliberative methods has been seen as potentially more satisfying for
participants than taking part in other modes of participation (eg Delap, 1998; Halvorsen,
2001).
Commissioners of public participation exercise have demonstrated increased interest in the

potential of deliberative methods for their purposes, with much of the experimentation in the
UK taking place within large, regional health authorities. With NHS policy demanding
greater roles for public views in the setting of health care priorities (eg 2004 Health Bill in
Scotland) and the growing complexity of decisions to be made, traditional methods of public
participation in decision-making such as mail surveys have been found lacking. In contrast,
deliberative methods have been seen as presenting an opportunity to improve public
understanding of complex health care issues and stimulate debate.
Whilst some commentators argued that deliberative methodology is most important when
difficult, value-based choices have to be made (eg O’Hara, 1998), a contrasting and cynical
view suggested by Abelson et al (2003) is that by using deliberative approaches within the
context of difficult decision-making, the commissioning body can share the blame for such
decisions.
4.2 PROS AND CONS OF USING DELIBERATIVE METHODS
A scan of the relevant literature does indeed reveal mixed views and experiences of utilising
deliberative methods. One commentator (Maxwell, 2003) argued that if citizens are given the
chance to consider a particular policy issue in-depth, they could, potentially bring at least 3
different perspectives to bear:
• perspective of a tax payer

• perspective of a consumer with expectations of the quality of service they want
• perspective of a member of the community, both local and national
It was suggested that bringing all 3 perspectives together often places the citizen in a better
position than politicians or public servants to identify policy priorities, reconcile conflicting
32
values and work out what choices are more consistent with their community’s values. In
addition, citizens are likely to know what will and will not be well received on the ground.
Within Scotland, Jenkins et al (2002a) observed the tendencies of local planning authorities
to favour deliberative techniques over the more traditional public meetings often used in the
planning context, as they found the former easier to manage and less confrontational.
Deliberative approaches were seen as encouraging people to consider issues in more depth
and provide feedback of a more positive, constructive nature.
The previous Chapter demonstrated the increasing focus of attention on deliberative methods
such as citizens’ juries, consensus conferences, and clearly, as shown above, commissioners
feel that there are merits in experimenting further with use. However, various cautions were
also evident in the literature suggesting that, although offering potential to take public
participation in policy-making into another dimension, this should be undertaken in a
considered manner with attention paid to addressing the challenges associated with such
techniques.
For example, Abelson et al, 2003 listed various challenges of engaging the public in
deliberation in the health sector:
• how to achieve representation amongst citizens when some people do not want to
participate
• how to mitigate against the potential bias in the selection of expert witnesses and the
information to be provided to participants
• how to mitigate against strong vested interests
• how to ensure accountability to participants for the overall outcome when this may
not emerge in the short-term and when there are other influencing factors to consider
• how to build an infrastructure of civic deliberation within communities and public
institutions
Steelman and Ascher (1997) considering the use of deliberative approaches in the United
States from the 1960s to the 1990s, reported the experiences of such “non-binding direct
involvement of the public” to be mixed. In some cases, deliberations had resulted in creative
new policies and fostered a greater sense of civic engagement. However, in others they had
simply created more problems and raised further issues. For example, some commissioning
agencies appeared unprepared for handling the outputs from their deliberative exercises,
particularly in the context of environmental and natural resource policy where a major feature
of the approach was the interface between the technical/professional expertise and the public
views.
Another issue to emerge from United States experience of using deliberative methodologies
was the influence that the precise method used could have on how legitimate the output of the
public participation is perceived to be. For example, Steelman and Ascher (1997) argued that
a deliberative poll, such as a referendum, was likely to be perceived as a legitimate input to a
policy decision on account of its use of a familiar and transparent voting process, with the
principle of majority rule being perfectly acceptable. In contrast, where the deliberation was
of a “non-binding” nature, perhaps resulting in public comments being provided on an issue,
participants and commissioners alike may not be sure about how the output should be
weighted and measured. The status of the output appeared to be opaque, contributing to a
greater chance for the process to be perceived as illegitimate.
33
4.3 IMPACT OF DELIBERATIVE APPROACHES ON PUBLIC VIEWS
Abelson et al (2003) noted that little is known about whether the deliberative process makes
any difference to public opinion and if indeed a more traditional approach may elicit the same
public response. To address this deficit, they undertook a unique investigation whereby they
tested the impact of 3 different public participation approaches using an experimental design.
In summary, the approaches they compared were the traditional mail survey, telephone
discussions and face-to-face group meetings, the latter 2 comprising deliberative approaches.
They concluded that deliberation does indeed make a difference to particular views and as
more deliberation is introduced into the process, views may become more amenable to
change. For example, greater observed changes were evident in “before and after” rankings
of priority health concerns following the face-to-face group meeting than the telephone
discussion or the mail survey. In addition, deliberative methods could make more dominant
views less entrenched.
Finally, the researchers discovered that the nature of the topic influenced the impact of the
deliberative process. They concluded that deliberative approaches were more appropriate for
relatively concrete/tangible issues (eg specific health concerns) rather than less tangible ones
(eg determinants of health).
This was the only example of a rigorous, analytical investigation of the relative impacts of
different approaches to be found in the literature reviewed. The authors suggested that this
was just a starter and much more investigation of this type was possible.
• The deliberative process attracted a significant body of comment in the literature

reviewed, not only on account of its gradual increase in use, but also because of the
many perceived benefits of adopting such approaches.
• Much early experimentation with deliberative methods has taken place within the
NHS.
• Deliberative techniques were seen as offering a less confrontational and more
constructive approach than some other approaches such as public meetings.
• Successes were seen in terms of the outputs from deliberative techniques informing
creative new policies and fostering a sense of civic engagement. However, the
handling of outputs from deliberative exercises needed to be more carefully
considered in some circumstances, for example, where these brought together
professional expertise with lay views.
• Compared with other approaches deliberative techniques were seen as making
participants more amenable to change and making more dominant views less
entrenched.
34
PART 2: OVERARCHING LESSONS AND ISSUES
In Part 2 of the literature review, we turn to highlight some of the overarching lessons to
emerge for public policy-makers involved in planning civic participation activities. Attention
then shifts to 2 of the main recurring themes: that of including so called “hard-to-reach”
sectors of the population in civic participation, and the tricky issue of evaluation of activities
undertaken. A different perspective is then introduced – that of the participant, with findings
presented from studies which have asked those taking part in public participation exercises
what they think of the process and outcome. Finally, thought is given to broader issues and
challenges to emerge, including the influence of contextual factors and future developments.
35
CHAPTER 5: GENERAL LESSONS TO EMERGE
A vast assortment of lessons learned emerged from the wide spectrum of literature reviewed.
With hindsight, many commissioners of civic participation activities would have done things
differently, and many researchers, watching from the sidelines, have drawn together
commentary on what appeared to work, and what could do with improvement. In drawing
from this pool of advice, care must be taken to identify generalisable and cross-contextual
lessons. For example, what works well in one situation may not work so well in another
context under different circumstances. This Chapter focuses on a small selection of studies
which provided cross-cutting lessons based upon their examination of a range of activity
undertaken by many different public bodies. These are reproduced here to give a flavour of
the types of broad messages to emerge, some of which have a particular relevance to the
circumstances of policy-makers in Scotland. (Lessons relating to specific individual
activities were identified previously in Chapter 3. Lessons to emerge on the particular issues
of engaging the “hard-to-reach”, and on evaluating civic participation activity are reported in
Chapters 6 and 7 respectively.)
The Demos project (Demos, 2004) linked 8 city governments in 7 different countries with
research organisations across Europe in innovation in citizen participation in local
government. The City of Edinburgh council and the City of Aberdeen council represented
Scottish interests. The general lessons to emerge from experience of civic participation
amongst the city governments ranged from the practical and pragmatic to the theoretical and
ideal. Key amongst these were:
• Citizens should be involved at an early stage in policy decision-making.

• Less can be more in terms of maximising the efficiency of participation. The aim
should be to get maximum benefit from minimum time input from citizens.
Possibilities for exploiting this include interactive websites, internet-based citizens’
panels, video participation for hard-to-reach groups.
• Regarding hard-to-reach groups, approaches should be customised to fit their
requirements.
• The time lag between decisions emerging from civic participation and resourcing any
resulting action should be shortened.
• Failure should not be swept under the carpet – be honest about this and learn from it.
• Organisational culture may need to change to promote greater decision-sharing with
citizens.
• Representative and participatory democracy should reinforce each other rather than
conflict.
A different set of overarching lessons emerged from 8 case studies in stakeholder

engagement across Australia (National Institute for Government, 2003):
• The role of trust between commissioner and stakeholder is crucial. Opportunities

need to be created within the participatory process to win the trust of others, for
example by demonstrating good will, expertise and willingness to compromise.
• Where information is provided to stakeholders it is important to highlight that
evidence is not value-neutral. People need to be informed about where the
information came from and its strengths and gaps.
36
• There is a need to constantly assess the validity of information provided during
participation.
• The problem of the interface between the local scope for decision-making and
national control needs to be considered as, even if local solutions are identified, these
may require trade-offs at wider authority levels.
• Many effective civic participation exercises may be location-specific and not
translate well to other contexts.
• The problem of engaging the dis-engaged needs to be addressed. Such people need to
be brought along, encouraged.
Chess and Purcell (1999) reviewed studies on public meetings, workshops and community
advisory committees and discussed public participation based on the empirical evidence
available. Based on their extensive searches they produced a set of “public participation rules
of thumb”. The empirical evidence they reviewed was not sufficient to “prove” or “disprove”
any of the rules, but it did provide support for several of them. The rules are summarised
below:
• Clarify goals. Some may be difficult to reconcile, for example, agencies looking for
support of plans that citizens want to block.
• Begin participation early and invest in advance planning. For example, where
participants have been placed in a “reactive” position perhaps considering agency
proposals, they can perceive these to be final decisions already made.
• Modify traditional participatory fora to meet process or outcome goals. For example,
more informal formats such as “community hearings” may encourage the
participation of those unaccustomed to public testimony.
• Implement a public participation programme with various forms of civic engagement.
New methods of combining different techniques are under way. These include, for
example, soliciting concerns of interest groups, involving a randomly selected citizen
panel to review the concerns, and convening technical experts to provide scientific
feedback on decision options.
• Collect feedback on public participation efforts. For example, the success of public
meetings is often gauged by hunches; very few agencies ask their advisory board
members whether the board “works”.
A lesson on better preparation prior to public participation exercises was learned by some
agency staff in a Scottish public sector organisation (George Street Research, 2000). One
comment from a staff member was that it was not until the participation work was underway
that they realised they had not got all of the necessary information to do a proper assessment
of impact. This research produced an interesting suggestion regarding transfer of public
participation expertise between organisations with the notion of “shadowing” of consultation
processes by colleagues from other agencies. Finally, a broad lesson from this research was
that achieving a high quality of public participation may take an organisation several years to
develop. For some participatory approaches, an appropriate environment needs to be
developed and nurtured to facilitate effective involvement of the public. For example, one of
the Scottish SIPs developed such a culture over several years, by firstly identifying the
relevant voluntary/community groups with which to engage, secondly, engaging them in
dialogue, and finally establishing a network of local fora for public participation.
37
A simple summing up of what they termed the “key to success in participation” was provided
by Involve, the national advisory group, which aims to improve the practice and
understanding of public participation.
According to the website of Involve, success in participation follows from an understanding

of a basic rule:
Purpose + Context + Process (including techniques) = Outcome
It was argued that good participation adheres to certain principles such as being voluntary,
transparent, honest and clear, adequately resourced, accessible and accountable.
Between them, these few commentators identified a wide array of lessons for future
commissioners of civic participation exercises. The range indicates that a degree of
selectivity is required in taking on board past experience according to the particular
circumstance and context of any planned activity. However, one of the most prominent
challenges to arise across studies was that of engaging hard-to-reach sectors in public
participation. This is addressed in more depth in the next Chapter.
• Several international studies have drawn together lessons to emerge from across a
wide variety of different experiences of civic participation.
• Lessons learned need to be assessed for their transferability across jurisdictions and
policy contexts.
• One broad lesson to emerge in several different contexts is that citizens should be
involved at an early stage in policy decision-making.
• It was acknowledged that a high quality of public participation may take an
organisation several years to develop.
• The problem of engaging with “hard-to-reach” sectors emerged and is addressed in
more depth in the next Chapter.
38
CHAPTER 6: ENGAGING THE “HARD-TO-REACH”
6.1 INTRODUCTION
One recurring theme which spanned much of the literature reviewed was that of
representativeness of the public who take part in civic participation activities. A key concern
was that the same pockets of the population appeared, repeatedly, not to feature in such
exercises. The ODPM (2002) study of local authorities in England reported that 44% of
authorities had experienced difficulties engaging particular social groups in their civic
participation activity. Those most notable for their absence included Minority Ethnic
Communities (MEC) (23% of authorities), young people (22%) and local business people
(17%). Authorities flagging this problem highlighted steps they had taken to address it, such
as using relatively smaller-scale, deliberative approaches to engage such sectors rather than
larger more traditional methods such as surveys.
Within Scotland, the “Participation Summits” run by Scottish Civic Forum (2003) provided
an opportunity to hear the views of a variety of population sectors. Significantly, people in
the Highland and Islands expressed a sense of isolation with regard to the Government
consultation process. They considered that most consultative meetings were held in the
Central Belt of Scotland with the concerns of the Highlanders not well represented. Young
people were also perceived by some summit participants to be on the margins of inclusion in
civic participation.
In a recent report on tenant participation (Nicholson, 2003), Registered Social Landlords in

Scotland expressed the need for more guidance on engaging effectively with various equality
groups demonstrating their identification of this as an area where practice could be improved.
The importance of making efforts to ensure potentially excluded population sectors have an
opportunity to participate in civic participation has been raised by some commentators, not
just on the grounds of ensuring better representativeness of respondent but as a matter of
demonstrating good practice. For example, a standpoint taken by Claeys (2001), within the
context of engaging the poor in policy-making in Flanders, was that achieving an input from
the poor could be used as a benchmark against which Government policy and initiatives to
strengthen Government-citizen relations could be evaluated:
“those measures which prove successful in engaging the poor may well be
valuable in fostering greater public participation on the part of all citizens”
(p125)
Claeys (2001) provided a useful insight into the difficulties encountered in Flanders in
engaging with the poor and socially excluded, with the following observations:
• Engagement with this sector can be very intensive

• The Government has to convince people to participate
• Expectations of Government can be higher than the results that will be achieved
• This sector is not homogenous and it is difficult to obtain representation within it
• The large variety of organisations and associations representing this sector can be
beneficial but can also create an impediment to civic participation
39
• The main representatives change frequently amongst these organisations and indeed
amongst the policy-makers
• The sector is often difficult to organise and without special efforts can remain out of
touch, yet they do not wish to be treated as a “special” case which they think could
reinforce differences
• People within this sector may use different language to that deployed in civic
participation approaches
• This sector may have very difficult living conditions and more urgent problems to
deal with than taking part in participation activities. Claeys commented, “they face a
continuous struggle to avoid being overwhelmed by problems that urgently demand a
solution yet leave space for collective reflection” (p136)
6.2 POSITIVE ACTION
A scan of the literature revealed that one key approach adopted in several jurisdictions to
tackle this apparently shared problem of engaging with excluded groups was to build into the
participation framework some positive action measures in an attempt to achieve a level
playing field for participation. Providing this “step up” to excluded groups to make
participation easier and more accessible represented an approach to facilitating participation
on a wide-scale as opposed to singling out small groups of potential participants for intensive
encouragement. A selection of examples of such “positive action” is provided below.
In Canada the public participation of the hard-to-reach native population sector was
supported by the funding of appropriate technical assistance, modifying the formats of
traditional meetings to make them more accessible, and accepting testimony in native
languages.
In Flanders, the task of engaging the poor to develop the 1994 General Report on Poverty
was enhanced by the use of a “dialogue method” of civic participation. This approach
identified the routine associations and networks already operating within the target sector and
incorporated them into the design of the participation activity. So, for example, a portfolio of
house visits, group gatherings and local organisation meetings were deployed to mirror the
usual communication patterns of this sector.
Reid-Howie (2002) emphasised that exclusion of particular groups tends not to be planned
but usually occurs inadvertently because commissioners of civic participation have not
undertaken the preparatory work to ensure that various steps have been taken to facilitate
inclusion of the hard-to-reach sector. They argued that activities cannot be taken “off-the-
peg” for these groups but each exercise requires careful consideration and tailoring to provide
the step-up needed. They provided as an example a major consultation exercise on budget
setting in Fife to be undertaken largely via public meetings. However, an alternative route to
providing views was ensured for MECs whom they considered may not respond readily to a
public meetings forum, with smaller, face-to-face dialogue meetings established for
representatives of the MEC community to contribute their views.
Nicholson (2003) reported the problems which Scottish Registered Social Landlords were
experiencing in engaging effectively with particular sectors of tenants, yet progress had been
made by some by taking simple steps such as pro-actively offering translation facilities in
order that practical barriers to participation in decision-making could be removed.
40
6.3 EXAMPLES OF CIVIC PARTICIPATION WITH “HARD-TO-REACH”
GROUPS
Examples of special efforts made by various commissioners to attempt to include children

and young people in civic participation emerged in the literature reviewed. A selection of
experiences and lessons learned is reported below.
Based on their experiences, Borland et al (2001) discussed how to improve consultation with
children and young people within the context of Scottish policy-making. They recommended
that participation activities with such participants should take into account, inter alia, the
addressing of power issues between those involved, the need to keep children safe, and a
respect for children’s views. They argued that such activity required preparation time, skilled
input and child friendly approaches. The main methods they had observed in the literature
they had reviewed included group discussions, interviews, temporary or longer-term groups,
questionnaire surveys and on-line communication. However, they also pinpointed more
innovative techniques in operation such as board games, drama, written or pictorial exercises
and various visual communication aids. They highlighted the effectiveness of combining
methods and also engaging children and young people on topics of direct interest to them
such as leisure facilities, public transport, health education and advice. Although various
interactive approaches to involve this sector may reap rewards in terms of higher levels of
participation, the researchers argued that such methods need long lead-in times to build trust
and constitute a major investment of staff time.
In Jenkins et al’s (2002a) telephone poll of Scottish Planning Authorities, some reported
attempts to engage school-aged children in civic participation but with varying degrees of
success. One relatively effective method had been devised by Stirling Council and involved
utilising the existing structures of Youth Fora and youth congress activity to engage with this
group.
In the remote Highland area of Scotland, the Highland Youth Voice Project, a Highland
Council initiative, involves youths aged between 14 and 18 years who can be elected to the
Highland Youth Voice Parliament and makes use of a dedicated website to engage with the
geographically widely dispersed youth population.
In Finland, one attempt to engage better with Finnish youth comprises a website built jointly
by the Finnish Youth Corporation Allianssi and the Ministry of Education (OECD, 2003).
The dedicated website provides an informative channel of topical societal matters and a
discussion forum directed especially at young people aged 14 – 19 years. In order to
establish links with policy-makers, the latter are invited to respond to questions posed by
young people, with the outcome of discussions commented on in the media.
Within Scotland, a raft of new platforms for facilitating the voices of young people has been
developed over recent years with initiatives including the Youth Parliament, Dialogue Youth,
Youth Link, the Trojan Project, Young Scot and the National Youth Information Portal.
In several of its consultations on national issues the Scottish Executive has undertaken special
action targeted at specific hard-to-reach groups. For example, separate, dedicated research
was commissioned to explore the views of children and young people on the development of
its Alcohol Plan for Action; consultants were commissioned to conduct focus groups and a
survey with service users and carers to identify views on the development of National Care
41
Standards; grassroots consultations were held with disabled people, MECs, women and
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender groups respectively to identify views to feed into the
development of the Government’s Equality Strategy. The Scottish Executive’s Mental
Health Review and the Scottish Association for Mental Health organised a consultative day
for users and carers to consider a response to the White Paper on Mental Health. The event
took place in the tranquil surroundings of a walled garden complete with BBQ to facilitate a
relaxed and inclusive atmosphere.
Various local councils in Scotland have established participative frameworks to assist in

encouraging the participation of hard-to-reach groups. For example, Fife has 4 equality
networks which are all in the “loop” for receiving copies of major consultations. Similarly,
City of Edinburgh has 5 such networks. Edinburgh also featured amongst the Demos projects
(Demos, 2004) and reported on activity to explore new techniques aimed at involving
excluded sectors such as video and minidisk recordings, working with older residents in care
homes and experimenting with a variety of different meeting styles.
Building on the experience of local authorities in England, the Local Government

Association (2001) suggested that young people may engage more readily on single issues of
interest to them rather than broader topics. They also suggested that new technology may be
beneficial as a tool to increase participation, by making information more accessible to those
with a disability, especially blind or partially sighted people.
Examples which emerged within the context of the Better Government for Older People
Pilots, included the involvement of older people in Rhondda Cynon Taff in designing survey
tools to be used to seek the views of their compatriots, and the establishment of “reading
groups” of older people to explore in-depth the information produced by their local authority
(Martin and Boaz, 2000).
6.4 POLICY LESSONS
This Chapter has highlighted a common problem amongst commissioners of civic

participation activity, that of engaging with hard-to-reach groups. The examples provided
above provide a glimpse of the approaches taken to tackle this issue. It can been seen that
these fall into 2 main categories: empowerment of such excluded groups often through
positive action, and executing specially devised activities, dedicated to engaging with a
particular sector of the population.
Based on a consideration of the approaches undertaken by commissioners in a Flemish

exercise in civic participation, Claeys (2001) offered some useful lessons for policy-makers
trying to engage with such groups. More generalisable amongst these were:
• Excluded participants require special guidance and support to help them to participate.
• Dialogue at grass-roots level is a necessary condition for holding effective dialogue at
national level.
• There is a need to provide clear information on how dialogue with hard-to-reach
groups will be followed up.
• There is a need to have a good information flow and mutual co-operation between the
different organisations in which poor people participate.
42
• A significant and on-going time commitment is required to build and maintain a
relationship between commissioners and representative organisations based on mutual
trust.
• There should be efforts made to encourage better co-ordination of representative
organisations and associations.
• Specific and repeated efforts need to be made to involve those most excluded.
• Commissioners require training in drafting information suitable for certain sectors of
the excluded population.
One overriding message to emerge from Claeys (2001) and other commentators was that
engaging the “hard-to-reach” is about adapting methods of participation, not using ready-
made approaches. The emphasis should be on customizing methods bearing in mind the
overall involvement and output desired rather than tailoring methods around the policy-
making stages, hoops and timetables.
• Concerns were raised in the literature regarding difficulties in engaging with

particular groups such as MECs, young people, older people, local business people
and those living in rural locations.
• Two main approaches to tackling such under-representation were observed. These
were taking positive action to build a level playing field for participation and
undertaking especial exercises tailored to the particular target group.
• Many examples of initiatives to engage with young people have been supported by
the Scottish Executive.
• A key message to emerge was that engaging such sectors required an adaptation of
methods of participation, not an adoption of ready-made approaches.
43
CHAPTER 7: EVALUATING CIVIC PARTICIPATION ACTIVITY
7.1 STATE OF PLAY
As noted previously, the rapid increase in both use and nature of civic participation activity in
public policy-making over recent decades does not appear to be grounded in empirical
evidence of what works and why. Indeed, in 2001 the OECD remarked that no OECD
country appeared to be conducting any systematic evaluation of government performance in
public participation in policy-making. By 2004 the picture appeared relatively unchanged
with Rowe and Frewer noting that:
“the merits of participation are difficult to ascertain as there are relatively few
cases in which the effectiveness of participation exercises have been studied in a
structured (as opposed to highly subjective) manner” (p512)
Rowe and Frewer (2000) commented that the relative usefulness of public participation is
rendered difficult to ascertain due to the rarity of systematic comparisons between activities.
They identified what they saw as the main problem as being the absence of any benchmarks
against which different techniques can be compared and measured. This they argued was due
in part to general confusion over what is meant by “effectiveness” of participation activity.
Without a tradition of widely agreed and tested frameworks for evaluation of public
participation activity, DETR (1998) commented that learning from experience amongst local
authorities was rendered “haphazard and personalized” (p10). Against this background, it is
interesting to note the early examples of Scottish public authorities such as
Clackmannanshire, East Renfrewshire, South Ayrshire, Fife and South Lanarkshire councils
piloting techniques and organising the formal sharing of experiences and lessons learned via
seminars and presentations. There were also individual examples of more systematic
evaluations with findings sometimes collated into a “how to do” guide for others to follow
(for example, How to Organise a Citizens’ Jury by Higgins et al, Fife Council).
7.2 CHALLENGES IN DESIGNING CIVIC PARTICIPATION ACTIVITY

EVALUATIONS
Many commentators have suggested reasons for the continuing paucity of robust evaluations.
Possible explanations have included:
• The longer-term impacts of some activities make shorter-term attempts at evaluation

difficult (Chess and Purcell, 1999).
• It can be difficult to isolate the impact of one element of the input to the policy
process (George Street Research, 2000).
• There can be a tendency for commissioners to go by subjective measures of
effectiveness and see no need for formal evaluations (George Street Research, 2000)
• Public participation exercises are likely to have potentially competing goals and
inherent trade-offs, for example citizens’ juries may compromise on representation
but have other benefits which off-set this (Abelson et al, 2003).
• Direct comparisons between different methods are very difficult due to different
contextual factors and the difficulties in disentangling the effects of public
participation from other effects. A citizens’ jury in one community is not easily
44
replicated in another for the same issue, “raising serious challenges to conducting
cross-jurisdictional comparative evaluations of public participation processes”
(p248).
• There may be differences in opinion over what constitutes a “good” exercise or
activity. Indeed, 5 discourses on good participation process emerged from the study
of Webler et al (2001). A good process was seen as acquiring and maintaining
popular legitimacy; facilitating an ideological discussion; being fair; managing the
power struggle between different parties; and leading and compromising. The
researchers concluded that dramatic differences between these perspectives suggested
an important challenge for those responsible for designing and carrying out public
participation processes.
• There may be confusion over the ultimate purpose of the activity. For example,
Steelman and Ascher (1997) argued, “the increase in the many modalities of public
participation in policy formation during the last 25 years has resulted in confusion
over the purpose and intent of public input” (p86).
Other commentators remarked on the need to achieve a balance between focusing on the
process of participation and the outcome of that process, with some arguing for evaluations to
be devised which incorporate both approaches into the measurement of success (Chess and
Purcell, 1999). However, a current imbalance in favour of process evaluation is suggested by
some including George Street Research (2000) who reported that 3 out of 5 public authorities
in their Scottish-based study tended to base success on process issues such as the breadth of
target group involvement and the process of “gathering of views” rather than the “quality of
the views” (p46).
Rowe and Frewer (2000) argued that evaluative criteria can be divided into “acceptance
criteria” such as effective construction and implementation of a procedure, and “process
criteria” which incorporated public satisfaction with a procedure. They agreed that there
appeared to be a tendency for evaluation to focus on one type of criteria or the other but not
accommodate both very well. Steelman and Ascher (1997) provided yet another perspective
by stressing that the focus of evaluation criteria should depend on the type of activity and the
context. For example, where there are complex technical considerations perhaps the process
of participation should carry more weight in an evaluation. Where political considerations
come into play, the evaluation could focus more appropriately around the openness of the
outcome, and the legitimacy of the exercise.
Perhaps due to such challenges and different understandings, Abelson et al (2003) were able
to identify only one systematic attempt using pre-defined evaluation criteria to evaluate a
particular method – a citizens’ jury (McIver, 1998) – in their examination of empirical studies
of deliberative methods in the health sector.
7.3 EXAMPLES OF EVAULATION INDICATORS DEPLOYED
A scan across the reports of various examples of civic participation in different jurisdictions
provides a feel for how many commissioners are assessing their exercises and on what types
of criteria they are basing their judgement.
An extensive national dialogue on health and health care in Canada began in 1997 with the
aim of consulting individuals, voluntary organisations and professional stakeholders. Ham
(2001) reported the success of this large-scale approach in terms of the “actionable”
45
recommendations to emerge; the resulting heightened level of dialogue surrounding health
care issues; and several features of the process of the activity – involvement of the “average”
Canadian, senior Ministerial commitment and adequate time and resourcing.
In Scotland, George Street Research’s (2000) examination of participation activities amongst

public authorities revealed that commissioners gauged the success of their more traditional
approaches such as exhibitions, road shows, written consultations and workshop sessions by
the level of public response and whether they felt that the target groups had been adequately
involved. Likewise, Borland et al (2001) reported that activities focusing on the involvement
of children and young people could be evaluated on how well they had represented the views
of their target groups. However, they also highlighted the impact of the consultation on
policy development, and the effect on the participant – for example, their enjoyment of the
process and its contribution to their personal development as important factors in judging an
activity.
Another “package” of evaluation measures was outlined by Rosener (1981) in relation to the
outcomes of a programme of public involvement in the London Borough of Lewisham. The
raft of 30 separate consultation exercises undertaken by the Borough was assessed according
to a relatively sophisticated group of factors which attempted to combine process features
with impact and qualitative indicators:
• The overall levels of public participation and representativeness

• Links with the political administration structures and action subsequently taken
• Extent to which the community took control
• Satisfaction levels of participants
• Contribution made to the quality of decision-making
The conclusions to emerge from an audit of civic participation work undertaken more
recently by Devon County Council (Cole, 2004) demonstrated other useful avenues to
explore in evaluative reflection. Although much good practice was identified, an evaluation
of process revealed, for example, weaknesses in the process with significant gaps in the
information provided to some consultees. The rationale for undertaking some of the
exercises was questioned with a suggestion that some were conducted for cynical purposes to
mobilise consent rather than affect a policy decision. The commissioning body came under
criticism for lacking the research skills to conduct rigorous evaluations of activities and
failing to demonstrate a “corporate centre” which could join up consultations and facilitate
read-across between them.
The need for an assessment of the exercise to include the perspective of the participant
featured in some of the examples above. However, there were mixed views on the
importance of including participants’ views as an element of any evaluation. Some
commissioners of activity appeared to pay this scant attention (see for example, George Street
Research, 2000). Others (eg Coglianese, 2002) argued that participant satisfaction should not
be used as an evaluative criterion. Coglianese stressed that participants’ satisfaction with
their involvement was relatively unimportant and did not equate with the quality or
effectiveness of the exercise. In addition, it was suggested that participants’ perceptions
could be influenced by irrelevant participation factors:
46
“…Government ought surely (to) be more concerned about achieving results than
achieving the satisfaction of participants in the process by which government
established policies” (p25)
Comments from the DETR (1998) supported the sentiment that participants’ conceptual
frameworks for the “success” of an exercise may differ to that of the commissioner. They
argued, for example, that citizens may perceive an initiative to have failed if it did not meet
their personal concerns.
The differing views on evaluation reflected above perhaps demonstrate the need for the
construction of core guidance on evaluative approaches which commissioners could adopt
and adapt to fit the particular circumstances of each case. Indeed, Rowe and Frewer (2004)
argued for an evaluation “agenda” for conducting research into the effectiveness of public
participation exercises which incorporated:
• Establishing a common definition of effectiveness

• Identifying valid and usable ways to measure this
7.4 EXAMPLES OF EVALUATIVE FRAMEWORKS
Several approaches have been made over recent years to contribute to a framework for
evaluating civic participation activities. Examples of some of the ideas put forward are
outlined here.
Emerging from the field of environmental policy, Abelson et al (2003) identified 2 broad
criteria around which an evaluation framework could be constructed. These comprised
fairness of process, and competence of process. Drawing on these, the researchers went on to
develop what they considered should be the 4 key components of any evaluation of a
deliberative process:
• Representation
• Structure of the process or procedures
• Information used in the process
• Outcomes and decision arising from the process
Again, based on a consideration of public participation within the arena of environmental

policy decision-making, Beierle (1999) proposed that one way to answer the question, “What
are we getting from public participation?”, is to use an evaluative framework that uses a set
of “social” goals. These comprised:
• Educating the public

• Incorporating public values, assumptions and preferences into decision-making
• Increasing the substantive quality of decisions
• Fostering trust in institutions
• Reducing conflict
• Making decisions cost-effectively
Jones and Gammell (2004) expressed their attraction to using the Best Value concept to
evaluate consultations, with criteria based upon the 3 E’s and 4 C’s formula:
47
Economy Efficiency Effectiveness
Challenge Comparison Consultation Competition
Some Government Departments are also engaged in devising comprehensive frameworks for
evaluating civic participation activities. For example the Department of Health funded
advisory group, Involve, has developed a framework for use in assessing different
participatory techniques.
• The rapid increase in both use and nature of civic participation activity in public
policy-making does not appear to be grounded in empirical evidence of what works
and why.
• Many commentators have identified difficulties in designing robust evaluations of
such activity.
• Where evaluations have been attempted these have tended to focus on the process of
the activity rather than its outcome.
• Different views emerged on what constituted effective civic participation.
• There were mixed views on whether participants’ opinions on the participation
activity were relevant to an evaluation of its effectiveness.
• There has been a move over recent years to construct formal frameworks for
evaluating civic participation activities.
48
CHAPTER 8: THE CITIZENS’ VIEWS
As has been seen, involving citizens in public policy-making has been increasing over recent
decades and is now well-established within the policy-making cycle. Commissioners are
more likely than ever to undertake on-going civic participation activity, sometimes engaging
the same target groups or individuals repeatedly regarding different policy initiatives. It is
therefore of much relevance to Government commissioners of such activity to take
cognisance of how participants feel about their participation experience(s).
Amongst the literature reviewed, a small number of studies provided an insight into the
perceptions of citizens who had recently taken part in participation activities. Their views
are, indeed, very useful in terms of suggesting steps which could be taken to nurture their
involvement and perhaps promote the likelihood of their choosing to participate in future.
Their comments can be categorised into 4 broad themes.
8.1 VIEWS OF FEEDBACK ON AND IMPACT OF PARTICIPATION
The Scottish Civic Forum provides a source of information on how citizens have perceived
their experiences of participation. Overall, some very positive comments have been collated
by the Forum, with reports from their series of “Participation Summits” (2003) that:
“many people agreed that since devolution their ability to influence decision-
making at a national level has greatly increased” (p3)
Some people attending these Summits stated that they felt their contribution had been listened
to during the participation activity and that they had received good feedback on the impact of
the activity such as positive changes resulting from suggestions made.
However, others remarked that they were not so sure what had happened to their input and
how, if at all, it had affected policy. One practical suggestion made was for the Scottish
Executive to publish an annual “Consultation Report” which documented in tabular form the
civic participation initiatives undertaken along with the associated outcomes.
The importance of finding out “what happened next” emerged repeatedly amongst the
literature reviewed. It appeared that people would rather find out that their input had not, in
the end, been taken on board than receive no feedback at all. As an illustration, in Borland et
al’s (2001) report to the Scottish Parliament on involving children and young people in
participation, they included a comment from a previous participant:
“they should come back and tell us what happened, they should give you a
reason, because it could be that (your idea) wasn’t good enough – as long as they
think about it” (p5)
Emerging from Newman et al’s (2004) examination of participation in 2 UK cities were

dissatisfied participants who identified what they saw as unacceptable time-lags between the
issues they had raised and any resulting action or other response. In George Street
Research’s (2000) study of participation activity amongst public authorities in Scotland, less
than half (44%) of participants reported getting feedback on their contributions, and amongst
those who had received a response, some said that this had been a simple thank you and not
49
the detailed reply they had expected. The researchers described how participants appeared to
be very sensitive to any indication that their views were not taken seriously.
8.2 NEED FOR APPROPRIATE AND LEGITIMATE INFORMATION
The requirement for the information provided to participants as part of the activity to be
credible and legitimate was raised by previous participants. In Newman et al’s (2004) study,
participants expressed concern at the lack of apparent credibility in the policy options they
had been given to debate. Kushner and Rachlis (1998) described how some people are put
off participating on the grounds of perceived lack of legitimacy of some consultation
processes rather than any disinterest on their part. Interestingly, in George Street Research’s
(2000) study, paper-based consultation such as questionnaire surveys, seemed more likely
than other activities to be charged with tokenism by participants.
The George Street Research study also revealed instances within the context of multi-activity
approaches where participants were very unclear as to how their views were contributing to
the over-arching exercise. For example, one respondent participating in one aspect of a
complex budget-setting exercise was concerned about their input being the only contribution,
not realising that this was just one strand in a broader participation approach. Other
participants expressed the need to be given more information about the scope of the exercise
in which they were taking part and the likely constraints on how their contribution could be
used. Based on the views to emerge from 5 focus groups in Canada, Abelson et al (2004)
noted that participants wished for the commissioner to place greater emphasis on achieving
an appropriate balance and content of information they provided to participants.
8.3 PROCESS MATTERS
In a systematic review of 239 case studies of public participation in environmental decisions,

a key conclusion was that “process matters” with an association identified between the
public’s broad acceptance of decision outcomes and, “the processes in which agencies are
responsive, participants are motivated, the quality of deliberation is high and participants
have at least a moderate degree of control over the process” (Beierle and Cayford, 2002).
Others also found that participants’ perceptions of their experiences are greatly influenced by
aspects of the participation process. For example, Newman et al (2004) reported citizens
frustrated by what they saw as the lack of transparency in the process, with confusion over
where different responsibilities for decisions lay. Another example was cited by DETR
(1998) of potential participants put off by their perception that certain groups would dominate
the participation process.
8.4 MAXIMISING THE PARTICIPANT ROLE
One very encouraging sign to emerge from the reviewed texts was that many previous
participants felt that they had even more to offer. Both previous consultees and
commissioners of participation activities interviewed in the George Street Research (2000)
study suggested that they had under-estimated the contribution that consultees could make.
Members of the Scottish Civic Forum (2002) were reported as showing little sign of any
exhaustion by the level of consultations issued by the Scottish Executive. Many
commentators disputed the claims of commissioners that low responses had resulted from
public apathy, and indeed, as shown above, Kushner and Rachlis (1998) argued that a
50
perception of lack of legitimacy of the process rather than any complacency or disinterest
explained many citizens’ hesitation to become involved.
In a similar vein, Abelson et al’s (2004) examination of participant views led the researchers
to conclude that participants were becoming more critical of the participation process, more
discerning but were also optimistic about such approaches and their use in public policy-
making.
• Although many people who have participated in civic participation in Scotland felt
that their contribution had been listened to by policy-makers, others were not sure
what had happened to their input and if it had affected policy.
• The importance of previous participants finding out “what happened next” emerged
repeatedly in the literature.
• Participants were concerned that any information they were provided with as part of
the activity should be credible and legitimate.
• Participants’ perceptions of their experience are greatly influenced by aspects of the
participation process.
• Some participants felt that they had more to offer and did not demonstrate signs of
consultation fatigue.
• Participants were seen as becoming more critical of the participation process and
more discerning about their involvement.
51
CHAPTER 9: CONTEXTUAL ISSUES
This and the following Chapter rounds up some of the broader issues to emerge from the
literature reviewed. Some have been touched upon in the preceding Chapters, others are
over-arching challenges of involving the public in policy-making and are documented here as
relevant to the planning of future public participation strategies by public bodies in Scotland.
It was commented earlier that a greater understanding of what participation activity works
best in what context is curtailed by the lack of a body of robust, empirical evidence on which
to draw conclusions. However, based upon the literature reviewed here, it is possible to make
some useful observations about the contexts in which public participation activity has been
conducted and how that has affected decisions on the type of activity undertaken and the
success of different approaches.
9.1 POLICY CONTEXT
In particular, the review has been dominated by examples from the health domain, and indeed
this field has been leading in pushing at the boundaries of involving citizens in policy
decision processes. Of specific note has been the innovative and apparently successful
tackling of increasingly complex and sensitive topics using public participation
methodologies. Within the UK, formal commitment to involving citizens in such decisions is
evidenced by the establishment of new institutional mechanisms such as the Citizens’
Council set up in England and Wales in 2002 to advise the National Institute for Clinical
Excellence decision-makers. Similar commitments have been witnessed in other jurisdictions
such as the Canadian’s Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada which
makes comprehensive efforts to consult citizens on health care reform options.
Other policy domains, perhaps taking their lead from innovations in the health field, have
tested public participation methods within the context of complex and sometimes relatively
abstract policy concepts. For example, in 2003 the UK Food Standards Agency conducted a
citizens’ jury over a 3 day period. Fifteen “ordinary” people met to debate the issue of
whether GM food should be available for all to buy in the UK. The jury was broadcast live
on the Food Standards Agency website with over 1,000 viewers watching to hear the jury
deliver its verdict:
“the FSA citizens’ jury decided this afternoon that GM foods should be available
to buy in the UK, although a sizeable minority (6 out of 15) disagreed believing
that the UK is not yet ready for GM foods”
In Scotland, South Lanarkshire Council used a combination of participatory activities to

involve citizens in its budget-setting exercise. A careful, incremental approach was adopted
in order to explore understandings of the complexity of the topic, before a questionnaire was
developed and used with a wider audience. Crucially, methods were used in small-scale
exercises to inform the commissioner how to communicate complex details prior to involving
the public on a wider scale.
Citizens appeared to be aware of their limitations in terms of expertise on particular topics

and tended to establish their own boundaries of competence beyond which they expected the
commissioner to take control of decisions. An interesting and topical example of this is
provided by Lowry et al (2000) who tested the public view in England on how much they
52
wished to be involved in water fluoridation implementation decisions. Their research showed
that whilst the general public wished to be informed of water fluoridation plans they did not
see themselves as the appropriate implementation arbiters.
Other major policy contexts have featured examples of civic participation over recent years,
although some appear to have lacked the tradition and cumulative lessons required to make
great innovative strides. Indeed, in Hastings’ overview (undated) of the range of Joseph
Rowntree Foundation sponsored studies in the field of regeneration, she concluded that a
decade or more of community involvement had made little difference to the outcomes of
regeneration processes. Such a situation she explained as due in part to the lack of resolve on
the part of non-community players to make participation a meaningful process.
This finding is backed up by other relevant studies such as the evaluation of the New Life for
Urban Scotland initiative (Cambridge Policy Consultants, 1999) which reported that
community involvement and empowerment had actually diminished during the course of the
initiative in 3 of the 4 estates taking part. Within Scotland’s SIPs the early picture of civic
participation was mixed with community participants encountering problems in engaging at
the strategic level of decision-making (Hastings, undated). Hastings et al (1996) offered their
views on this picture of limited public involvement in the regeneration context. They
suggested that slow progress could be explained by the need to resource capacity building as
a pre-requisite to involvement. Within this arena they perceived there to be many practical
barriers to public involvement with a need for organisational structures and cultures of
partners and partnerships to change to accommodate and facilitate more meaningful
engagement.
Within the transport policy context Bickerstaff et al (2002) also found progress in civic
participation to be relatively slow. Based on their survey of English highway authorities they
concluded that whilst there appeared to be considerable activity on the surface, evidence of
substantive impacts on local transport planning or any strategic approach to the participation
process was sparse. Furthermore, whilst 96% stated that they had used participation
exercises in developing their provisional transport plans (as required to do by legislation) and
89% had documented the details of their public involvement programmes as required by
DETR, the researchers judged that only 21% of authorities had included any depth of detail
such as who was involved, when, why and how.
Within the context of local transport planning, the researchers commented that public
participation is relatively new but authorities have been quick to respond to the challenge of
its use. However, to date there has been little evidence of how public involvement had
impacted on overall plans with it still bearing the hallmarks of tokenism. More guidance
from central government was recommended to set out in explicit terms what could be
expected from public participation and the opportunities it presented.
The progress made in involving the public in policy-decisions within these different policy
contexts can be viewed against the spectrum of public participation devised by the
International Association for Public Participation (2000)5. Put simply, their basic model of
increasing levels of public impact is as follows:
Inform Consult Involve Collaborate Empower
5
© 2005 International Association for Public Participation.
53
Using this model as a guide, it could be argued that, whereas some of the examples of public
participation in the health domain were moving towards the stages of involvement of the
public and even collaboration between the public and the commissioner as partners in
formulating policy solutions, participation in other policy arenas, for example, regeneration
could be viewed as still at the stages of informing and consulting on policy but not yet
transferring any power of decision-making.
9.2 GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT
A suggestion of the influence of geography on public participation activity emerged in the

ODPM (2002) study of English local authorities in which it was noted that urban authorities
appeared to be more active across all types of activity with the exception of the use of
consultation documents. The researchers commented that small, rural authorities seemed less
likely than others to experiment with innovative and more resource intensive approaches,
perhaps reflecting their limited capacity or their rural setting.
It is interesting to note, however, the innovations such as video conferencing, radio phone-in
programmes and so on, reported by George Street Research (2000) as having been introduced
by Scottish rural public bodies, perhaps reflecting pro-activity within the Scottish Highlands
in promoting social inclusion in dispersed communities.
9.3 GOVERNANCE CONTEXT
Although only touched upon in the literature reviewed, the influence of the nature and ethos
of the governance within which the civic participation activity operates can provide an
important influence over its effectiveness. One example already mentioned was the use of
ICT approaches in the Czech Republic where both the use of such technology and the notion
of two-way communication between public and Government were novel. In addition, the
limited success of the initiative was explained by what was seen as the lack of civic “self
confidence” (Illner, 2001), a legacy of lack of faith in the governance and the common view
that the citizens’ input would not hold any weight.
In contrast, and of greater relevance to Scotland, is Denmark’s reported success in civic

participation (Blume, 2001), explained in part by the relatively small population and
devolved responsibilities which allow decisions about most public services to be taken at a
local level. Denmark experienced much devolutionary public sector reform in the 1970s and
1980s as a variety of service areas were decentralised to county and municipal levels of
government. These changes were supported by a view that placing decision-making
responsibilities closer to the level where services are delivered can facilitate democratic
participation, responsiveness to citizens’ wishes, and strengthen the link between those at the
management and decision-making levels. On this local stage, informal contact between
decision-makers and local civic participation was seen as easier to achieve.
In addition, the Danes were described as tending to be well-educated and active in civil
society and accustomed to Government paying attention to their opinions. Policy-making
was described as being based on the building of consensus. Finally, Denmark was portrayed
as having a strong interest in learning from international experience in civic participation.
54
9.4 NATURE OF TOPIC
The influence that the nature of the topic has on the willingness of the public to engage in the
debate and the quality of their response has been hinted at previously. For example, it was
argued that young people are easier to engage on single issue topics of central interest to
themselves. Another example previously raised is that of deploying deliberative approaches
for topics which had already attracted public and media interest and for which there were
several different standpoints.
Such a view is supported by Joyce McMillan, a journalist and convenor of SCF speaking at a
Scottish Civic Forum “Participation Summit” (2003) who argued that:
“in order to engage people in the political process you need to make it interesting
by engaging people in the contentious issues of the day”
Indeed, this commentator identified a role for MSPs to “stimulate interest” in such political
issues amongst the general public.
Others argued that topics of a more distinct rather than abstract nature, are more likely to lead
to quality engagement with the public. For example, within the planning policy context
Ryder and Pennington (2000) reported participation to be more effective when linked to site-
specific issues. People tended to be largely reactive within the planning sphere (Jenkins et al,
2002a) and more likely to get involved in issues relating to their own or their community’s
interests than wider issues. However, these authors also identified some degree of mismatch
between what people said they would get involved in and what they actually did engage with.
• Previous innovative developments in civic participation have been dominated by

examples from the health policy domain.
• Previous experience of civic participation within the regeneration context has
demonstrated mixed success with a variety of barriers cited in relation to resourcing
activity, changing organisational structures and need for capacity-building.
• Within the transport policy context, there appears to be little substantive evidence on
how public involvement in policy decision-making has impacted on overall outcomes.
• There was some evidence to suggest that local authorities in urban areas tended to be
more active in promoting civic participation than those in rural locations.
• Across different jurisdictions, the nature and ethos of governance appeared to exert an
influence over the effectiveness of civic participation. The notion of civic “self
confidence” emerged and was viewed as a pre-requisite to effective civic involvement
in public policy-making.
• In general, topics which it was suggested engaged the public most effectively were
concrete, distinct, contentious and of relevance to the lives of the target sector.
55
CHAPTER 10: CHALLENGES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
This final Chapter draws together a selection of the recurring, generalisable issues and
challenges of civic participation in public policy-making to emerge from the literature
reviewed. It concludes with some thoughts on future developments.
10.1 ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
Throughout the review a variety of the more challenging aspects of undertaking civic
participation within a policy development context have emerged. Some have been
documented in previous Chapters. This section draws together examples of broad,
generalisable issues which have emerged repeatedly in different contexts.
As a background, it is interesting to note the main concerns amongst the English local
authorities surveyed by ODPM in 2001:
• 64% were concerned that civic participation may lead to consultation fatigue amongst
the public
• 56% were concerned that they may be capturing the views of dominant but
unrepresentative groups
• 53% were concerned that they could be raising public expectations to a level that
could not be met
• 43% were concerned that civic participation placed additional burdens on their
officers and members
• 39% were concerned that public involvement can slow down the decision-making
processes
However, as Lowndes et al (2001a) remarked, these concerns did not constitute reasons for
avoiding participation, but were viewed as challenges to be overcome and indeed could be
construed as a necessary part of the learning experience.
10.1.1 Making a Real Impact
A general concern across many different contexts was that the outputs from civic
participation may not have made much real impact on policy decision-making. Following the
first survey of English local authorities, DETR (1998) reported that local authorities
recognised that public participation frequently had minimal impact on final decision-making.
It was commented that:
“a ‘demand’ for public participation can only be stimulated in the context of a

‘supply’ of real opportunities to influence decision-making” (p9-10)
It was noted (Lowndes et al, 2001a) that frequently, the civic participation activity comprised
just one element of the overall input which informed decision-making and its place as such
needed to be recognised.
56
10.1.2 Lack of Decision-Making Power of Commissioner
Related to the previous issue is the recurring problem of handling those recommendations
which lie outwith the ambit of the commissioner’s power. As noted previously, participants
do not tend to differentiate between different layers of power and indeed can find such
structures confusing. One remark to emerge from the Scottish Civic Forum’s Kirkintilloch
Summit (one of a series of 9 events held across Scotland to find out how accessible and
inclusive people felt the devolved Government was) summed this up:
“there are layers of representative bodies from community council to the

European Parliament. How do people find their way through?”
Sometimes commercial interests can also muddy the decision-making waters (George Street
Research, 2000) as public bodies such as local enterprise councils and housing associations
attempt to marry different vested interests.
Indeed, one of the main difficulties which faced the Government for Older People Pilots
(Martin and Boaz, 2000) was the limited influence which commissioning bodies had over the
issues which mattered to older people most, such as the level of state pension and national
travel concessions.
10.1.3 Participatory Versus Representative Democracy
Participatory democracy presents another dimension to policy decision-making and must sit
within an overarching framework of structures which accommodates other forms of
democracy. As noted previously, conflicts can arise because of different perspectives on the
interface between these different forms, with the need in some instances to make explicit the
relationships and roles which these different democratic processes must take on.
A good example of a context where such definition may be particularly valuable is that of
neighbourhood renewal. Tensions may already be exhibited between the respective roles of
community representatives and elected councillors, and the additional layer of participatory
democracy can lead to further tension unless clear cut roles are specified.
Gaventa (2004) argued that such tensions are not new but have emerged within community
regeneration initiatives for decades and are also witnessed outwith the UK. Gaventa
suggested that one way to address this challenge is to develop guidelines that help to clarify
the different forms of accountability underlying the different types of representation.
10.1.4 Weighting of Civic Participation Input
An issue which emerged repeatedly in the literature, although no clear solution emerged, was
that of whether to and how to “weight” the relative inputs from different public participation
sectors. There appeared to be an implicit expectation by some that different levels of
attention should be paid to the views of different sectors of participants to reflect such
features as assumed expertise of the respondent and their professional status. Anecdotal
evidence supplied by the author of this review confirms that, within the context of Scottish
Executive written consultations over recent years, some policy-makers, and indeed some
respondents, have expressed their assumption that responses will be weighted according to
some previously defined formula.
57
Within the literature reviewed, issues concerning possible weighting of responses were
raised. For example, emerging from the Canadian experience of civic participation in health
care decisions (Ham, 2001), questions were asked about how to balance the viewpoints of
“experts” (physicians, policy analysts) with those of citizens and patients. Other viewpoints
where issues of balance arose included those of people with a direct “concentrated” interest in
the topic (eg patients, physicians) and those with only a “diffuse” interest such as the general
public taking into account competing public priorities.
A related point was that some stakeholder groups may need to declare their interests in order
to aid in balancing the views expressed. For example, it was suggested that they should
disclose more on who they represent and who is funding them (Blume, 2001).
An interesting “dilemma” within the context of weighting responses was posed by a Scottish
planning authority (Jenkins et al, 2002a) in asking for guidance on how to “weight” the
relative views of Scottish citizens against those from other countries on issues of Scottish
national and local concern. With the increasing use of the internet for publicising
consultations and for facilitating responses, “dilemmas” such as this appear to require urgent
consideration.
10.1.5 Resourcing Civic Participation
Another underlying theme to emerge was the need to ensure that civic participation activity
was adequately resourced both financially and in human terms. Amongst English local
authorities lack of resources was ranked top in a list of identified problems which also
included lack of time and lack of public interest (ODPM, 2002). Likewise, in Jenkins et al
(2002a) survey of Scottish planning authorities, the majority identified lack of resources and
time as the main factors inhibiting the development of participation.
Again, in Scotland, public authorities in George Street Research’s (2000) study explained
their difficulty in assessing the amount of resources they would require for civic participation.
They commented that they often significantly underestimated the resources needed which
could be required over several years and include the full time commitment of a member of
staff.
10.1.6 Public Apathy
A common assumption arising largely from practitioner-based literature is that one barrier to
civic participation is public apathy towards involvement. For example, 51% of Registered
Social Landlords in Nicholson’s (2003) study perceived tenant apathy to be a barrier to
developing their tenant participation strategy. Others however, contended that rather than
reflecting lack of interest in civic participation per se, apparent apathy may simply be an
expression of public dissatisfaction with representative democracy and a lack of confidence
in the intentions of commissioners to involve citizens in any meaningful way.
Clues about ways to address this issue may lie in the argument that public apathy does not
just happen but takes time to develop and is strengthened by negative experiences
(Warburton, 2000). Another steer emerges from Seargeant’s and Steele’s (1999) observation
that, “the health of representative and participatory democracy are intertwined” (p451).
Based on these perspectives, attention given to improving the responsiveness of public bodies
58
in their general interface with the public could reap rewards in terms of civic appetite for
participation.
10.2 FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
This report has looked back over developments, trends and issues in civic participation in
public policy-making over recent decades. It ends with a glimpse of what the future might
bring, by drawing together some of the thoughts which emerged from a variety of
commentators on future challenges and opportunities.
• Advances in e-Government are seen as an opportunity but also may raise a number
of challenges. Digital divide issues still exist and may become increasingly
problematic; the internet increases the capacity of public bodies to exchange
information but may also increase citizens’ expectations regarding speed and quality
of response; there may be an increasing need to address issues of privacy of personal
data entered electronically as part of civic participation activity; issues of balance of
international versus local views need to be addressed; campaigning groups may
become increasingly able to dominate civic participation exercises by mobilising
support and steering responses via the internet; to address the concern that the public
may not be able to understand the increasingly complex material presented by public
bodies on the internet there may be a need to increase the traditional, face-to-face
approaches to consultation in parallel with web-based advances.
• The growth of civic society organisations may increase the pressure on public
bodies to examine more closely the issue of weighting of responses and make
explicit their approach to tackling this. The literature suggests an increasing demand
for more sophisticated training for members of representative organisations in
participation processes such as how to make best use of the internet. In addition,
there is a growing pressure for more accountability to accompany the input of
various citizens’ groups, for example, by making all such responses available for
public scrutiny.
• Increasing globalisation may compound the existing lack of awareness amongst

citizens of where power lies for different policy-decisions. Citizens may find it
increasingly difficult to identify the locus of decision-making in an ever more global
world. Indeed, national Government may be held to account by participants for
decisions taken at international or sub-national level.
• Increasing complexity of issues and tighter time frames for decision-making

appear to cry out for higher quality of information provision to citizens, maximising
the efficiency of their input. Both of these are practical challenges which can be
addressed by drawing on lessons learned from previous experience, for example in
relation to tailoring approaches more closely to different target groups.
• Systematic evaluation frameworks are likely to increase in prominence and be

trialled and customised by public bodies in attempts to gain evidence-based
information on what works in what context. A particular gap relates to information
on costs of processes against impacts. Without such robust information, proper
choices on approaches to adopt are hampered.
59
• Strategic planning of civic participation was a weakness identified amongst public
authorities across different jurisdictions. Many examples existed of authorities
conducting exercises to “try out” approaches in a piecemeal fashion (Florin and
Dixon, 2004) rather than for any underlying strategic rationale. The next few years
is likely to bring about an increased attention to civic participation strategies which
incorporate for example, informed choices on appropriate methods, how they should
complement each other and how the balance of different inputs will be handled.
There are encouraging signs that components of strategies have been devised, for example,
the work by Scottish councils such as City of Edinburgh, City of Aberdeen and Fife in co-
ordinating databases and diaries of all of their participation activities, and trying to prevent
over consultation of particular groups and duplication of time and resources. However,
examples of co-ordinated effort tend to be confined to individual organisations, leaving wide
scope in the future for the harnessing of inter-agency civic participation planning within over-
arching strategies. However, the challenges of constructing such plans are considerable, with
the George Street Research (2000) citing strategic planning of civic participation as, “one of
the big issues facing organisations”.
• Several generalisable challenges for successful civic participation emerged from the
literature reviewed.
• Across many different contexts there was concern that to date civic participation
appeared not to have made a significant impact on decision-making.
• The public’s lack of awareness of the scope of power at different levels of
governance created difficulties in meeting their expectations of impact.
• The need to clarify the respective roles of participatory and representative democracy
emerged in order to address the perceived tension between them, particularly within
the context of regeneration policy.
• There was a growing need for guidance on how to handle any weighting of views
provided by different sectors of respondents to civic participation exercises.
• Accurate estimation of the resources required for civic participation appeared to be
challenging, with lack of adequate resources identified as a key problem by local
authorities.
• The notion that public apathy towards civic participation could explain low response
rates was contested by some commentators who argued that apparent unwillingness
to engage may reflect negative perceptions of representative democracy rather than
the participatory process per se.
• A number of influences on future development of civic participation were identified
and included: advances in e-Government; further growth of civic society
organisations; increasing globalisation; increasing complexity of issues and tighter
time frames; the development of systematic civic participation evaluation
frameworks; and increasing strategic planning of civic participation activity.
60
ANNEX: GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS
Civic or Public Participation
The literature demonstrated a spectrum of definitions, understandings and frameworks

deployed by different commentators. The terms “civic participation” and “public
participation” were both used in the literature with apparently overlapping meanings. One
broad definition which appeared to capture the main body of opinion was that of Rowe and
Frewer (2004):
“public participation may be defined at a general level as the practice of

consulting and involving members of the public in the agenda-setting, decision-
making and policy-forming activities of organisations or institutions responsible
for policy development” (p512)
The terminology used in this literature review changes between “civic participation” and
“public participation” in accordance with the language used in the literature under review,
with “civic participation” being used as the default term where terminology is not clear in the
reviewed literature.
Citizens’ Juries
A group of 12-25 citizens, chosen to be a fair representation of the target population, brought
together to consider a particular issue. Citizen’s juries receive evidence from expert
witnesses and cross-questioning can occur. The process may last for up to 5 days at the end
of which a report is drawn up setting out the view of the jury. The entire process is facilitated
by a trained moderator.
Citizens’/People’s Panels
A group of people who have agreed to be consulted periodically for their views. The
intention is for the panel to be representative of the wider population. Panels vary in size but
usually involve between 750 – 2000 people.
Consensus Conference
A forum at which a panel of 10-16 citizens, selected from members of the public, questions
“experts” on a particular topic. Over a period of around 3 days, the panel assesses the
responses, discusses the issues raised and reports its conclusions which are circulated to
policy decision-makers and to the media. The forum need not come to a consensus but is
encouraged to explore the extent to which members are able to agree. The media are given a
further opportunity to question the lay panel and experts after the close of the official part of
the “conference”.
Deliberative Methods
Participatory methods which involve an element of deliberation on the part of the participant,
whereby respondents are able find out more about a topic, and consider its various aspects
prior to presenting their views.
61
Deliberative Polling
Method used to compare a group of citizen’s reactions before and after they have had an
opportunity to discuss the issue at hand. Usually involves a statistically representative
sample of between 250 – 600 citizens. Carefully balanced briefing material is provided and
the citizens are brought together and given the opportunity to question competing experts and
politicians. The larger group can break into smaller groups for detailed discussion of points.
The opinions of citizens are polled before the process to establish a baseline, and again, after
the process. The intention is to model what the general public would think if it had an
adequate chance to think about the questions at issue.
Focus Groups
Group of (usually) 6-10 people brought together to discuss a specific issue. Members need
not be representative of the general population, with perhaps only one specific group
represented. Focus groups do not generally call expert witnesses and typically last between
one and two hours.
MECs
Minority ethnic communities.
Public Meetings
A traditional method of seeking public views on particular issues or facilitating debate on

broad options. They may be initiated by Government or other public bodies, or may be
convened in response to citizen or community concerns.
Written Consultations
A traditional method of seeking public views on particular issues. They may be used in
conjunction with other forms of participation and may be linked to statutory requirements for
public consultation.
62
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Civic Participation in Public
Policy-Making:
A Literature Review
ISSN 0950 2254

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Civic Participation in Public

ISSN 0950 2254

Astron B42966 8/05

Scottish Executive Social Research

© Crown Copyright 2005

PART 1: RANGE, NATURE AND TRENDS IN CIVIC

CHAPTER 2: STOCKTAKE OF CIVIC PARTICIPATION IN THE UK 11

2.1 Assessment of innovative approaches to testing community opinion in Scotland 11

CHAPTER 3: USE OF INDIVIDUAL APPROACHES 19

3.1 Citizens’ juries 19

CHAPTER 4: THE DELIBERATIVE PROCESS IN PUBLIC

4.1 Rationale for use of deliberative methods 32

PART 2: OVERARCHING LESSONS AND ISSUES 35

CHAPTER 5: GENERAL LESSONS TO EMERGE 36

5.1 Summary of main points 38

CHAPTER 7: EVALUATING CIVIC PARTICIPATION ACTIVITY 44

7.1 State of play 44

CHAPTER 8: THE CITIZENS’ VIEWS 49

8.1 Views of feedback on and impact of participation 49

CHAPTER 9: CONTEXTUAL ISSUES 52

9.1 Policy context 52

CHAPTER 10: CHALLENGES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 56

10.1 Issues and challenges 56

ANNEX: GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS 61

Table 1: Use of public participation techniques by Scottish public authorities 12

Stocktake of Civic Participation in the UK (Chapter 2)

Use of Individual Approaches (Chapter 3)

• A general lack of critical assessment and systematic evaluation curtails the

The Deliberative Process in Civic Participation (Chapter 4)

• The deliberative process attracted a significant body of comment in the literature

General Lessons to Emerge (Chapter 5)

Engaging the Hard-To-Reach (Chapter 6)

• Concerns were raised in the literature regarding difficulties in engaging with

The Citizens’ Views (Chapter 8)

Contextual Issues (Chapter 9)

• Previous innovative developments in civic participation have been dominated by

“the Scottish Parliament should be accessible, open, responsive, and develop

Increased deployment of civic participation within the context of public policy-making is

“All OECD countries regard new information and communication technologies

1.2 REMIT OF LITERATURE REVIEW

1.4 COMMENT ON THE LITERATURE IDENTIFIED

“public participation may be defined at a general level as the practice of

1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE REVIEW

2.1 ASSESSMENT OF INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO TESTING

“the actual planning and co-ordination of consultation programmes may have

2.2 PUBLIC PARTICIPATION UNDERTAKEN BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN

Public Participation Approach % of LA Use in % of LA Use in % of Planned

2.2.1 Findings from the 1997 Survey of Public Participation

2.2.2 Findings from the 2001 Survey of Public Participation

Technique Average no. of times % of authorities using

• Confidential issues 78%

2.3 OTHER SMALLER-SCALE STUDIES OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Examples of smaller-scale examinations of the use of public participation were identified in

Another study of particular relevance was conducted in Scotland by Jenkins et al (2002a).

The researchers commented that:

“Planning officers tended to have a positive view of such initiatives, which

2.4 SUMMARY OF MAIN POINTS

3.1 CITIZENS’ JURIES

3.1.1 Examples of Use

3.1.2 Issues to Emerge

Other common issues raised included:

• Questioning whether juries could tackle national issues