Community consultation – it really is a two-way process

In 1995 Jenifer Simpson OAM wrote about her experiences with community consultation from the receiving end, as one of the consulted. Her insights remain valid and important today for governments, organisations and particularly consultants who are genuinely trying to do the right by the community.

Community consultation is a relatively new phenomenon, a new fashion in politics. We are becoming increasingly acquainted with it but neither the consulters nor the consulted are yet very comfortable.

Basically it is an idea we think we should approve of, but we are still suspicious as to why it is being done, and what is to be achieved by it. Does anybody take any notice of what we say?

The cynics tell us that the definition of community consultation is ‘when the government tells you what it is going to do’ and that of community participation is ‘when the government asks you what you think it should do and then does what it was going to do anyway’.

The experiences I have had are varied but, when water is the issue, there are almost unanimous reports of unsatisfactory encounters. It isn’t surprising we are disillusioned and resentful when we look back at the charades in which we have been involved.

For example, the guidelines in one consultation included the requirement to ‘consult with the community so that the augmentation may proceed without delay’. Another admitted that its purpose was to ‘calm community resentment’, ‘to allow for vented anger’, ‘a distraction tactic’, ‘to buy time’, ‘to work the media’, and ‘to restore credibility’.

We have had what appeared to be a declaration of war later dignified by the name ‘community consultation’.

The consulters failed to heed our concerns about their unwillingness to look a little laterally. We could only conclude the consulters were deaf and we were driven to inquire, ‘is it because we have to hit you between the ears with a sledge hammer to get your attention, that you are so hard of hearing?’.

One long, well-orchestrated consultation process to educate respondents reached a consensus only to discover that the councillors responsible for making the decision had not done their homework.

There was one consultation however which I found to be constructive and at least some of us felt satisfied that our views had been taken into account. It was a consultation on consultation by the then Department of Primary Industries, which resulted in the publication of their ‘Guidelines for Client Consultation’. We congratulated them on producing a document that set out how their officers should conduct their consultations.

The guidelines advise ‘concise and easily understood information about the topic under consultation needs to be provided … use the active voice, simple words and headings to ensure the document is easily and quickly readable.’

The very next document they produced for consideration provoked the following responses:

• This discussion paper is not concise, nor is it easily or quickly readable;
• It is woolly and vague;
• We found a sentence with 52 words in it;
• It uses long words when short ones exist;
• It seems to be petrified of being specific;
• Some of the more abstruse parts even give the impression of having been written by a lawyer.

The most frequent criticism about consultation is that it starts too late in the decision-making process – the consultation is seen merely as a way of selling a decision, a ‘snow job’. We once questioned why a local council did not consult with its community about its water management and received the reply; ‘We haven’t made up or minds what we want to do yet.’

There are some instances where we have discovered some fundamental principles have been assumed with which we fundamentally disagree. Trying to discuss this matter with nameless, faceless men who appear to have basic hang-ups and deeply entrenched bigoted views is one of the more challenging missions of life. Attempts to do this have revealed the existence of the IMBRISS syndrome among these dinosaurs – I Must Be Right I Say So.

We, of course, blame THEM for all of these problems. It’s all THEIR fault! THEY don’t inform us and THEY don’t take any notice of us. THEY ought to do something about it.

But we must also bear in mind that the consulters have found their experiences of consulting have been negative too. We the consulted are apathetic or we get angry and irrational.

We don’t offer any input until the decision is made and then we scream at them. We are uneducated or just plain thick. We are green monsters out to get them. We can’t see beyond our back yards. We offer only negatives and no constructive alternatives. And when they do make the effort to speak to us in plain English, we turn around and shout at them for being PATRONISING. It’s just not fair.

We should be able to welcome community consultation as an opportunity to express our views on how our money should be spent and bring to the attention of the decision-makers that community attitudes are changing. The decision-makers should welcome community involvement and find it much easier to implement decisions if those who are affected have been able to contribute.

But the community consultations we have experienced have generally served to reinforce suspicion and mistrust. We have discovered that some of the decision-makers are ignorant and others are appalled that their deeply entrenched paradigm might be challenged.

What can we do to improve this unhappy situation?

To make any relationship work there has to be a partnership where both sides are prepared to give. Both sides must be willing to see each other’s point of view and be receptive to change. Nobody will get anywhere unless there is firstly an established understanding and, from this, hopefully, trust will follow. A basic necessity is therefore an effective means of communication.

Communication – the need to be clear

If I don’t understand something it is either because I am dumb, or because THEY haven’t made themselves clear. Most often it is the latter, but as I find it embarrassing to expose myself to being thought of as lacking in literacy skills, THEY all too often get away with their gobbledygook.

It takes more effort to write in plain English and government officers are not used to doing it. They have to be more precise and think clearly but this sometimes doesn’t come naturally to them as they have slipped into the habit of using their own words and acronyms. When they can’t hide behind obfuscation of words they are vulnerable and they find this difficult, even threatening.

Be very suspicious of wordy documents, ones where you get to the end and wonder what on earth that was all about – they are usually written by Sir Humphrey and are invariably trying to hide something. The consulters should not expect the unpaid community to find time to wade through unnecessarily long documents either – they should provide a concise summary and have the original documents available if they are requested. Remember it isn’t what is in the document that matters; it is what has been left out.

On the other hand, if you get to the end of a document and understand it, be fulsome with your praise, even if you don’t agree with it.

Education – a two-way process

All too often we, the community, are asked for our views on something we know little about so the consultation becomes a collective sharing of ignorance. Matters relating to water management are particularly prone to this problem.

The education side of consultation is rarely given sufficient attention in the consultation process. Before people can have informed opinions, they must be informed. If they are to have a vision beyond their own back yards, they need to have an understanding of the broader implications of the issues.

With water issues, quite often those who engage in the consultation process gain knowledge and modify their opinions. There is a danger of extrapolating this to those who have not received the information, whose views have not be modified, and come up with the wrong answer.

Education is a two-way process. Purely emotive arguments that are not substantiated by fact don’t – or shouldn’t – bear much weight when it comes to the crunch. We must make an effort too, if we want our voices to be heard. Education can be fun but it also involves application and some homework.

Education is a good way to generate positive interest and energy in a community. All too often this occurs negatively through agitation and anger because the community is ill informed. It should preferably occur before a consultation, possibly at the same time but never after – an education program on water can’t be retrofitted. Professional teachers, generously funded and given plenty of time must provide the education. It is not good enough to think that you can talk to community representatives and assume they will inform the rest of the community. They have no time, skills, funding or motivation.

A consultation process checklist

Here is a checklist that should be addressed BEFORE the consultation starts.

• Why is it being conducted? Sometimes – quite often – it is not clear why we are being consulted. Sometimes – quite often – it is not clear to the presenters why they are going through the exercise either. If it is just a PR campaign, make sure this is clear from the outset. The community needs to understand concisely what its role is.
• Is the process clear? You need to know what, when and how. The scope of the study, its timing and the givens (those things that are not alterable or negotiable) must be defined.
• Is the study looking far enough into the future? Quite often spending more now will result in savings later but due to the nature of political processes, planning studies are often shortsighted.
• Who are the decision-makers? Insist that they are visible and credible.
• Is the information free and freely available? Can you understand it? Is the information unbiased and reliable? You might need to request an independent peer review if you are in doubt.
• Do you have sufficient resources to make a satisfactory contribution?
• What about feed back? It isn’t good enough for the consulters to merely write down what you say, type it up and then tell you what you said. You need to know what account was taken of your concerns and how they will be addressed.

And here is a recipe for consultation that can be adapted to most circumstances:

1. Identify the problem(s). Hi, folks, we’ve got a problem …… These are the problems as we see them. This is what will happen if we don’t change direction. Do you agree? If not, why not? Are there any related problems we should be considering at the same time?
2. Identify the options for solving the problems. These are the options that we have identified. Can you identify any other options? Can you recommend alterations and adjustments to our options that would improve them?
3. This is how much these options will cost, how they will affect the environment, how they will affect health, wealth, etc. etc. Please will you evaluate them and let us know your preferred option(s) – and why they are you preferred options?
4. We will take your comments into account when we make our decision, give reasons for not following your advice and detailed information about any trade-off we have recommended.

Consultation is a partnership

Sustainable use of our natural resources cannot be achieved without community cooperation – the government can decide and legislate and regulate with all its might, but it will not succeed without the community.

So we cannot afford to give up but at the moment community/government relationships are dysfunctional. If we could learn to trust each other so much could be achieved.

Those of you who are avid readers of Mills and Boon will probably be able to relate to this analogy:

Community consultation is like making love. If you can establish a rapport and keep together, you can soar off into the heavens; the earth will move and it will be good for you too.

But if you get it wrong, it’s rape.