Since devolution, consultation seems to have become something of a political religion. A major new study sheds light on which branches of society really gets their voice heard, says Bella Gordon.
At times it feels like the Scottish Government's stock response: "We'll have a consultation." That goes equally for the previous Scottish Executive.
"Consultation fatigue" is often bemoaned by cynics, amid warnings that sometimes the public would rather ministers just get on with it. Is it a way of kicking tricky issues into the long grass? Or a way to make lawmaking more transparent and accountable?
New research into the process both before and since devolution suggests there is no lack of appetite for getting involved.
However, a major study carried out at Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University indicates that excluded groups are struggling to make their voices heard.
Darren Halpin, a political scientist with Aberdeen Business School at the university, has tracked the patterns behind public consultations in Scotland for the first time.
Unlike similar studies done in the US, which tend to pinpoint particular topics being consulted upon, Halpin's research seems to have left no stone unturned.
He spent months meticulously combing through over 130,000 responses to consultations carried out in Scotland over the last 25 years.
Halpin predicted that large-scale campaign and interest groups would emerge as the dominant bodies taking part in consultations, using the mechanism as the best avenue to have their voices heard.
In reality, consultations more frequently emerge as conversations between different governmental bodies, picking over the detail of how a new law will be implemented at ground-level.
In education, for example, the majority of responses are often received from local authorities and individual schools, eager to have their say over how a policy might affect them. Similarly, consultations focusing on issues of health are frequently overwhelmed with responses from health boards and hospitals, rather than patient and minority groups.
Halpin is keen to point out that this intergovernmental chatter does not mean that other groups are not taking part, or being heard. "A lot of responses are about those who deliver the services engaging in the consultation" he said. "It confirms in some way that consultations are genuine exercises in rehearsing the different sides of arguments. It could also be a reflection that central government at large delivers services through local authorities a lot of the time.
"It doesn't mean the lobby groups are not there, but they are swamped by individual schools, school boards, etc."
In total, nearly half of all responding groups were government actors or public bodies. Business groups also make up a healthy portion of those clamouring to be heard.
Across the spectrum of issues, Cosla - the umbrella body of Scotland's local authorities - was by far the biggest responder.
Strategic director at Cosla, John Harris, is not surprised that his organisation reached the top spot, as its remit is as broad as that of government. "We cover everything that local government does in one form or another," he says.
But he says Cosla is taking part in fewer consultations since devolution. "We are increasingly looking to do consultations jointly with the Scottish Government.
"You may find the number of responses will be less, but it's not because we are less involved. We come increasingly as partners in the governance of Scotland."
Bringing young people into the engagement process is an example where progress has been made in recent years.
Dialogue Youth, a governmental body aimed at engaging with young people, has used text messages and social networking to reach their target audience.
"It's about doing it in a way which young people would be more likely to respond to," says Harris.
But Halpin admits that there are some key, and often vulnerable, sections of the public which may remain unrepresented in the formation of policy. "Think about some of the marginal groups in society. There is a question of how able they are to get across all the issues."
Representative bodies for the traditionally voiceless, like the homeless and the elderly, did not feature highly on the list of responders and are often "unengaged", he says.
According to Halpin, this could be for one of two reasons. Interest groups and charities may prefer to concentrate on other methods of having their voices heard, like the media or going directly to policy-making committees.
It is also possible that the groups through which they can express their views most readily simply do not exist.
Mark Ballard, a spokesman of the umbrella group Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), queried the suggestion that they have been under-represented.
"My impression is that there has been a dramatic interest in voluntary sector participation in consultations after devolution. Not only has the sheer number of consultations increased since devolution, but the relevance has also increased. Many voluntary organisations feel that this increased involvement with the policy processes has been very productive."
Several rounds of consultation on the Land Reform Act, the first legislation of the Scottish Parliament, attracted a large response from the voluntary sector, according to Ballard. "These consultations lead to a massive voluntary sector response and a real sense from many organisations that they were helping to shape policy," he said.
In recent years, the process has evolved naturally onto the internet, and become significantly more reliable and accessible. But historically, even documents which civil servants still refer to can't be effectively checked. "If you are assuming these consultations are a big chunk of what government's doing, clearly they don't have everything at their fingertips," Halpin adds.
In the years following devolution, political scientists expected an explosion of activist groups taking part in the policy-making process.
The new research suggests that the number of interest groups in Scotland has failed to rise as significantly as first expected.
In fact, the number of groups taking part has risen only slightly.
"We thought that would encourage formation of more Scottish groups," said Halpin. "Clearly there have been some but not a massive rise."
P redictably, the number of consultations being carried out has risen rapidly since devolution. Separating each into a general category, issues that have been devolved to Scotland - like education and health - have seen a sharp rise in public consultations, unlike those which remained confined to Westminster.
With so many consultations taking place every year, it is perhaps unsurprising that the number of responders varies widely, from a handful of people, to tens of thousands. High profile exercises, which in recent years are often based on environmental issues, can attract reactions from more than 20,000 people.
According to Halpin's findings, those responses are frequently not individual inputs but thousands of names tagged to a single campaign from a lobby group like Greenpeace or Amnesty International.
Such a mass response is a good indication of public feeling on a subject, but not necessarily helpful, says Halpin In fact, he says that postcards, letters or emails reproduced thousands of times may be no more helpful to the civil servants, as they tend to convey much less useful feedback than the opinions of an informed minority.
And if responders feel they are one in tens of thousands responding, it can create a feeling that the "no-one's hearing me", he adds.
But high-profile consultations were only a small minority, and most received only a handful of responses.
Halpin says the research has indicated that key groups responding to these exercises are happy with the process they face and show no signs of slowing down. "There was a lot less unhappiness than I expected," said Halpin.
He is determined to continue mapping the progress of consultations and look behind the figures to see who is being effective in influencing policy and what happens to marginalised groups: "We want to find out whether they engage the parliament by giving evidence to committees," Halpin says.
The top 10 consultations
- Water and Sewerage in Scotland 1992 (4715 responses)
- Land Reform Bill 2001 (3624)
- Local Government Restructuring 1992 (3242)
- Draft Gaelic Language Bill 2004 (2952)
- Glasgow and Clyde Valley Structure Plan 2006 (2051)
- Making It Work - Standards in Public Life 1999 (2003)
- National Education Debate 2002 (1356)
- Religious Observance in Schools 2002 (1344)
- Children's Oral Health 2002 (1289)
- Parents as Partners in Education 1998 (1120)
Top responders: All of the top 25 responders to consultations were individual local councils, except Cosla (number one in the list), Scottish Natural Heritage (15), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in Scotland (21) and the National Farmers Union Scotland (22)
