Best Practices for Public Consultation in Policy Development (IE0056)

Brief Description of the Commitment

Produce ‘best practice’ templates for public engagement in public consultation and policy development, drawing upon existing models used within government departments, which will encourage greater consistency in involving the public and offer greater clarity about how this will be done. It will also give guidance to departments as to when and how the public might be consulted setting out clear roles for all stakeholders.

Problem Definition

1. What problem does the commitment aim to address? The importance of communication and public engagement by Government at every level is an essential part of good policy-development and a well-functioning democracy. Government departments already involve and consult the public in a variety of ways when developing and reviewing policies. However to continue to evolve and develop in a progressive way, there is scope to offer guidance on how consultation should be done in a structured way so that there is greater clarity about when and how the public should be consulted and the scope of their involvement, depending on the issue at hand. In addition, in the absence of clear guidelines, there may be an element of duplication and repetition across the civil service, which could be minimised by producing an agreed ‘best practice’ model for public consultation in the context of policy development. This would also give clarity to civil society organisations about when they might expected to be consulted.

2. What are the causes of the problem? There is a clear demand for greater ‘democratisation’ of policy development, or the idea that people should be integrally involved, or at least have a say, in policies that affect them. Many policies, if they are to be successful, require consent and participation of the people who are the ‘target’ of them, for example climate action or health policies. There is some lack of clarity amongst the civil service about how these two demands should be met: what are the best ways of consulting and involving the public and when should particular mechanisms or instruments for consultation be deployed. The public consultation and the civic society and Round Table engagement process carried out to support the development of this NAP raised various issues with public consultation. This consultation identified a theme of ‘Agenda Setting and Formats’ and indicated room to improve participation and dialogue.

Commitment Description

1. What has been done so far to solve the problem? Individual Departments have undertaken considerable work in this field. For example, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth have developed a national strategy on children and young people’s participation in decision-making. The Department of Rural and Community Development have developed a guide for inclusive community engagement in local planning and decision-making. This is to name just two progressive developments instituted by Departments in recent years to involve the public to a greater extent than before in policies and practices that affect them. There is an opportunity to build on these and other efforts and to shape an agreed framework that could be applied across the civil service and which would reduce duplication and encourage consistency. The updating of the 2016 Principles and Guidelines for Public Consultation was an action under the NAP3 commitment to ‘Progressing civic participation with the objective of further enhancing the proactive and meaningful participation and engagement with citizens in the decisions that affect them.’ The Institute of Public Administration (IPA) was brought on board to develop high-level principles and draft guidelines based on this research and to conduct stakeholder engagement. Two workshops were held in May 2023 to discuss a high-level framework for the revised guidelines and principles. The first workshop included non-state community and voluntary members of the Cross Sectoral Group, which oversees the implementation of the Government’s Community Strategy. The second workshop included public service officials. The IPA completed its work on the guidelines and shared a set of updated guidelines with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.

2. What solution are you proposing? The IPA’s update of the 2016 Principles and Guidelines for Public Consultation provides a useful foundation and work to date highlights the need for a broader framework, which anticipates a variety of methods, diverse audiences, and topics, which have greater degrees of complexity and sensitivity. This work will be further developed to produce ‘best practice’ templates for public engagement in public consultation and policy development, drawing upon existing models used within government departments, which will encourage greater consistency in involving the public and offer greater clarity about how this will be done. It will also give guidance to departments as to when and how the public might be consulted setting out clear roles for all stakeholders. This will take advantage of and incorporate existing good practice, which is already operative in the system. and will involve consideration of and implementation of some or all of the following: • Provide a central hub specifying a framework for guidance along with examples of best practice; • Set out in a more considered way which tools and instrument should be used for specific purposes; and • Share of best practice and facilitating innovation.

3. What results do we want to achieve by implementing this commitment? Produce greater consistency amongst government departments on the purposes and use of tools for public consultation and participation in policy development. Produce greater certainty about how and when the public should be involved in policy development as well as clarifying the parameters of their involvement which delineates their role and involvement from that of the civil service and Ministers.

Commitment Analysis

1. How will the commitment promote transparency? By producing a clear framework for public participation, which clarifies what role of the public is, depending on circumstances.

2. How will the commitment help foster accountability? By producing a framework for public participation in policy development, it will provide a standard against which government departments can be assessed.

3. How will the commitment improve citizen participation in defining, implementing, and monitoring solutions? By producing an agreed upon framework, incorporating a range of models and methods, of how and when citizens can and should be involved, it will encourage departments to engage with citizens.

Commitment Planning (Milestones | Expected Outputs | Expected Completion Date)

Survey government departments for consultation tools/ instruments/models already in use | Survey results that produces data on how government currently conducts public consultation | Q1 2024

Based on survey results and follow-up workshops, produce agreed model or guidelines for how and when the public will be consulted | Guidelines for public consultation | Q2 2024

Produce best practice template for public consultation that provides a common orientation across the civil service | Framework for best practice incorporating examples already in use across civil service | Q4 2024

Disseminate, monitor and encourage use of the framework | Data on use, examples and case studies of use Feedback on value of framework from Departments, and other stakeholders | 2025