Public Value and Participation: A Literature Review for the Scottish Government

CHAPTER SIX LESSONS FOR PUBLIC MANAGERS

6.1 We have seen that public managers should make use of the participatory tools at their disposal to ensure that they are delivering public value. The central features of the model are deliberative processes that refine public preferences to produce useful insights that lead to more responsive public services. Having mapped the contours of the vast literature on participation, this section draws out some practical suggestions for public managers and organisations. This involves not only thinking about how to 'do' participation well, but to evaluate the tradeoffs of engaging the public before embarking on any new initiatives.

Deciding when to involve the public

6.2 Done properly, public participation, in all its forms, involves an investment in resources (time, effort, commitment and money) to generate the benefits outlined in chapter three. When budgets are limited, the question of whether public participation diverts scarce resources from the important business of service delivery is a pressing one. In a local government context, there are often low levels of resources available for research and information-gathering, although this is not necessarily the only avenue for funding participation activities available (Brennan and Douglas, 1999). It is also important to appreciate that assessing the costs and benefits of public participation involves more than simply working out the monetary costs and spending more or cutting expenditure, but evaluating how well public resources are being spent and incorporating the value of numerous intangible outcomes, such as increased responsiveness, accountability and trust in public institutions. Moreover, it is not only the organisations' coffers that have to be counted. It is important to recognise that the time, effort and goodwill of the public are not exhaustive, and if public participation activities are to yield results, these need to be planned and managed wisely. All these factors must be taken into account when deciding whether to involve the public in decision making. Ultimately, this is at the discretion of decision makers, the following steps should help this process.

Evaluation of the 'degree' of participation required

6.3 Perhaps surprisingly, a recurrent difficulty with public participation is ensuring that organisations or decision makers have a clear understanding of why this is necessary and when to do it. Effective public participation does not simply occur because the government calls for more of it. To ensure the best possible outcomes of a participatory process, it is necessary to be clear from the start about the extent to which results from participatory procedures will influence the decision or issue at stake (if at all) so as to avoid public frustration and consultation fatigue. This involves determining at which stage of the decision making process the public is to be involved and what role participants will be expected to play, be it to 'discover' or identify the key issues, to 'inform' or educate members of the public about a particular issue, or to gain support or 'legitimate' a particular decision (see Table 6.1). This process is important because there are distinctly different functions that public participation can perform in each case (Horner and Lekhi, 2007). Curtain (2003) sets out a helpful table which summarises this work:

Table 6.1 Public participation in policy development

Source: Adapted from Curtain (2003)

Selecting a method

6.4 The following criteria were developed by Involve, and offer a useful way of evaluating different participatory approaches and when best to use them (Involve, 2005):

• Suitable number of participants;
• Roles of participants;
• Budget;
• Length of process;
• Types of outcomes;
• Where on the spectrum of participation the method works best.

6.5 Annex one contains a fuller list of possible methodologies and the advantages and disadvantages of each. These factors can be compared and contrasted in order to weigh up the relative merits of each approach and determine when the participation process will start to produce diminishing returns. Involve's 2005 report on People and Participation goes into greater detail about the many different participatory methods and their respective costing ranges. Given the marked variation in costs depending on resources, suppliers and area, to name but a few significant factors, it is more useful to outline the tradeoffs between each method and to focus on the process of arriving at the costs, as well as the value of each kind of approach, rather than the absolute costs themselves.

Principles for better participation

6.6 Having established when or at what stage to involve the public in decision making, Mackinnon et al (2006) suggest the following principles for good practice with communities, which have been adapted to apply to engaging with the wider public (MacKinnon et al, 2006):

• Have a clear and realistic role and remit - projects need to work within established definitions and have a realistic remit based on the time and resources available, as well as an understanding of the history of community/users the project is working with.
• Adequate and appropriate resources to meet the project remit - secure, adequate and long-term funding is required, as well as appropriate premises, staff with the appropriate skills, and committed and properly supported volunteers/activists, where necessary.
• Adequate and appropriate management and evaluation to support the project - effective and supportive management by people with the time, skills and experience; clearly defined structural arrangements between projects and key agencies; community involvement in project management and decision making (where necessary); and adequate monitoring and evaluation to inform project planning/development.
• Recognition of the importance of the wider environment within which projects are operating - building on past experience of participatory activities and linking projects to new national policy developments; strong cross-departmental links and partnership working at local and district/city wide levels.
• Building in long-term sustainability - linking projects into the wider change agenda; projects need to be able to show outcomes; organisational development for agencies to make sure they have the knowledge to support public participation work and build this into their planning; and seeking sustainability should be an integral and ongoing part of project work.

Measuring the impact

6.7 Measuring the outcomes of participation is no easy task. It is challenging to demonstrate a causal relationship between particular public participation initiatives and resultant changes or improvements to services, when participation is often part of a larger programme, such as Best Value. Moreover, the contribution of people's time and effort is not something that lends itself easily to measurement and any measurement has to be done sensitively to avoid jeopardising some of its most useful attributes (Home Office, 2004/05).

6.8 However, disregarding measurement altogether brings its own problems:

• It is difficult to argue for innovation without a means of assessing what works;
• Arguing for additional resources for participation without evidence of how much it costs to achieve the outcomes sought is difficult;
• How can you make the case for valuing the contribution of participants if you have no way of calculating their input?;
• Hard-to-reach, disadvantaged or excluded groups are less likely to be included in participatory processes if you cannot cost outreach and development work properly;
• Improving practice will be challenging if it is impossible to show what has real value (especially to participants) and real impacts (Home Office, 2004/05).

6.9 Another factor, not directly mentioned above but subjected to considerable scrutiny debate in the print media, is the need to justify the cost of the increasing number of participatory activities to the public purse. Implementing effective processes for evaluating the participation process and demonstrating how this has influenced the decisions taken is therefore very important, both to ensure that participants feel that their contribution is being taken seriously, and to ensure that the organisation involved can demonstrate value for money.

Summary

Public managers thinking about using a participatory processes should:

• Assess the tradeoffs of initiating public involvement and evaluate the best method to use.
• Identify at which stage in the policy-making process the public should be engaged and what purpose this will serve.
• Follow the principles for good practice by: having a clear and realistic role and remit; ensuring that adequate resources are available; supporting the project with appropriate management and evaluation; building on past experience and linking the project with other policies and initiatives; building in long term sustainability.
• Evaluate the process effectively.