Consult and ignore: What is the point of consultation exercises?
The plan for phone companies and internet providers to be forced to keep details of all our phone calls, website visits, emails and text messages for a year, during which time they will be open to scrutiny by any one of 653 government and public organisations, is pretty scary. Given the way in which anti-terrorism laws have been turned to other uses, particularly by councils, this is hardly cause for celebration.
The Information Commissioner is against it, believing, “that the case has yet to be made for the collection and processing of additional communications data for the population as a whole being relevant and not excessive.”
Naturally, there was a consultation exercise. The Government and civil servants do love consultation exercises, don’t they? In this case, the Home Office say that 50% of those who responded were against it, and only 29% in favour. So the people say “No” and they plough on regardless.
It certainly isn’t the first time the result of a consultation was ignored, of course. We highlight several instances in the book, including one regarding the westwards extension of London’s Congestion Charge Zone. When it turned out that the public were pretty set against it, Ken Livingstone, then Mayor of London, said: “It’s a complete charade. I think I should make the decisions for London…A consultation is not a referendum.”
What, then, is the point of consultation exercises, if the results are so often ignored? Giving the appearance of engaging in democracy, while paying not a blind bit of notice to what people then say, will surely only increase public disillusionment with the whole political system.
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2 Comments
Nov 11, 2009 1:56 pm |
These are requirements of EU law over which we have no real control. No future elected government can amend or repeal them even if elected on a platform to do so unless all other states agree, As those involved will admit when forced, consultation is not about whether you want something or not. That has been decided usually at a higher level. Consultation is about the finer points (who collects the data, how it is kept, where it is stored etc). Welcome to our new world of government where you do not elect the people who make the draconian laws, only those who enforce them. Watch out, incidentally, under the Lisbon Treaty for the extraordinary situation where the EU appears to be taking to itself the right to introduce capital punishment in certain circumstances related to its own issues.
Nov 11, 2009 2:04 pm |
PS the situation with Ken Livingstone and the C-Charge was a classic case, and the then Mayor at least had the honesty to admit the process was a charade. I was a Member of the London Assembly (the body which is supposed to hold the Mayor to account) at the time and was with him when he said it. You are right about ‘what is the point?’, but of course without having introduced these cosmetic exercises pretending that the people have an input, there would literally be nothing left. No party to vote for that can implement what you want, no account of what you want. All decided behind closed doors by an elite. ‘Consultation’ is their new pretence at ‘engagement’ and it it is the new substitute for what we once had – an albeit imperfect elected democracy
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