Thanks for the really useful comments. I certainly agree that there are many dilemmas and issues to be balanced in designing a consultation and engagement process – and it is always a case of compromise rather than perfect process (as underlying a consultation are political decisions, inevitably decisions needing negotiation and compromise).

Providing context is tough – but I’m not sure that needs to be because it can become too wordy. A well designed short video clip, or a few slides written in plain English can give a sense of what a question is about (of course, care needs to be taken to make sure these don’t introduce bias into the question asking), and these can in the online environment be provided as optional extras to view for the consultee – rather than hurdles to be leapt over before a question is answered.

One theme certainly worth exploring is what a fair online consultation looks like when we see taking consultation online not as just putting paper based forms on the internet – but we take advantage of a rich online environment to seek better quality deliberation and citizen input into decision making.

As someone who works in the world of engagement and consultation in local government I think you’ve raised a range of interesting points, most of which I would be inclined to agree with.

However I think these comments should be balanced with a number of other considerations that need to be factored in. I completely agree with you point about providing context. However, there is a limit to the amount of background information you can provide participants before this acts as a disincentive to completing the questionnaire…And I think it’s fair to say adding context to corporate priorities could get quite wordy!

Alongside this I’ve always found consulting on strategic priorities to be somewhat problematic. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never constructed a similar looking question, but equally when I have I’ve also been aware of the constraints of the approach. Although I’d always ask ‘why do we need to ask this?’ It often has to be balanced against wider internal and/or external political pressures. Perhaps in defence of my colleagues at Oxford I’d hope they at least acknowledged these dilemmas when agreeing their approach, even if in the world of evidence based decision making concessions do have to be made!

Overall I guess this all links back to recognising your limitations.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Ed