Are we all suffering from fatigue on consultations?

Fast-forward a week and a bit and I had to attend a public meeting organised by the Health department about their new white paper and proposals to radically reform how care is delivered in Jersey.

It’s an important piece of work and one which will, once adopted, have a major effect on all of our lives. It is also going to cost a lot of money from taxpayers.

Yet just 16 people turned out to that meeting at Les Quennevais School. There were a few more there, of course, but they were consultants, GPs, States Members, press officers or others connected to the Health department in some way. Basically, they were there to help with proceedings, not as members of the public.

A few days later Deputy Kristina Moore, who chairs the Health, Social Security and Housing Scrutiny panel and had also been at the meeting, said she had been disappointed by the response. She urged the public to get involved, to have their say and to engage with the process. But, most interestingly of all, she also mentioned something she termed ‘consultation fatigue’.

And that is a great way of summing up what it would appear Islanders are currently experiencing.

It seems that every other day we are being asked to share our thoughts, our opinions and our needs with politicians and departments. And, well, most people are just a bit too busy and a bit too tired to do it.

Moreover, some people don’t think their opinions will be listened to and therefore think that there is no point making an effort.

Of course, this isn’t a great mind-set for any of us to be in, particularly those of us who like to stay engaged with the ways of the government and tend to have a go when ‘the public’ aren’t listened to.

We would also be even more critical if we weren’t asked for our views.

But public meetings, detailed consultation documents and so on and so forth clearly aren’t the solution. So what is? Well, first of all the States need to persevere with public consultations, just perhaps not in quite the same way. Documents need to be simple, to the point and relevant. They also need to be circulated a bit more effectively.

Yes, the Health white paper is available at places like doctors’ surgeries, parish halls and the library, but what about delivering them to more offices and homes? It may be expensive, but at least that way people couldn’t use the excuse that they haven’t been kept fully informed.

It is true that the Electoral Commission delivered a pamphlet to homes, and it may be argued that it didn’t make much difference, but I’ll bet that more people know about their consultation than they do about Health’s.

These deliveries should be followed up with visits to people’s homes, rather like politicians do when they are standing for election.

I’m not saying they will be able to make it to each and every home, but they will reach more people than spending thousands (which it must have been for hire of the hall, equipment and all the time of those highly paid civil servants and doctors) on a public meeting to which no one turns up.

And what about a survey? They are one of the best ways to get people

to respond. They are easy and can be filled in while having a quick cup of coffee.

Of course, these are all just ideas and ones that, I am sure, people have thought of before. But the point is that there are other ways of getting the public’s feedback and keeping them informed.

And when just 16 people turn up to a meeting which will have taken hours to prepare for and lots of money to stage, perhaps it is time we started to think beyond the standard ‘public consultation’ with which everyone has become a little tired.

SO, the Comptroller and Auditor General has gone, the censure motion against Senator Philip Ozouf has been pulled and the public are no nearer to getting any answers than they were when the States’ bid to buy Lime Grove House for a new police station first fell through.

Some – for example the likes of PAC chairman Deputy Tracey Vallois and the group who brought the censure motion to the States led by Senator Sarah Ferguson – would now like there to be a committee of inquiry to get to the bottom of this whole controversial saga that has been allowed to go on for far too long.

But will it actually happen? And even if it does, will everyone accept its findings?

We don’t have a good track record with these kinds of things. Just look at the committee of inquiry about historical abuse which is still sat on a shelf somewhere awaiting revised terms of reference or whatever it is that we keep being palmed off with.

It is true that such inquiries are expensive and time-consuming and take a lot of effort. It is also true that in the past I have been critical of States Members who keep going on about issues like the suspension of Graham Power years after it all happened.

But having followed the Lime Grove saga from the beginning (something I didn’t have to opportunity to do with the whole historical abuse case and subsequent fall-out), I can sympathise with them.

I want the truth, and I want some answers to make me, as a voter, feel like this whole issue has not been swept under the carpet. And I am by no means alone.

I would hope that the likes of Senator Ozouf and his supporters would also like the truth, so that the rest of us don’t wrongly condemn someone at the next election if, like they say, the criticisms of him were unfounded. And

the same goes for the Comptroller and Auditor General – it would be unjust to condemn him if he has been wrongly accused.

In the interests of fairness to all – the public, politicians and the people at the heart of the controversy – Lime Grove cannot be relegated to the pile of unresolved issues blighting our government.