Daily Echo 1 March 2007

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Thu 1st Mar 2007

As a democrat I strongly support the concept of as much public involvement as possible in decision making and when I was a newly elected councillor one of the first actions of our group was to open up meeting at Test Valley Borough Council to the public. We changed the way that the council related with the public.

Other organisations have done similar things and we now have a culture where public consultation is commonplace. The problem is that many people do not think the consultation is meaningful and the word "sham" is often used in conjunction with the word "consultation". A cynical public almost always assumes that a decision has already been made and there is no point in engaging. This is far from the case and the consultation on closure of community hospitals in New Forest and Test Valley South is an example of where people power can make a difference.

When much loved services are under threat the public rally round but the current feeling is that it is a good idea to engage the public more actively. The Health Select Committee is looking at the issue of public and patient involvement in the Health Service. A few years ago we had Community Health Councils which were replaced by a hotch potch of Patient Advice and Liaison Services (PALS) and Public and Patient Information Forums (PPIs). The PALS services when they work well provide a good link between patients and staff and often work well at resolving problems at an early stage. The PPIs are now starting to do some useful work but the public are barely aware of their existence. This is hardly surprising when funding is low but also when many meetings are held during the day when many people work.

The Government have decided to rearrange the deck chairs once again and are now introducing something called LINks - or Local Involvement Networks. The aim is a laudable one but the concept is nebulous and it is difficult to see how this will be effective when existing organisations are struggling to involve the public.

Having attended a number of meetings I will say that the people who participate are committed to doing a good job but the problem is that I see the same faces at every meeting. This is not public involvement it is the involvement of a few and it is not always clear that those people are representative of the wider population.

Public involvement leads to openness, transparency and better decision making but I can't help feeling that there is a large section of people who don't feel the need to be consulted on a day to day level. They want local and national government to get on with running good services but do want and deserve some involvement when it comes to major changes.

Published with kind permission of The Daily Echo