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BUILDING CONSENSUS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING IN SCOTLAND: A REVIEW OF BEST PRACTICE

CHAPTER FIVE STAGE 2: DESIGN OF CONSENSUS BUILDING PROCESSES

5.1 Once initial decisions have been taken to pursue a consensus building approach, a crucial stage follows which significantly influences what happens in a consensus building process, and therefore how successful it is likely to be. This is the design of the process, which to a greater or lesser extent is under the control of the process initiating organisation(s).

5.2 As discussed above, consensus building in an ideal form is characterised by freely reached agreement between all parties with an interest in the issue, to which they all subscribe and from which they all gain. However where consensus building is used to address difficult complex and/or contested issues, this is obviously a hard or even impossible ideal to attain, given the differing goals, interests, expectations, and levels of trust in each other held by different potential participants. Additionally, the starting point is often a attitude or history of antagonism. As a result the process can be very fragile, and it is easy for trust to break down.

5.3 Therefore a number of tendencies and temptations exist for those initiating, designing and managing the process, which moderate the form of consensus which is aimed at to something less than the ideal. These include various practices of exclusion. A common approach to exclusion is to not allow certain stakeholders to participate, particularly those known to have views hard to reconcile with other key stakeholders, or with the core goals of the process. Alongside this process of exclusion of participants is a further practice of exclusion of issues, by focusing attention on selected issues and areas where agreement is most likely. A third form of exclusion is exclusion of action, where instead of pressing for substantive action-oriented outcomes, processes lead towards and create pressure for acceptance of general statements which can be agreed by all.

5.4 For example, Selman (1998) argues that as participation was broadened in attempts to reach consensus in Local Agenda 21 processes it became harder to reach agreement and blander outputs were delivered. Scott (1999) contrasts two authorities where one had a broad based participative process which led to no outputs, and the other went for a smaller stakeholder group which resulted in action, in spite of being explicitly against the ethos of LA21.

5.5 Alongside these processes of creating consensus-by-exclusion, there is also a possibility of consensusmaking rather than consensus building. In such strategic attempts to force consensus, participants may compromise in order to reach an agreement in situations more akin to bargaining and compromise than ideal consensus. In such processes either the status quo may be the natural outcome, or the outcome may gravitate towards the interests of those forcing the agenda. It is easy to cloak such practices as 'consensus':

Involving disparate interests to achieve consensus invariably [!] leads to an averaging of divergent points of view and an assertion of the status quo. (Blowers, 1980).

5.6 Any or all of these practices may be necessary or unavoidable in particular situations. Our argument is that what is being done should be conscious and transparent. These practices are to some extent embedded in the structure of a consensus building process, as discussed in this section, and also in the unfolding of the process itself, discussed in the next section.

5.7 So a series of design decisions emerges: what are the principles of the process, then who to involve, what issues to cover, and how to relate the consensus building process to the rest of the policy making process. The following sections explore these questions, and consider a further set of issues which limit the extent of initiators' control over the process.

Explicit consensus building Process or implicit evolution of consensus?

5.8 In the following section, we focus on explicit approaches to consensus building, considering the factors which need to be taken into account in their design. As suggested above, achieving consensus is problematic in many situations, and therefore does not emerge automatically from bringing stakeholders together. It is important to distinguish between consensus building as an explicit process, and consensus as a label applied to a decision or outcome. In practice, this distinction is often not made, and many outcomes which are described as consensual do not embody anything explicitly consensual in the decision-making process. Often, where consensus is claimed, it has often been arrived at through more conventional processes of bargaining. For example, without detailed evidence to the contrary, one would suspect that a less-than-ideal consensus building process had occurred where:

Examples were provided of partnerships facilitating negotiation between partners with conflicting interests regarding a project in which tensions and bitterness had arisen. This process was slow but resulted in a consensus having been achieved. (Louise Brown Research, 2000: 14).

5.9 This appears to be particularly the case with partnerships. Here it is often assumed that consensus will emerge more or less automatically, particularly from partnerships or steering groups, without explicit design (Edwards-Jones, 1997). Very little research has examined these processes of consensus building within partnerships in detail, but such that there is has uncovered non-consensual practices involving negotiation, coercion and the shifting of positions only by weaker partners (Hastings, 1999).

5.10 Having decided that consensus building is an appropriate approach, the first decision that must be taken is whether to adopt an explicit consensus building process or to rely instead on some implicit assumption that consensus will result from contact between different interests. Given the broader agenda locating consensus building as part of a broader shift towards inclusiveness, transparency, and democracy, there is a clear pressure towards the adoption of explicit principles, whether within partnerships or broader public involvement processes.

Design of explicit consensus building processes

5.11 Once an explicit approach to consensus building has been adopted, a number of different design issues arise, falling into two broad groups relating to style and structure. Two distinct styles of consensus building were identified in practice, and a further set of structural questions determined the extent of inclusivity/exclusion from the process.

Styles of consensus building

5.12 The term 'consensus building' embraces two broad approaches or styles - conflictual and non-conflictual - each of which is characterised by differing formats and underpinning philosophies and assumptions.

5.13 Both conflictual and non-conflictual approaches rest on the assumed possibility of agreement - participants come to the process with a commitment to finding a consensual solution. Consensus building processes are:

Characterised by not constructing the participants as antagonists with different interests - they do not participate as interest groups - but as stakeholders - those who from the beginning have a common interest, a stake in something in common. (Healey, 1998).

5.14 Dependence on stakeholders with commonly shared interests is clearly an ideal situation, and it would be naïve to assume this is always the case. Participants usually come with the expectation of maximising their own interests, as they perceive them to be at the beginning of the process. They may participate for other reasons than reaching a consensus:

Representatives from non-community partners may well be unconvinced of the value of involving local people, and are participating because it is fashionable, because of a commitment from the top of their organisation or because they see the prospect of securing resources. (Hastings et al, 1996 p. 11).

5.15 A corollary of this is the second distinguishing characteristic of consensus building processes, the assumption of a possibility of movement in positions. Movement relies on the potential for learning, through the acquisition and sharing of information (Margerum and Born, 1995), the overcoming of misunderstanding (Sidaway, 1998) and through the creation of new ideas (Healey, 1998).

5.16 The two approaches differ strongly, however, in their understanding of how such movement can be best attained.

5.17 In conflictual approaches, differences in initial positions are explicitly sought out and consensus is reached through a process of argumentation. In an ideal situation this would be attained purely through the force of the better argument, and reflect the development of opposing positions into shared viewpoints. Such approaches are predicated on a belief that rational and democratically legitimate solutions to problems can, and can only, emerge through a process of argumentation, and that in order for this to happen the participants must feel secure from coercion and pressure. Furthermore, different viewpoints and forms of knowledge (typically lay peoples' and experts') must be equally valued, and participants must exercise reflexivity, self-criticism, and respect for others. In such transparent situations genuinely good arguments will be recognised for what they are, and the participants will collectively come to agree on the 'best', most rational solution (Kumar and Paddison, 2000; Skollerhorn, 1998. For a detailed exposition of this approach see Healey, 1997).

5.18 This is clearly an ideal, and consensus building processes based on this philosophy strive to create arenas for discussion which come as close as possible to realising the ideal. Increasingly popular applications of this approach include citizens' juries and citizens' panels (Renn et al, 1984; Petts, 1995), or people's juries as they have become known in Scotland (Clarke et al, undated). In these arenas lay people hear expert and lay submissions and deliberate over appropriate solutions or policies. Such panels have been advocated for a wide range of issues from local conflict resolution to national, long term planning (Petts, 1995).

5.19 The conflictual approach relies on the possibility of creating these ideal conditions for rational debate, where the process of presenting and testing arguments leads to a commonly agreed outcome. Critics of the approach suggest that consensual (and other) deliberative arenas are inevitably structured by pre-existing power relationships and broader social structures. The critique is not just that the ideal is hard or impossible to attain in practice, but that the concept of a neutral, power-free debate is theoretically untenable. (e.g. Richardson, 1996).

5.20 In contrast is the non-conflictual approach, in which the principal driver is the desire to establish and build on common ground. In such processes initial differences and conflicts between the positions of different stakeholders are explicitly excluded from discussion, and the process starts by identifying areas of common interest and then seeks to build shared visions, typically working towards some kind of agreed action plan. Argument is not given the central place it has in the conflictual approach, and instead priority is given to the avoidance of conflict. This non-conflictual approach to consensus building appears to be rapidly gaining ground in Britain, particularly in broad-based participative approaches to natural resource management, such as the Stanage Forum (Richardson, forthcoming).

5.21 Critics suggest that there are inherent risks in following the imperative of avoiding conflict, because mutual learning and 'transformation', which is fundamental to any true change in initial positions, may in itself require crisis and conflict rather than an illusion of common ground (Driver and Kravatzky, 2000). Such processes are particularly prone to excluding discussion of important issues, and preclude the full expression of conflicting viewpoints, which may simply suppress problems which will re-emerge later in the policy making or implementation process.

5.22 Given such marked differences in characteristics and attendant risks, a clear choice is required between conflictual and non-conflictual approaches. This choice will depend to some extent on perceptions of who the relevant stakeholders are and what their likely positions and approaches may be. In certain cases, differences may already be well known, and finding consensus between a limited number of key interests is required. In these cases, a non conflictual approach may be appropriate. In other cases, where there is a wider range of stakeholders, or where more complex policy issues are faced, an approach based on making positions clear and then arguing between them may be more appropriate.

5.23 The non-conflictual approach may then provide a basis for exploring - or evaporating - more contested issues later in the process. Both approaches carry a number of risks. Argumentation may not lead to any resolution, and powerful players may impose solutions. Alternatively, the suppression of contested issues may, for example, derail the process by setting up unresolved problems which crop up late in the process as difficult barriers.

Structures for consensus building processes

5.24 It is at the stage of actually designing the process that initiators of a consensus building process have substantial control over process and how inclusive it is and effective it is - both in the sense of achieving a consensus which will be accepted as satisfactory by the participants, and which will also be effective in securing policy change as a result.

Participants, stakeholders and communities

5.25 The first decision over who is to participate raises three interrelated issues - the inclusion or exclusion of potentially affected people; the 'location' of consensus i.e. which kinds of groups are actually party to the consensus being built; and the relationships between those 'inside' and 'outside' the process.

5.26 In common with all attempts to democratise policy and decision making, one of the most difficult questions in the design of any consensus building process is 'which of the possible actors in this process are going to be parties to the consensus which is built?'. As we discuss in this report, and is already clear from much of the participation literature, this is a highly contentious area. Is the intention to involve 'everyone', everyone with an 'interest', or particular selected 'stakeholders'? In every case there will be different rationales for involvement, and different potential ranges of stakeholders who might be involved. For example, in the case of a site specific problem such as a proposal for major tourism development in an environmentally sensitive area, where specific interests are under threat, a limited number of key stakeholders might be identified. Conversely in a community planning exercise there is an intrinsic need to adopt a more open approach to involvement. This relates back to the question explored in the previous chapter: what is the rationale for whichever approach is to be adopted? Is it a pragmatic decision based on who needs to be present to legitimise or make implementable any outcome, or is it based on democratic values that involvement should, in principle, be open to all?

5.27 In consensus building, participants are typically referred to as 'stakeholders', defined as those sharing risks, costs, and benefits (Abbott, 1996), and having 'the right to participate in the decision-making process' (Clarke, 1996). Both of these descriptions are problematic. From each perspective, appropriate could in some cases (e.g. major environmental issues) be arguably identified as global, and often practically unreachable numbers of people. More practical (and therefore contestable) decisions will therefore limit the selection of stakeholders which are either identified or invited to participate. In particular, resource constraints will often limit the potentially involved parties. Also, more insidiously perhaps, a perceived need to reach consensus leads to limiting overall numbers and possibly to decisions not to involve potential participants with known 'difficult' views. Clearly there will be situations where it is deemed appropriate to pursue a highly selective approach, only involving selected agencies in a partnership approach, and applying consensus building principles to their interactions. The issues raised in this section will still apply, since the questions of identifying which agencies and which sections from within them are the most appropriate stakeholders raise the questions of inclusion in a similar way.

5.28 The process of identifying stakeholders - generally through some form of 'stakeholder analysis' - needs careful thought. It may be considered to be fairly obvious which 'agency' stakeholders should be involved, but identifying appropriate stakeholders from the wider public is more difficult. There is a tendency to either assume that 'communities' are homogeneous and place-based, and/or to work with familiar representative groups. Both approaches can be unproductive:

The source of the frustrations and disappointments is located by the conferring by government, on 'community', of access to bargaining rights and resources. However, the communities on which such rights are conferred exist only in idealised forms. (Duffy and Hutchinson, 1997 p. 354).

5.29 Adopting a simplistic approach to identifying community stakeholder representatives may also be exclusionary:

There is a danger of subscribing too readily to the rhetoric of participative development. The communitarian assumptions of the endogenous approach privilege a 'territory' as potentially homogenous and gloss over internal socio-economic and cultural inequality. (Shucksmith, 2000).

5.30 Rather, there are 'multiple, sometimes conflicting, communities, some of which are spatially defined, and some of which are interest based' (Carley, 1995). Such communities are flexible, contested, provisional and precariously-constructed (Massey, 1994, Shurmer-Smith and Hannam, 1994, Illsley and McCarthy, 1998). From these a choice has to be made which to include and which to exclude (Duffy and Hutchinson, 1997). Perhaps because of these problems, in environmental decision-making there is often a tendency to work with organised environmental groups, to the detriment of other members of local communities (Bouriaud, 1999). Petts's account of the selection of participants for Community Action Fora, suggests how a rigorous approach to stakeholder identification might be followed (Petts, 1995):

Potential participants were approached following a community analysis and appraisal exercise involving the identification of over 500 community groups and organizations and a telephone survey to ascertain people's awareness of waste and their expectations of public consultation. Each forum (maximum size 18) had a mix of males and females, young and old, and ethnic representation. Each CAF included people who had expressed little knowledge of waste problems as well as those who were actively involved in recycling programmes and some who had led the opposition to the Portsmouth proposal. Each forum was chaired by an independent member of the local community (Petts, 1995).

5.31 However, from this analysis, it is difficult to discern how key opponents ended up on the panel if it was supposed to be randomly selected. It might be assumed that there had been some (probably very justifiable) managing of the selection process to ensure that certain key stakeholders were represented, in order to ensure legitimacy.

5.32 Clearly, there are no easy ways of avoiding these challenges. The point is that if selection of participants is considered to be necessary, rather than pursuing a broad-based approach, then difficult decisions need to be taken, which define the inclusivity of the process. But importantly, if participation is delimited in some way, then a further series of questions about the location of consensus, and the relations with those excluded, become paramount.

Location of consensus

5.33 Taking decisions about exclusion has a critical effect on the form of consensus that can be achieved. If the possible participants are characterised as 'stakeholders', agencies, and a facilitator, then different patterns of participation can be identified depending on these decisions. Figure 1 shows an ideal version of consensus building which is characterised in a great deal of the literature, where all interests, including agencies, other interests and communities are fully and unproblematically involved in the process.

Figure 1. Ideal model of consensus building

5.34 Given the above, however, it is not surprising that this ideal is rarely found in practice. Rather, in our analysis we identified a number of quite different applications of consensus building as follows, and modelled in Figure 2:

• Open, broad-based participative (the 'ideal').
• Closed / partnership. Exclusion is the key.
• Authority or agency based (consensus is developed within an authority or small group of agencies, following consultation with stakeholders).
• Stakeholder based (developed in a consensual arena, but not institutionalised, not linked to decision-making).

5.35 The differences between these approaches are significant, though surprisingly people often talk in very unproblematic ways about what consensus building is. In some cases consensus building was designed with no limits to participation, whilst in others it was limited to specific actors. Two types of consensus might result from these very different approaches: public consensus, based on public involvement, or private consensus within a selected partnership. For example, Sidaway's work identifies who is 'inside', and sets up a process designed to get them to engage with each other, but fails to problematise the distinction between participation and partnerships (Sidaway, 1998).

Figure 2. Locating consensus: closed, open, authority-, and stakeholder-based

5.36 The key questions in any given application, which inform the way that decisions about participation and the consequences of these decisions are: where is consensus to be located, which parties which be involved in the consensus building process, and in which arena will the process take place? It should be clear from this brief analysis, that these are qualitatively very different applications, each pursuing different rationales. Several authors present a fundamental pair of potentially conflicting requirements for a process: legitimacy and efficiency. Closed processes tend to be based on a more instrumental rationale of pursuing efficiency. Open processes can be instrumental, in that in conflict-prone situations it may be necessary to involve people to make solutions stick. They may also embody a process rationale of pursuing democracy for its own sake, or broader social instrumental aims, such as capacity building and social cohesion.

5.37 Here we return to another aspect of exclusion: that adopting a very inclusive approach creates its own risk, that the focus and cohesion of the process will be diluted:

Partnerships which spend all their time talking without taking action are doomed to failure. Several interviewees expressed the fear that, in seeking to be representative, a partnership runs the risk of degenerating into a talking shop. (Wilson and Charlton, 1997, p. 3).

5.38 O'Riordan and Ward (1997) suggest a solution: 'This is possibly best achieved by creating, or encouraging the creation of, informal networks of interested parties on a 'come and go' basis.' (op cit, p. 266). The idea being then that limited partnerships are essential on efficiency grounds, but they have to have built into them safeguards in terms of access and public involvement to maintain their legitimacy. This entails a continuous reflective assessment by the partners of how open they are being, and a preparedness to act on failings which are identified. This is a possible role for a third party facilitator.

5.39 A problem arises where consensus building is intended to be, or presented as, open and democratic but in practice is set up to be, or becomes, restricted and exclusive. O'Riordan and Ward carried out an analysis of how people felt about their involvement:

The results are reasonably clear cut. If one is 'in' the process is fine: if one is 'out' it is not. Yet the evidence from both theory and practice is that such arrangements of inner partnership and exclusion of legitimate local interests, are unstable and counterproductive. (O'Riordan and Ward, 1997).

5.40 This pattern of restricted consensus building, and a wider process of consultation to involve a wider population, seems widespread. Its use is sometimes deliberate: for example it is proposed as the ideal by Margerum and Born (1995). However it is often adopted unproblematically by both researchers and practitioners (e.g. Roe, 2000). Critics of restricted consensus building include Scott (1999). The lack of reflexivity about this question can lead to a process of 'coalition drift'. This can occur where a lack of specificity about the location of consensus at the outset leads to a drift from an initially apparently broad based approach to a more restricted approach. In the case of the Stanage Forum, although initial agreement was for a broad based participative arena to be the ultimate location of consensus, the pressures of the process led to a concentration of consensus building activity within the smaller representative steering group (Richardson and Connelly, 2001). There is a need for care in this critical question of design, otherwise there is a risk that efforts to create more democratic decision making through participation can in some cases reinforce non-accountable systems:

To date, 'partnership and participation' have been the instruments for developing a more pluralistic model of direct democracy. There have also been issues of governance and concerns about the 'quangocracy' and the 'new managerialism'. (Duffy and Hutchinson, 1997 p359).

Linkage to those 'outside' the process

5.41 In consensus building there are two important ways in which linkage between those inside and outside the process is important. The first, relating to exclusion, involves linkage between those inside and outside during the process. The second, relating to the location of consensus, involves linkage with organisations and decision makers outside once decisions have been made. In relation to the problem of exclusion in the process, there are two ways in which these linkages can be addressed. The first is through the deliberate identification and representation of the views of those groups or interests not represented. The second is through the representation of commitment, which means considering the extent to which a participant or participating group can commit others considered to be from their community of interest to abide by outcomes or take any agreed actions. It should not be assumed that a single representative from an ecological group can either represent all ecological interests effectively, or even necessarily represent their own organisation in a binding way.

5.42 Options which may be considered, apart from no involvement, include some other form of public involvement, which typically takes place through consultation with a wider group than that party to the consensus building process itself. This is clearly not the same as being involved in decision making through consensus. However the undemocratic nature of this more limited approach can be mitigated by O'Riordan and Ward's suggestion above, and feedback to the community can become a crucial part of the process, as a way of maintaining ownership even when the work is done by a smaller group (Gillespie et al, 2000). A process of consultation and feedback also paradoxically enables a wider involvement in the process, though it gives a great deal of power to facilitators and insiders. This can be problematic, as illustrated by the case of Local Rural Partnerships. The membership of LRPs includes community representatives, i.e. stakeholders representing their communities. However Brown's evaluation found that consultation with communities can yield different results to the views of 'community' representatives on the partnership (Louise Brown Research, 2000).

5.43 An alternative approach, which raises a different set of issues, is to rely on some form of representation. Problems of identifying legitimate representatives of stakeholder groups are amplified concerns about the extent to which they can 'carry' their community. While elected councillors can carry some legitimacy, this is not automatic. Again, Brown (2000) concluded that:

Although community councils are represented on most district and community LRPs, there was some concern that not all councillors are elected and that community councillors do not necessarily represent the wide range of community views. (Louise Brown Research, 2000, p. 8) .

5.44 Conversely any other community representative can have their legitimacy challenged, which is a basic tension in the approach. The underlying residual notion is one of traditional communities in which experience is shared, with the consequence that any individual can represent the whole. This is equally the case for representatives of private sector interests, though this is often overlooked. This idea of communities is clearly no longer universally accepted to be the case, hence the problems with people questioning representativeness, yet in a sense policy is predicated on it (Duffy and Hutchinson, 1997). This raises problems for 'community' planning:

The issue of representation was frequently felt to be more important when applied to those in the community and voluntary sector. Very few people questioned, for example, whether a senior executive of the TEC or Chamber of Commerce could legitimately speak for the business community. There often appeared to be an unspoken assumption that both the private sector and public sector are somehow homogenous groups and representatives for each are able to speak with on voice. This is clearly a myth. (Wilson and Charlton, 2000, p 27) .

5.45 These complex issues relating to the linkages between representatives and their communities are explored in more detail elsewhere (see, for example, Chanan, 1997).

Levels of consensus building

5.46 The literature review identified three levels of consensus building: consensus building in events, consensus building in processes, and consensus building in institutions.

Consensus building events

5.47 By this we mean that the principles of consensus building are limited to certain events such as public meetings, or a consultation phase of a longer planning process.

Consensus building processes

5.47 In some cases, such as the Stanage Forum, which is being evaluated in parallel with this project, consensus building is being attempted at the process level. This means that the principles of consensus building are designed into a process, such as the preparation of a management plan.

Consensus building institutions

5.48 There is less substantial experience of consensus building at the institutional level. This is where institutions are designed around consensus building principles. Such institutions may be partnerships responsible for overseeing plan or strategy preparation, for example. There is an extensive literature on partnership working (e.g. Slee and Snowdon, 1997, Louise Brown Research, 2000, on Scottish rural partnerships, Hastings et al, 1999, with a focus on urban partnerships).

5.49 Three principal issues need to be considered in distinguishing between event, process and institutional approaches to consensus building:

• Duration: the nature of consensus building often involves the building of trust, and allowing for exploration, learning, and movement, all of which are more likely to be achieved in extended processes or more institutionalised approaches rather than 'one-off' events.
• Links to the policy making process are likely to be stronger with more extended processes, although this also depends on key agency and authority participants being involved in the consensus, not just stakeholders. The potential is stronger still if the location of consensus is institutionalised. The risk which should be avoided is the possibility of institutionalising an isolated 'bubble' of participative or stakeholder based consensus building, within which protagonists can be safely left to debate without impacting on policy.
• However the time constraints on many potential actors, and the likelihood of frustration and fatigue affecting extended processes, is a balancing factor which may mitigate against lengthy or intensive processes.

5.50 Drawing together the different types of distinctions between consensus building approaches, it is possible to develop a typology, within which these different approaches can be located. This is set out in table 4.

Table 4. Typology of applications of consensus building

Timing

5.51 If consensus building is not institutionalised, but takes place in a process or event based way, then its timing in relation to the policy making process becomes crucial. There has been recognition that public involvement is often more effective when it begins at an early stage, continues throughout decision-making and into the implementation stage. For example, in her analysis of siting controversies, Petts (1995) notes that otherwise there is the risk of unanticipated negative reaction to proposals (Petts, 1995, Ehrenfeld et al., 1989; Rabe, 1991; Lober, 1993; Petts, 1992, 1994a; Wolsink, 1994). The converse of this is that early participation can be more challenging to policy makers' agendas, and is likely to create demands for broader agendas which can be more unpredictable (Sharp and Connelly, 2001).

Incomplete control

5.52 The implication of much of the above has been that the initiators of a consensus building process control these various factors - participants, location of consensus, agenda and so on. This is true to a degree, but design issues are never fully under the control of initiating agencies. The extent of control will partly be affected by the willingness of other participants to engage, and by the ability of those involved to shape the process themselves (Alterman, 1982) of which more below.

5.53 Some of the literature treats the involvement of the public as unproblematic (e.g. Rural Forum and Rural Research Branch, SOCRU, 1997). But elsewhere the many reasons why identified stakeholders won't participate are analysed and commented on. The lack of involvement by the public is often assumed to be due to 'apathy', or the result of policy makers putting barriers in the way. The implication is that the removal of barriers, or stimulating interest, is the solution (Healey and Gilroy, 1990, Rydin and Pennington, 2000). Alternatively, the literature on participation generally suggests that the issue may be more one of the perceptions of the likely benefits to be gained by participation or, in a less calculating way, whether public involvement appears worthwhile to potential stakeholders or participants.

5.54 Thus Rydin and Pennington (2000) suggest that involving the public faces a 'collective action problem'. The perceived impact any individual can have is limited, so there is an incentive to be a free-rider, leaving participation to those who habitually do so, which however leads to the frequent charges of unrepresentativeness of community activists. Significantly Macnaghten et al (1995) also identify the lack of trust and agency within participation. State public involvement initiatives are premised on a benevolent relationship between state and citizen, such that the citizenry will be willing to engage, which does not necessarily accord with the perceptions of citizens. The question then becomes, in our context, whether consensus building processes can be part of (re)building that trust and sense of agency. This would imply a less instrumental and more social capital/community development approach, consciously using consensus building processes to build state-citizen relationships. Otherwise there is (yet again) the likelihood of a participatory process collapsing into a narrow partnership as the wider public involvement either doesn't materialise or dissipates. Wilson and Charlton argue that such risks may be avoided by starting small and demonstrating early successes (Wilson and Charlton, 1997). However this raises problems for initiatives like community planning. Amdam (2000) argues that 'a continuous mobilisation on broad issues is almost impossible', suggesting that consensus building for strategic planning needs to be seen as part of a long term programme of building social capital.

5.55 Similar problems exist for voluntary and community sector organisations, where negative previous experiences of partnership working can affect their willingness to get involved in new partnership opportunities. In some cases, groups feel that their involvement does not amount to meaningful participation:

'Research by the NCVO…revealed cases where community or voluntary sector groups were 'involved' in partnership initiatives without being invited to participate in any meaningful way' (Wilson and Charlton, 1997 p. 14)

5.56 These problems relating to the perceptions and capacities of potential stakeholders and participants can be reinforced by assumptions made by policy makers that problems will arise if the community sector is involved in partnerships (Slee and Snowdon, 1997). Thus:

Partnership working is the key to building more inclusive communities but current practice is far from ideal. There is therefore a need to:

• fundamentally change partnership working so that communities can feel that they are at least equal partners within the system;
• identify and share best practice;
• ensure partnership processes are more open, transparent and understandable to community representatives. (SSIN, 2000).

Consultation fatigue

5.57 The problem of consultation fatigue is frequently mentioned. For example:

Some communities are suffering consultation and research 'fatigue'. Residents often view consultation as too little, too late and as having little if any visible impact. (Duncan and Thomas, 2000).

5.58 The problem was also identified in the case of the Cairngorms Forest and Woodland Process (Towers et al, 1999). Similarly, for Local Rural Partnerships, Brown found that:

Community consultation may need to be conducted regularly as needs and local circumstances can change, but communities can suffer from 'consultation fatigue' and surveys can be costly and time-consuming. (Louise Brown Research, p.15)

5.59 Many of these observations relate specifically to more traditional methods of consultation such as surveys, but also apply to more participative activities.

SUMMARY

5.60 This chapter has covered the key issues to be considered once it has been determined that a consensus building approach should be pursued. In keeping with the general ethos of this study, we claim that it is important that decisions are made consciously and transparently. This is because the ideal inclusive consensus building process is difficult (if not impossible) to achieve in practice. Therefore critical decisions need to be made at the design stage on limiting the process, which when viewed from the perspective of an ideally inclusive process, necessitates exclusion of people, interests, issues, actions and possible substantive outcomes.

5.61 Therefore we have argued the need to adopt an explicit consensus building process, rather than assume that consensus will emerge from structures such as partnerships. Given this, several key questions arise, which are summarised in table 5. Firstly consensus building covers two very different approaches - conflictual approaches which identify differences and seek to change them, or non-conflictual approaches which seek common ground and build on it. The choice between these approaches affects all other design decisions.

Table 5. Key questions in the design of consensus building processes

5.62 From this follows a series of decisions about the major design issues: What structures will be used to facilitate consensus building? Who will be included and excluded? With which participants will consensus actually be sought? In particular, if a fully inclusive process is impossible, then pragmatic and ethical arguments are important (and likely to conflict) in determining whether consensus is attempted within a stakeholder group or partnership, or between agencies. This limitation on the 'location of consensus' also raises the question of how to ensure linkage between those inside and outside the process, in order to ensure representativeness.

5.63 Also of significance because of these linkage issues, and more generally because of implications for working practices, is idea of the 'level of consensus' - whether consensus is attempted in a single event, a longer process, or becomes fully institutionalised. The impact of non-institutionalised consensus building on the decision making process in general is further limited by the timing of events or processes.

5.64 Finally, it should be noted that not everything is under the designers' control. Participants will most likely be approaching the process with different goals, and with different levels of willingness to participate. In particular the 'public' and their representatives from the community sector may well be more reluctant than anticipated - due to fatigue, distrust or simply a perception that engagement in the process is not worthwhile.

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