Case studies
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra):
‘Taking it on’ consultation on UK sustainable development
strategy
Context
In 1999 the UK Government published ‘A better quality of
life’, its sustainability strategy, just as Welsh and Scottish
devolution began to come into force. The Scottish Executive, the
Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Administration
then developed their own approaches, as did every English region
and many local authorities.
This consultation aimed at laying the foundations for a national
strategic framework for sustainable development to 2020 that would
provide the background to take forward action by each administration,
and for action by others.
The consultation document “Taking it on - developing
UK sustainable development strategy together” was launched
on 21 April 2004 by the Secretary of State for the Environment
at an event for key stakeholders, representing a diverse and influential
set of national and international institutions.
Task
To gather views on what should be in a sustainable development
strategy for the UK, and what government and others need to do
make it happen.
Process
Online consultation around ‘Taking it on - developing UK
sustainable development strategy together’ began on 28 April
2004 and continued until 31 July.
The online consultation took two forms. A ‘General Access’
consultation process allowed members of the public and any interested
organisations to respond online to the questions in the consultation
document. This process was open for 12 weeks, at the end of which
the results were collated and the responses made available for
scrutiny on the website.
In parallel to this public process, a ‘Virtual Panel’,
representing a cross section of organisations and individuals
with an interest in sustainable development, was set up to provide
its views in two stages. During the first stage the panel was
asked to respond to the questions in the document by 28 May. Following
collation of the interim results panel members were asked to respond,
by 31 July, to further questions based on their earlier responses.
Participation
The General Access process generated 8,149 responses from 444
participants; the Virtual Penal produced 2,904 responses from
151 participants. Both processes attracted submissions from businesses,
professional associations, government bodies, devolved administrations,
local authorities, research and educational institutions, non-government
organisations, community groups and individuals.
Results
Defra's own evaluation of the process concluded: "The online
consultation was innovative and successful for those participating
in it, despite some frustrations about the process which may have
put off some respondents from replying online (e.g. word limits,
saving copies of submissions)…. The key benefits were that
it encouraged a paperless consultation (only 10% of responses
were received by post), participants were able to view each other's
inputs and it could reach a wider audience. In addition, the online
consultation enabled speedy and cost-effective analysis of responses
for consideration by policy-makers."
The Defra report also evaluated the online consultation's cost-effectiveness:
" The online consultation costs are lower than for e-mail/postal
replies when the cost of analysing the responses is taken into
account, and there are other benefits of using online consultation.
Therefore, it is recommended that future consultations should
encourage an online element to help to keep costs down, encourage
sharing of information and ease of analysis".
(An Evaluation of the 2004 “Taking it on” Consultation
on the UK’s Sustainable Development
Strategy Defra 2004)
