31st October 2026
There was a time when governments, councils and public bodies made decisions, explained their reasoning and got on with the job. Today, it can sometimes seem that hardly anything happens without first launching a public consultation.
Whether it is changes to local services, school closures, road schemes, housing policies, planning proposals, council tax or national government policy, the public is increasingly invited to give its views.
Public participation is an important part of democracy. But there is a growing question about whether we have reached the point where consultation has become an industry in its own right, consuming time and money without necessarily improving decisions.
Many people have completed consultation questionnaires only to wonder afterwards what happened to their contribution. Was it read? Did it influence anything? Or was the decision effectively taken before the questionnaire was published?
Just how many consultations are there?
Getting an accurate national total is surprisingly difficult because different organisations count consultations in different ways. Some include formal policy consultations, others include calls for evidence, surveys, statutory notices and community engagement exercises.
Nevertheless, the available figures give an indication of the scale of activity.
The UK Government's GOV.UK consultation portal showed 253 consultations closed during the preceding 12 months at the end of October 2026, with another 59 open at the time of checking.
That is a considerable amount of consultation activity from central government alone.
The Scottish Government disclosed in an October 2024 Freedom of Information response that it had published 296 consultation exercises on its consultation website since May 2021. That figure included calls for evidence and other invitations for feedback, but excluded exercises published by other public bodies using the platform.
The Scottish Government has previously indicated that it typically publishes around 100 consultations annually.
The Scottish Parliament is another organisation conducting public engagement. Its published statistics for 2024–25 recorded five committee consultations or calls for views. This is a narrower measure than the Government figures and does not represent every form of parliamentary engagement.
Highland Council also maintains a list of completed consultations. Its published list includes subjects ranging from the Community Wealth Building Strategy and Local Housing Strategy to the Transient Visitor Levy, polling places, community paths and individual Common Good properties.
The council's website does not provide a straightforward two-year total, and its introduction of a new online engagement platform in June 2026 makes comparisons more difficult.
These figures are not directly comparable, but they demonstrate how widespread consultation has become.
Are politicians passing the buck?
There is a legitimate reason for asking the public for its opinion before making important decisions. Local knowledge can be invaluable, and people affected by changes to services should have an opportunity to express their concerns.
However, consultation can also become a convenient way of sharing responsibility for unpopular decisions.
An elected representative may already believe that a particular change is necessary but politically difficult. By asking the public for its views, there is an opportunity to demonstrate that the issue has been considered and that people have been given their say.
If the public supports the proposal, that support can be quoted. If it opposes the proposal, politicians can explain that they listened, considered the evidence and reached their decision after weighing up all the arguments.
But that raises an important question. If politicians are elected to make decisions, should they not be prepared to take responsibility for them?
Consultation should inform decisions, not replace leadership.
There is also the problem of consultation fatigue. When people are repeatedly asked to complete questionnaires, attend meetings or submit written comments, eventually many simply stop participating.
Those who do respond may not necessarily represent the wider population. People with strong feelings about a particular issue are often more likely to take part than those who are broadly content with existing arrangements.
A consultation with 200 responses does not automatically mean that the other thousands of people in a community agree with the outcome.
And then there are the consultants
Another source of public frustration is the growing use of external consultants.
There are occasions when specialist expertise is essential. Major infrastructure projects, complex financial arrangements, engineering work and new technology may require knowledge that an organisation does not possess internally.
But there are other occasions when taxpayers might reasonably wonder why an outside organisation has been paid substantial sums to tell public officials what they already knew.
The Scottish Government has provided an interesting example through its own published information on consultancy and consultation costs.
In November 2024, it disclosed external costs associated with producing and analysing a number of consultations. The listed expenditure included:
Electoral reform consultation: £41,413.
EURO 2028 commercial rights protection: £24,027.
Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill: £17,159.
National Events Strategy review: £21,630.
The total external expenditure disclosed for the nine consultations covered by that particular response was £115,751.
This is not the total cost of Scottish Government consultations. Nor does it include the salaries of civil servants involved in the work. It does, however, demonstrate that preparing and analysing consultations can involve significant additional expenditure.
The wider question is whether every piece of work needs to be commissioned externally when public organisations already employ people with considerable experience and knowledge.
There is also a risk that repeated reliance on consultants gradually reduces the expertise available within public organisations themselves.
Even government recognises the problem
Interestingly, the UK Government announced in September 2026 that it wanted to reduce unnecessary, box-ticking consultations.
It argued that governments are elected to lead and should not hide behind administrative processes. Departments were instructed to reduce consultations where there was no clear reason for undertaking them.
This is an acknowledgement that consultation can become an obstacle rather than an aid to getting things done.
The principle should be straightforward. Consult when public opinion can genuinely influence a decision, when important alternatives need examining or when local knowledge is essential.
Do not consult simply because it has become an automatic part of the administrative process.
A better use of public money
Perhaps every public consultation should begin by explaining three things.
First, what decision is actually being considered and which options remain open?
Second, what will happen to the responses, who will consider them and how will the public be told what difference they made?
Third, what is the estimated cost of the exercise, including any external consultants?
The same principle should apply to consultancy contracts. Public bodies should explain why outside expertise is needed, what it is expected to deliver and whether the knowledge will remain within the organisation afterwards.
There is nothing wrong with asking the public for its views. Indeed, it is an essential part of good government.
But people are entitled to expect that their time is respected and that their contributions make a difference.
Likewise, taxpayers are entitled to expect that public money is spent on solving problems rather than repeatedly commissioning reports about them.
Perhaps the real test of a successful consultation is not how many questionnaires are completed or how many meetings are held.
It is whether the final decision is better because the public was asked in the first place.
And perhaps the test of a good politician or public official is whether they are still prepared to make a decision when the consultation is over.
Sometimes the public does not need another questionnaire. It needs somebody to take responsibility and get on with the job.
Was the country any worse off in the past before consultations became so prevalent and politicans just got on with things. Many people have never responded to a consultation so how representative are they of views or do they just reflect the views of people who have time to complete them.