Public Consultation Toolkit - Civil Service College

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Public Consultation Toolkit 43 44 Public Consultation Toolkit Outcomes: • The exhibitions served to educate and raise the awareness of Master Plan 2008 and its proposals, allowing the public to be aware of the existing attractions around their neighbourhood and the key changes that would be taking place at the national scale as well as in their local areas. It also allowed the public to provide meaningful feedback to the upcoming developments. Learning points: • The appropriate selection of channels and effective design of communications materials are important to be effective in generating awareness: - The use of visual exhibitions helped stakeholders to better understand the Master Plan 2008, allowing them to provide meaningful feedback; and - Using different channels (e.g., physical exhibition, website, road shows) allowed URA to reach a wide audience. 6.4. Step 7: Launch consultation exercise During the period of public consultation, it is important that stakeholder sentiment and expectations are well managed. The following highlights some key considerations: 1. Be explicit about the scope of influence. Public officers need to be unambiguous about the parameters that are open for feedback in the consultation exercise. This will avoid creating false expectations that might result in stakeholder displeasure. 2. Background knowledge. Public officers need to ensure that participants have relevant background materials and understand the policy/initiative under consultation. Please refer to Step 5 – designing consultation materials. 3. Identify all feedback channels. Agencies need to make known to stakeholders all available feedback channels. The feedback channels should be intuitive and tailored to the targeted stakeholders. 4. Be clear about the consultation timeline. Agencies need to state upfront the period of consultation and processing of feedback. Stakeholders should have a clear idea on when the agencies will close the loop with them and report the findings. 5. Monitor the feedback received. Agencies should regularly monitor the level and type of feedback received. Agencies can then calibrate actions to be taken during the consultation exercise, such as extending the timeline, providing more background materials, or managing stakeholder sentiment. A case in point is illustrated on page 45.
Public Consultation Toolkit 45 46 Public Consultation Toolkit Case 12: Penal Code (Amendment) Bill Agency/country: • Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Singapore Background: • MHA reviewed and proposed amendments to the Penal Code in 2007. As the Penal Code had a wide ranging impact on society, extensive public consultation was conducted to gather feedback and assess public sentiment. Consultation Process: • MHA posted the Amendment Bill on REACH’s Portal for the public to give their feedback and views. • MHA was explicit about the scope of influence; members of the public were invited to provide feedback for either one or all the amendments to the Penal Code. • To ensure participants had a clear context and background of the information a summary of the amendments to the Penal Code was provided in the e-portal of REACH to provide an explanation on the amendments. Presentations on the amendments were also delivered during the focus groups to prepare participants for the discussion. • MHA partnered REACH to post the Amendment Bill on REACH’s Portal for the public to give their feedback and views. A news release was also issued to inform members of the public on the consultation exercise. • MHA also worked with REACH to identify facilitators to conduct focus groups, and stakeholders to participate in them. • Feedback was sought from people from different walks of life, e.g., religious groups, voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs), students, grassroots members, social workers. • A women-only focus group was also set up to discuss the proposals, particularly those which concerned marital immunity which impacted them directly. • MHA also sought feedback from the Law Society on the proposed amendments. • MHA was upfront that the consultation would be over a period of five months. • REACH assisted MHA in monitoring feedback received over the e-portal and collated the feedback for MHA’s attention. MHA also actively monitored and collated feedback received from other channels such as feedback posted in the media, Law Society and focus groups for evaluation. Outcomes: • MHA evaluated the feedback received and incorporated some of the suggestions into the Bill. • The feedback was acknowledged in the Second Reading Speech in Parliament. 7. Follow-up and analysis Closing the loop is a vital step in the public consultation process. After being consulted, the public will expect to know the outcome. Hence, after the consultation period ends, agencies are encouraged to follow up on: • Collating the feedback and closing the loop with stakeholders; and • Assessing the effectiveness of the consultation exercise and identifying areas for improvement. 7.1. Step 8: Collate feedback and close the loop After the feedback is received from the participants, agencies need to collate the feedback to identify the common themes and important issues. Agencies should consolidate and categorise the feedback and data received and document the findings in a report. The report should contain the following information: • Number of participants; • Timeframe of the consultation exercise; • Consultation process (channels, feedback mechanisms); • Feedback received (categorised); • Explanation for accepting or rejecting each category of feedback; and • Limits of the consultation approach. In addition, agencies need to demonstrate that they recognise and acknowledge the contributions of participants and assure participants that their feedback has been taken into consideration. This will also serve to encourage further involvement in public consultation exercises in the future. “... a common grouse of the public who are unhappy with the government’s public consultation process is the oft quoted officious and non-committal replies they receive. Whilst they do not expect the government to agree to or accept every feedback and suggestion, they do expect the government to adequately address their concerns and explain the rationale for the decisions.” – Dr Amy Khor, Chairman REACH
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