Owen Temple

I’m passionate about consultation - talking to people, listening to people. It’s vital in politics - not because you’ll always end up doing what everyone wants, but if you don’t know what people really need and want you’re going to make a lot of lousy decisions.

I’m not having a go at the NHS staff who ran tonight’s consultation at County Hall; they were doing what they have to. That was clear from the opening sentence “it’s a requirement” rapidly followed by “we have had to do a twelve week consultation…” 

The basis of the meeting was to tell us that they have decided to locate the one new “super-surgery” that government has decided to give County Durham in Easington. So where’s the “consultation” in that?

I wasn’t angry that Easington was getting the new facility (even if paranoia suggests that they get everything these days), just weary that I’d turned out on a wet night in the vain hope that my presence might make a difference only to find that I was taking part in a pointless game that younger and wiser heads have learnt to avoid.

What we don’t need is more consultation. We need different, and probably less, consultation reserved for important (or really local) issues, and entered into seriously with the intention that it shapes decisions. When we get consultation like that we’ll fill the meeting halls. We’ll also raise the turn-out in elections. Those are both prizes worth striving for.