Public participation framework

Description

Participation in water planning is frequently mandated and frequently hollow: a consultation is held after the options have been narrowed, and the contributions received cannot change the outcome. This framework sets out how to design a participation process in which the contributions arrive early enough to matter, and in which the people taking part can see what became of what they said.

It covers the design decisions that determine whether that happens — who is invited and on what basis, what is being decided and by whom, at which point in the process each form of participation is appropriate, and how the results are fed back. It distinguishes between the purposes that participation can serve, from informing through consulting to genuine co-design, and matches the method to the purpose rather than applying a single format to every situation.

The framework draws on the participatory work carried out across the NAIAD demonstration sites, where the same underlying sequence was adapted to contrasting institutional settings.

Applications to decision making in the insurance sector

A prevention measure that lacks local acceptance will not be maintained, and an unmaintained measure is not a risk reduction. For a carrier considering whether to recognise an NBS, the quality of the participation behind it is a real indicator of whether the intervention will still be performing in ten years.

Added value of this modelling approach

It gives the process designer a defensible answer to the question of why a particular format was used — which matters when the legitimacy of a consultation is challenged, and when the results of participation are used as evidence in a later appraisal.

What decision can be improved with this modelling approach

How to structure a consultation that has to inform a real decision; who to involve at which stage; and how to document participation so that it can be relied on later.