Engagement and Participation

This module sets out what engagement means and why it matters now for public service leaders. It distinguishes seven engagement words and the promise each one makes, explores five reasons for engaging, and uses Albert Hirschman's exit, voice and loyalty to show why silence is not satisfaction. The Mid Staffordshire case and the listening loop show what happens when listening fails and how to close the gap.

Public bodies often describe the people they serve as customers, but that captures only part of the relationship. This module uses John Alford's four public service roles, a working lens on who benefits and who chose the relationship, customer mapping and Mendelow's power-interest matrix to clarify who you are engaging. It also examines segments and personas, communities of place, interest and identity, and the This Girl Can insight story.

People experience services as journeys, not as organisation charts, and the gaps between teams are where things usually go wrong. This module covers journey mapping, Lynn Shostack's service blueprint and its line of visibility, Jan Carlzon's moments of truth, and John Seddon's systems thinking with its distinction between value demand and failure demand. It also covers learning from complaints, combining numbers and stories, and the HMRC failure demand case.

People judge public services more by what they do than by what they say. This module covers the move from broadcasting to dialogue, five basics of good communication, being bilingual by default in Wales, the trust journey pyramid from awareness to advocacy, and building loyalty in services without exit, drawing on Hirschman. It examines Reichheld's Net Promoter Score, the Keiningham critique and the lessons of the NHS Friends and Family Test.

Engagement is a range of relationships, from telling people what has been decided to handing them the decision itself. This module uses Arnstein's ladder and the IAP2 spectrum to help you choose the level of engagement decision by decision, compare consultation with collaboration, write an honest engagement promise and close the loop. It draws on the National Principles for Public Engagement in Wales and the Sheffield street trees dispute.

Consultation is the form of engagement most likely to end up before a judge. This module explains when consultation is legally required and the four Gunning principles, using the Supreme Court case of Moseley v Haringey. It covers the public sector equality duty, Welsh language duties, the participation duties in the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 and involvement under the Well-being of Future Generations Act, as general guidance rather than legal advice.

The people most affected by a service change are often the people least likely to be in the room. This module reframes hard to reach as seldom heard, names the barriers to taking part, and sets out an outreach sequence and accessibility by design. It covers children's right to be heard under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Laura Lundy's model of participation and the Welsh Youth Parliament.

Deliberative methods select a random, representative group of people and give them time, information and support to weigh a hard question. This module contrasts polls with deliberation, drawing on James Fishkin, explains sortition and how a citizens' assembly works, and examines the Irish Citizens' Assembly, Climate Assembly UK and the OECD's deliberative wave. It closes with when deliberation fits and the commissioner's duty to respond.

Digital tools and artificial intelligence can widen participation or quietly narrow it. This module treats digital as a channel rather than a strategy, sets out what digital can and cannot do and who digital-only approaches leave out, and explores online tools including Pol.is consensus mapping and the vTaiwan case. It then examines where AI helps analyse responses, five guard rails for its use, and the UK government's Consult tool.

Co-design asks people with experience of a service to become design partners from the start, not respondents to a finished proposal. This module distinguishes designing for people from designing with them, places co-design between design thinking and co-production, and works through Kelly Ann McKercher's four principles and the Design Council's Double Diamond. It covers open briefs, conditions and roles, sticky-note theatre, and the Social Security Scotland Experience Panels.

Experience-based co-design, developed by Paul Bate and Glenn Robert in the NHS, treats experience, including emotion, as serious evidence. This module traces its origins in the Luton and Dunstable head and neck cancer pilot, walks through its stages, and explores touchpoints, emotional mapping and the trigger film. It compares full and accelerated versions, following Louise Locock and colleagues, weighs the evidence and limits, and considers adapting the method beyond health.

Co-production is one of the most used and misused words in public services. This module returns to its roots in Elinor Ostrom's research on Chicago policing, the Boyle and Harris definition and Edgar Cahn's five core values, including reciprocity. It covers doing to, for and with people, Bovaird and Loeffler's four Co's, the Social Care Institute for Excellence's four principles, individual and collective co-production, a four-rung ladder, and what co-production is not.

In Wales, co-production is written into law. This module covers the five principles of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, the section 16 duty and involvement under the Well-being of Future Generations Act, and why a legal duty is a floor, not a ceiling. It uses the Co-production Network for Wales definition and five principles, asks where power can genuinely be shared, and examines Local Area Coordination in Swansea.

Lived experience leadership moves people from being consulted to leading change. This module treats lived experience as expertise, using Baljeet Sandhu's three forms of expertise, and sets out a spectrum of roles from feedback to leadership, including peer roles. It covers the conditions for sustainable leadership, protecting people who share their stories through Arlie Hochschild's idea of emotional labour, tokenism versus genuine leadership, Recovery Colleges and five steps for leaders.

Engagement is easy to count and hard to evaluate. This module moves from outputs to process quality, influence and outcomes, uses Rowe and Frewer's acceptance and process criteria, and shows how a big response can still miss people. It examines Scotland's National Standards for Community Engagement, the strengths and limits of you said, we did, Tenant Satisfaction Measures, participants' own evaluation and participatory budgeting in Scotland, so that you measure to learn, not to defend.

Whether engagement flourishes depends more on leadership than on technique. This module shows why engagement is a culture rather than a team, sets out four leadership behaviours of curiosity, humility, following through and sharing power, and covers the governance of engagement and the questions boards and members should ask. It explores building capability, why the hardest decisions need legitimacy, the Wigan Deal and Newham's permanent Citizens' Assembly.

This capstone adds no new theory; it tests the ideas of the programme against three real places. Using five questions on context, power, method, change and transfer, it reads the Blaenau Gwent Climate Assembly, the Lambeth Living Well Collaborative and Every One Every Day in Barking and Dagenham through the frameworks of the topic, sets them side by side, and asks you to apply the whole approach to one real decision of your own.