Opening up decisions
Consultation, deliberation and co-design.
A short, focused look at opening up decisions: lawful consultation, seldom heard voices, citizens' assemblies, digital engagement and AI, and co-design.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 4 hours
- Where
- Engagement and Participation
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Leaders and officers running consultation and deliberation
Overview
Opening up a decision is a matter of law, method and good faith. This programme begins with consultation done properly, from the Gunning principles and Moseley v Haringey to the Welsh participation and involvement duties, then turns to the seldom heard and to children's right to be heard through Laura Lundy's model. It explores deliberative democracy, sortition and citizens' assemblies in Ireland and the UK, weighs what digital tools and AI can add or take away, and finishes with co-design: McKercher's principles, the Double Diamond and experience-based co-design from Bate and Robert's work in the NHS.
Aims
The aim is to give leaders the confidence to choose and run the right method for opening up a decision, from lawful consultation to deliberation and co-design, so that the people most affected, including those seldom heard, have real influence and the organisation can show that their contribution shaped what happened.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Apply the Gunning principles and the Welsh participation and involvement duties to test whether a consultation is lawful, fair and likely to withstand challenge.
- Design inclusive engagement that reaches seldom heard groups, children and young people, using outreach sequences, Lundy's model and clear guard rails for digital and AI tools.
- Assess when deliberation, co-design or experience-based co-design fits a decision, and plan the conditions, roles and commitments that give participants genuine influence.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Identify the triggers that can make consultation legally required and explain why a voluntary consultation must still be carried out properly.
- Explain why the seldom heard framing places responsibility on the organisation, and identify the practical, trust, cultural, digital, language and cost barriers to taking part.
- Distinguish deliberation from polls and open consultation, and describe how sortition and the learning, deliberation, decision and response phases of a citizens' assembly work.
- Assess what a digital channel adds to an engagement purpose and identify the layers of digital exclusion that a digital-only approach can create.
- Distinguish consultation, design thinking, co-design and co-production, and apply McKercher's four principles and the Double Diamond to a co-design process.
- Describe the stages of experience-based co-design, from setting up and gathering staff and patient experience to separate events, a joint event and co-design groups.
Built from 3 parts.
4 hours of learning.
- 01Hearing every voicePublic consultation law and inclusive engagementBitesize2 modules
- 02Deciding togetherDeliberative democracy and digital engagementBitesize2 modules
- 03Designing with peopleCo-design and experience-based co-designBitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Engagement and Participation topic, also sold whole as Nothing about us without us.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 4 hours, £69
- The whole topicImmerse, Nothing about us without us, 11 hours, £249. Already own the Focus? You pay £180.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms