Regulators should work harder to communicate with the public, with less-organised groups, and with the media by packaging information into understandable formats, using plain language, and clarifying the issues at stake, particularly for complex and technical issues. Procedures for effective and timely input from interested parties, such as affected businesses and trade unions, wider interest groups such as consumer or environmental organisations, or other levels of government, may need to be supplemented by pro-active efforts or more accessible consultation approaches to bring in interests with less capacity to respond. Dialogue-oriented consultation processes may be difficult to manage, especially when consultation is occasional, and ongoing working relationships between interests are not established. If they are to contribute to administrative openness, consultation processes themselves must be transparent , that is, they must take place within the framework of an explicit and systematic consultation policy that allows the public to understand how and when it will be able to participate. The cost-effectiveness of consultation could be improved through more investment in evaluation and review of current consultative approaches , including examination of new approaches such as better use of information technologies.
Consultation is more than just a set of procedures.
A habit of consultation must be built into the administrative culture of regulatory organisations . If a consultative culture is to be sustained, consultation policies must be explicitly supported at high political levels, and reinforced with staff training, incentives, and resources.