Jon Bright (London, OK): Over the last month or so we've been slowly putting together a small spin-off site called, imaginatively, "Government Consultations" (GC). The idea first began when the Government announced consultations on various aspects of the "Governance of Britain" Green Paper; our coverage of this quickly developed into a (rather nerdish) fascination about the amount of 'consultations' being released by all government departments, all the time. OurKingdom spends a lot of time talking about democratic politics, but these consultations represent the machinery of democratic government at work. They are used to build 'legitimacy' for proposals (how often have government ministers claimed to have 'consulted widely'?), but in reality even those that are open to public contribution are not widely publicised.
Government Consultations was born, therefore, as an investigation - an attempt to track the scale and type of consultation going on, and look at what the government is up to, almost, on a day to day basis. The consultations range from the surprising: "Reducing reoffending: believing we can" - a consultation looking at ways faith based organisations can be involved in the criminal justice system; to the worrying: "Possible changes to the GB poultry register" - a consultation exploring "other ways" this data could be used (which seems to prove that, once large databases of information are created, governments will begin to explore other ways of losing them); to the deliciously minute: "Sheep and Goat Identification and Tracing Regulations" - a chance to have a say on how sheep and goats should be identified in Scotland (a chance which has, unfortunately, now passed).
Looking at the consultations also exposes how the impact of devolution is still being felt at the level of functioning. Consultations on the "Regulations for the Responsible pharmacist" - are being run separately by the Department of Health and the Scottish Executive, for example - but which came about as a result of the UK Health Act 2006 - an act which (of course) mainly provided regulations affecting the English, N Irish and Welsh health services.
Finally, most importantly for OurKingdom, Government Consultations allows us to track the consultations we are really interested in, to make sure more people know they are going on, and to encourage them to contribute. This page on the constitution tracks consultations you might want to know about - including ones on War Powers and Treaties, Judicial Appointments, and, in particular, Managing Protest around Parliament (which closes on the 17th of January). This is your chance to have a say - so don't miss it. You can find some sample answers for the 'Managing Protest Around Parliament' (assuming you are against the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act in general) here. And if you do submit a response to a consultation, why not post it as a comment on GC, to allow other people to have a look at it?
