Case Study

Case Study - Stakeholder Consultation Programme

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Stakeholder consultation programme

The Brief

Our client was required by government to consult on proposed changes to its forthcoming timetable.

Timetable changes are frequently contentious and can generate significant media, stakeholder and wider community interest, including noisy campaigns to retain service frequencies and individual train times. The consultation can be time-consuming and resource intensive, with thousands of individual responses often received.

The client confirmed that it therefore wanted to confine the consultation to stakeholders and to manage expectations of any wider engagement.

Our Solution and the Outcomes

Solution

We developed a robust and effective consultation strategy that met the client’s requirements while standing up to scrutiny from stakeholders. As important as the mechanics of the engagement itself was the messaging on its scope, so that stakeholders understood its purpose and what it was possible for them to influence. Protecting our client’s corporate reputation and relationships in this context was an additional, underlying objective for the consultation programme.

With the general public not invited to participate, it was important to ensure that all passenger groups, rail interest groups and elected representatives were included. In that way, any approaches from the public could be directed to their nearest representatives to submit a response on their behalf.

At the outset, we conducted extensive stakeholder mapping to ensure that we had captured all relevant consultees. A consultation document was then drafted which set out the rationale for change and summarised the changes by region and by line.

A series of online workshops were held, to supplement individual meetings with Members of Parliament and local authorities along the various routes.

Outcome

SEC Newgate collated and reviewed all responses. We prepared a consultation report which summarised responses by region, theme and stakeholder which was subsequently shared with participants in the consultation and online.