seven - Reflecting on contexts for consultancy

Summary

The approach we have adopted over the past two decades is somewhat opportunistic, in that we have relied on the consultancy business that has come our way at the university and that which we have generated. However, during this period we have gradually been able to accumulate experience and arrive at the categories of the consultancy process that we set out and followed in Chapters Two to Six. We have reached the point where we feel convinced that an empowerment approach or model to consultancy is not only possible, but is practicable and desirable from the citizen's point of view, given the present trajectory of government policy and the nature of current practice in organisations delivering public services.

The journey through our practice has enabled us to accumulate observations and reflections on our work in progress. We expand on these in this third part of the book, making connections between the very different settings of consultancy practice in the public services. To continue the cartographical analogy a little further, if this is a map, it is not only unfinished but is also changing as we journey, in the sense that public policy is in a state of flux. This is not a temporary situation, but is part and parcel of the context of public services.

The division of material between this chapter and the next is that we attempt to set consultancy in the public services in its broader context in this chapter, and explore some perspectives on it in the following chapter. We begin by reflecting on the somewhat problematic and changing nature of consultancy.

Problematic and diverse: changing nature of Consultancy

In terms of the prominence of consultancy in contemporary discourse about public services, we are in the era of the consultants. There is little doubt that consultancy has been the boom industry, from the second half of the 20th into the 21st century. There are many types of consultancy and this is unsurprising, given the range of settings where consultants practise and the variety of people calling themselves consultants. The nature and range of consultancy activity mirrors the shape of the sectors they serve.