Following the end of the government’s public consultation on Science and Society, Tom Wakeford has been a fly on the wall in a ministerial office. 
 
Minister: Have you got a minute to discuss the consultation, Ms Gupta?

Gupta: Of course, Minister.

Minister: It’s just that I’ll be seeing the Select Committee tonight and I wondered whether the use of all that public money is going to help us meet our targets?

Gupta: Do you mean our targets for enthusing the public through engagement?

Minister: That’s it. Are the public keener to accept all these new technologies – new nukes, nano-particles and third-generation…wotsits?

Gupta: GM crops, Minister.

Minister: That’s the ones. Are the public any happier about science these days?

Gupta: I’m not sure, Minister, but RCUK did commission a poll of two thousand people that said the average person is three percent keener on science than they were five years ago.

Minister: Good….Eh?...Did you say opinion poll? But, Ms Gupta, I spend my life telling journalists not to take any notice of pollsters!

Gupta: And social researchers are pretty sceptical about them as well. They tend to ask things to bored people in shopping centres who are generally relieved that they are not being asked to sponsor a sick donkey.

Minister: What about focus groups? Old Tony got us into power by using them, so they should tell us something, eh?

Gupta: The thing is Minister, when you give them a few minutes to think about it, most people are sceptical that the government or scientists are actually taking on board what they say.

Minister: Oh?

Gupta: It was only five years ago that you told people their views would influence government policy on GM crops. 

Minister: But…

Gupta: And they’ve hardly been seen to have a say on nanotechnologies, have they?

Minister: Why not?

Gupta: Well your research councils jointly commissioned the UK Nanojury - a citizens’ jury on nanotechnology a few years ago. 

Minister: Did we?

Gupta: Yes, co-sponsored with Greenpeace.

Minister: Oh, God, not them!

Gupta: It actually made it a more balanced process than what we normally do, Minister. Everyone thought so. You know my colleague Malcolm? He went to the jury’s launch and promised a response from your ministerial predecessor.

Minister: That was a bit rash! What did it say?

Gupta: We never wrote the response.

Minister: Ha! That’ll teach them. Can’t just be making policy statements willy nilly.

Gupta: Yes, we certainly missed that target. But it’s different when you are the one who actually commissioned the public consultation, Minister.

Minister: Come again, Ms Gupta?

Gupta: In fact you had to carry out the same consultation twice. Remember? Nuclear waste?

Minister: We only had to do it twice because of bloody Greenpeace!

Gupta: Twice because the first process was judged unlawfully bad by the High Court, Minister.

Minister: Pah – judges! Second one hit the target though, didn’t it!

Gupta: Only because you got Malcolm to get the market research company to change its PowerPoint the night before the meeting. Then a member of the public blew the whistle and everyone looked ridiculous.

Minister: But…

Gupta: That’s the trouble with public engagement, you’ve got to let people come up with answers you might not like. That’s democracy.

Minister: No, Ms Gupta. There you are wrong. Democracy is about voting. Marking your cross every five years. That’s quite enough, thank you.

Gupta: So why are we doing public engagement?

Minister: To make sure they don’t stop progress of course!

Gupta: So why don’t we just call it marketing and education?

Minister: People wouldn’t sign up for that, would they?

Gupta: Of course not!

Minister: Well, then? Goodness, is that the time? Probably about time I joined the committee – it’s a presentation by nanotechnology experts before dinner.

Gupta: No citizen scientists there then?

Minister: Citizen scientists?

Gupta: You know, people like the members of the Nanojury, who’ve spent weeks getting a balanced picture of the future of the technology.

Minister: Do you mean that these folk should be given the levers of power? They’re just Joe Public. Can’t have them altering our targets.

Gupta: And aren’t you just an elected member of the public?

Minister: Very clever, Ms Gupta. Now, I think I can hear my driver in the lobby.

Tom Wakeford is SPA’s Engagement Correspondent and Director of the Newcastle-Durham Beacon of Public Engagement. He is among the signatories of the letter to Lord Drayson.