I thought the session was really interesting.

The thing that strikes me is that much is being done about engaging the public and giving people the opportunity to assert their views.

But what is being done to get policy makers and people in government to pay attention, and take seriously, these new methods of engagement?

To be successful I think the engagement needs to be mutual.

Something which pressed a button for me was when Deborah from Think Public said that she know lots of people that have brilliant ideas that could be really useful for public services but they can’t get the ideas heard because they don’t know how to communicate about them in the right way. The ‘right’ way of communicating seems to be excluding people.