Simon Angelides

I am Chief Executive of the Consultation Institute, a UK membership body for people who involve the public in decisions. Our members run deliberative processes, participation and engagement programmes and formal consultation, often as parts of one process. tCI provides independent assurance, training and advice. It carries forward the standards of the original Consultation Institute, founded in 2003. Most of our members and clients are NHS bodies, local authorities, fire and rescue services and voluntary sector organisations.

Consultation gives UK practice its firmest legal footing. Since 1985, UK courts have tested public consultations against the Gunning principles: proposals at a formative stage, enough information, enough time and conscientious consideration of the responses. Those tests are a useful discipline for participation and engagement too. They ask whether the public body was still open to change and whether it acted on what it heard. We help public bodies design processes that meet that standard, and we train the officers who run them.

I am joining this community to compare UK experience with European work on participatory excellence, evaluation and the Commission Recommendation on citizen participation. The JRC’s 2026 report on the impact of citizen engagement found that almost half of responding administrations lack the skills to run or procure engagement well. The same question of skills and standards drives much of our work in the UK.

My main interests are standards and assurance for participation and engagement, NHS service change, training for public servants and the follow-up that turns public input into decisions. tCI is also publishing guidance on the use of AI in consultation at the end of 2026.

I am glad to share UK practice, case law and training material with colleagues working on participation standards, and to hear what is working elsewhere.