FORMS OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
The rhetoric of public service ‘modernization’ and public service improvement, including
many of the initiatives outlined above, frequently conflates very different kinds of public
participation. Recent government statements in the UK have, for example, referred to the
importance of ‘consultation’, ‘listening’, ‘being in touch with the people’, ‘involving users’
and strengthening ‘accountability to local people’, almost as if these very different activities
were synonymous or interchangeable.