24th Corbishley Lecture, London, 21 November 2000
Public Policy and Voluntary Bodies
by Professor Grigor McClelland

The development of civil society and the building of a lively relationship between non-governmental organisations and statutory agencies is, in the Trust's view, an integral part of a healthy democratic society. For this reason the Trust regards the development of such relationships as part of its work for peace, world order and the rule of law.

The creation of such civil society takes time and effort. Voluntary activities may be undertaken by groups of citizens formed for the purpose or pre-existent, such as churches or other religious bodies. Such bodies may act as think-tanks or pressure groups; as popular movements or ad hoc associations of concerned individuals. They may operate at local, regional, national, international or global levels. Their instruments include research and survey work, lobbying and campaigning, as well as appropriate forms of direct action.

The Trustees are grateful to Professor McClelland for drawing on his wide experience as a businessman, an academic, an advisor to government and as a trustee and chairman of the Rowntree Charitable Trust and for making it available in this lecture. We hope that it will, in illustrating the working of civil society in this country, serve to encourage similar developments in other parts of the world.

14th February 2001 George Wedell

Shortly after Gorbachev's reforms in the USSR I took a dozen Russians on various visits in North East England, including visits to a number of voluntary bodies. They had expected to see a society divided only between organs of the state on the one hand, and capitalist enterprises on the other, and they were astonished at the richness and vitality of our voluntary, or 'third', sector.

The sector is indeed sizeable, with an annual turnover of some £15-20 billion, providing important services to children, young people, families, the ill, the aged, and others in need. But in this lecture I want to consider a quite small but I believe important part of the sector, concerned not with the provision of services but with trying to influence public policy. This is work with a much less certain outcome than service provision - with much higher risk - but with the chance, in the event of success, of much greater effect, much greater benefits, through what might be called a high gearing or high multiplier effect. You all know that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for life. The analogy here would be if beyond that you persuaded his community to eliminate water pollution, or to prevent depletion of stocks.

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I shall mention many voluntary bodies as illustrations - some several times, in different contexts. You will be familiar with some of them, because these have intentionally built up a high public profile. Others are quite small and specialised, but are known to me mostly through my involvement in charitable grant-making of one sort or another. In the main they could be described as left of centre, partly because of my own values but perhaps mainly because that is the nature of those who seek to change existing policies. But there are also voluntary bodies that are right of centre, such as the conservatively inclined think tank the Adam Smith Institute, or which seek to preserve the status quo, such as those which oppose further liberalisation of the abortion laws or moves to outlaw hunting with dogs.

Taken together my examples will suggest, though I cannot claim that they begin fully to reflect, the immense variety, in almost every respect, of the total population of policy-oriented voluntary bodies from which they are drawn.

I shall outline in turn their fields of interest, the types of organisation they are, the geographical level at which they operate, the means they employ to further their aims - a big section, this, divided into two - and the sort of outcomes which they might and sometimes do secure. I will conclude with some reflections on their role in a democratic polity.

What are they concerned about? Major issues include poverty (at home and abroad), human rights, the environment, peace, and democracy.

Many agencies seek the welfare of those in greatest material need, whether here in the UK or in the poorest countries of the world. At home, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) is primarily concerned with public policy as it affects poverty amongst children, and the Low Pay Unit (LPU) to the extent that poverty stems from low pay. Shelter is concerned for people without affordable housing and Sustain with food poverty.

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The major overseas aid organisations such as Oxfam and Christian Aid are primarily service deliverers, but do not hesitate to speak out when the policies of our own or other governments seem to them misguided or insufficient, whether on the alleviation of poverty or its prevention. Another, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (incidentally, based in London) supports family planning agencies around the world, but is also a strong voice on the public policy issues.

On human rights, Liberty works for better legislative protection as well as pursuing individual cases. Amnesty International supports and intercedes for individual victims but also speaks out with authority and effect through its major reports on particular countries.

On the environment, the Council for the Protection of Rural England has extended its remit to urban areas too (though so far without changing its name), and has a long record of constructive criticism on planning issues. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are particularly concerned, at home and abroad, with pollution and the depletion of non-renewable resources. 'Swampy' and other activists have particularly attacked the concreting over of land for roads and airport runways.

On peace, the Oxford Research Group is concerned primarily with decisions on nuclear weapons policies, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, as its name implies, with trading in arms, and Saferworld with a number of international security issues, including a European code of practice on arms exports.

On democracy, Charter 88 stands for comprehensive reform of the UK constitution, whilst the Freedom of Information Campaign has the narrower objective of securing greater openness in government and elsewhere.

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Who are these people? Again, the picture is a varied one. The churches can be leading players - not as worshipping communities or adherents of a creed, but insofar as worship or belief has led them to positions, and then to witness, on public policy matters. The World Council of Churches, for example, in the late 1980s initiated widespread discussion on 'Peace, Justice and the Integrity of Creation'. It has also played a leading role in securing the withdrawal of the proposed intergovernmental Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which appeared to propose a drastic weakening of the position of poor countries vis-à-vis multi-national corporations. At home, many denominational, inter-denominational, or even interfaith bodies, national and local, monitor various aspects of public policy and try to influence it. As one example, Church Action on Poverty has worked on poverty issues, and organised a well-noticed pilgrimage in 1999 from Iona to Downing Street. To an exceptional degree, it enables poor people to speak out for themselves.

Some policy work is done by bodies whose main work is delivering a service. It is their experience of their clients, at the front line of need, which leads them to try to influence public policy. Some colleagues of mine doing relief work in the British zone of Germany in 1945/46 said: 'We shouldn't be here, we should be back in London trying to explain to the authorities what needs doing by them.' The comments on public policy of the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux carry weight because they are based on listening to clients in hundreds of CABs all over the country. Oxfam bases its inputs on its experiences overseas. The RSPCA deals with thousands of cases of cruelty to animals, experience which underlies its occasional dramatic full-page newspaper advertisements in advance of relevant parliamentary decisions.

Other bodies exist primarily to inform and influence public opinion or public policy. Think-tanks such as the Institute for Public Policy Research may have a clear political orientation but take up issues across the whole spectrum of public concern. The New Economics Foundation is more specialised in its interests, but a fundamental insight into the misleading nature of conventional measures of national welfare can lead to a variety of work on alternatives.

Others are more specialised still to single issues, and as in the case of the Freedom of Information Campaign may with quite small resources use a variety of methods to achieve their aims. They are primarily driven by a few individuals motivated by convictions about the public good, or concern for classes of people in exceptional need, and getting financial support where they can.

Others, in contrast, such as Greenpeace, CND, Charter 88 and Jubilee 2000, build up a large membership/supporter base, and this affects their character and what they can do.

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Some are registered charities or have legally charitable objectives, others are explicitly non-charitable, content to rely on post-tax gifts. Some non-charitable campaigning bodies have a charitable associated body to apply tax-recoverable gifts to support their research and educational work - for example, Greenpeace and the Greenpeace Foundation, Charter 88 and the Scarman Trust.

Finally, a few are driven by academic or professional specialists, for example the scientists in Pugwash or the doctors in Medact, in both cases motivated and qualified by their professional background and expertise to apply it to the issues of nuclear weapons.

It is worth noting that there are many organisations of civil society that I exclude from the scope of this lecture. I exclude political parties since it is impossible to disentangle the role of altruistic motives from the pursuit of political power on the part of a particular class. I also exclude associations designed to further the interests of their own members, such as trade unions, trade and professional associations, and sports and leisure clubs. This includes the TUC and CBI, representatives of what elsewhere in the EU are called the 'social partners', interests often and necessarily consulted by government, most regularly and notably (when they existed) through the National Economic Development Council and the 'little Neddies' for particular industrial sectors. One NEDC Director-General described this process by the Whig phrase 'squaring the interests'. One does not have to believe in the corporate state to accept the importance of such consultation

Charity law excludes from charitable status such self-serving organisations as sports clubs, and the National Lottery Charities Board in its early days had legal difficulties in making grants even to credit unions for this reason.

Between the mutual benefit membership organisation and the purely disinterested charity, I believe one can identify those bodies with charitable purposes which gain their main impetus from supporters who have suffered from the evil they are addressing. Many of the bodies promoting research or providing care for sufferers from specific diseases gain much of their support from those who are sufferers or the relatives of sufferers or those who have suffered bereavement from the disease. CADD, the Campaign against Drink Driving, gets much of its drive from those who have lost friends or relatives in road accidents where drink has played a part. Similarly, there are those who have suffered from particular preventable disasters. The Herald Families Association and similar bodies have formed Disaster Action, which campaigns for higher safety standards. HFA brought a court case about the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster but in the then state of the law failed to fasten corporate responsibility on the operating company. The law in this respect has now been changed.

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Over the last several centuries the power of the nation-state has been predominant, and this has led to a plethora of voluntary bodies operating at the level of national government. Examples are hardly needed. But public policy also exists - less powerful, but sometimes significant, and probably growing - at levels above and below this.

At the global level, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have not been slow to develop in relation to the UN and other inter-government organisations such as the World Trade Organisation or the World Bank. The World Council of Churches and international relief and aid agencies are cases in point. The United Nations Organisation from its foundation realised the value of NGOs, and the Quaker UN Program arises from the Religious Society of Friends having become an NGO recognised by the UNO. It has maintained offices in New York and Geneva to work with officials and diplomats on peace and other issues of concern to Quakers around the world.

The UNO recently asked member governments to review progress made during the decade of the child, in preparation for the 2001 General Assembly. The UN resolution stresses the important role played by 'civil society' and NGOs and asks that they be fully drawn in to the consultation and review process. In this country, Barnardos and the NSPCC have been particularly involved.

The International Baby Food Action Network, on other hand, took the initiative. It campaigned for a code on the marketing of breast milk substitutes. At last this was adopted by the World Health Assembly, and 96 governments have acted on it to various degrees. IBFAN has been active in monitoring its implementation, most notably through the boycott of Nestle in 1977-84 and again from 1988/9.

In our own region of the world, namely Europe, the growth of inter-governmental agencies has led to a matching growth in Europe-wide associations of voluntary bodies with common aims. They have set up a number of offices in Brussels to seek to influence the organs of the EU or of NATO on behalf of various social causes. I cite two quite small bodies, the European Anti-Poverty Network and the Quaker Council for European Affairs.

In the UK we are seeing devolution to Scotland and Wales. In England, as precursors, perhaps, of similar devolution to the English regions, there are now unified regional offices of central government, regional development agencies, and regional assemblies. This has led to the development of voluntary bodies at the same level. I cite three examples from my own region, the North East, which is perhaps the front-runner in the English devolution stakes. The Campaign for a Northern Assembly realises that a fully developed region means not just effective regional democratic control of many functions of government at present controlled from Whitehall. It must mean also the development at regional level of other organs of society to which we are accustomed at national level - the church, the media, the judiciary. The Churches Regional Commission for the North East is fully interdenominational and interacts effectively with regional and national organs of government. The Voluntary Organisations Network for the North East was established only in 1999. It is an explicit recognition on the part both of government and of the voluntary sector itself, of the need for a body to represent the views of the sector to government at regional level. It has counterpart bodies in the other English regions.

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Local government in the UK has by no means recovered from decades of emasculation but is still important, not least as a funder of voluntary bodies and a commissioner of their services. Moreover it has a duty to consult on many matters with interested parties and representatives of the citizenry, and voluntary bodies often find themselves in dialogue with it. The Benwell Rights Centre, for example, a service provider in the west end of Newcastle, has policy-relevant input to offer, based on its intimate knowledge of the difficulties faced by clients who turn to it for advice on their welfare rights.

The last three examples have all received grants for their policy work from the Millfield House Foundation, of which I am a trustee. We make grants totalling £100,000 a year and upwards, for the benefit of the most needy in Tyne and Wear. For the last four years we have concentrated on helping voluntary bodies to try to influence public policy. So far as I know, we are the only local or regional charitable trust in the country to do this. At present we have a varied portfolio of lively bodies, most of them local or regional in the NE, some of them London-based but prepared to gather data in the NE to support their case and ensure that it fully reflects the region's particular circumstances. More on our website, www.newnet.org.uk/mhf.

The means employed to effect change are equally diverse. In most cases, simple indignation is an inadequate asset base. Credibility requires detailed knowledge, and that normally requires research of one sort or another. Research is never 'pure' - you have to decide subjectively at least on the questions to be tackled - but some may be 'curiosity-oriented'. In the cases I shall quote, however, the motivation is not sheer curiosity but the desire to understand the world in order to be able to change it. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation commissions and funds 'social policy research', in accordance with its founder's wish to 'search out the underlying causes' of 'weakness or evil'.

The natural home for research is in universities, and some policy-oriented research is done there, whether commissioned by voluntary bodies, or by government agencies themselves, or through a university decision to specialise in these fields. The Bradford School of Peace Studies was started on the initiative of several Quakers and has developed into a large department with high standards of scholarship and objectivity. It is nevertheless a valuable resource for lobbyists and campaigners concerned about conflict. The Democratic Audit project at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, has brought together for the first time measures of how democratic a country is, thus helping to fuel the increasing interest in our own democratic polity and our 'democratic deficit'. This year Fred Robinson of the University of Durham wrote 'Who Runs the North East Now?', based on detailed information about the councillors, quango members and senior officers of all the principal public sector bodies in the region, and their purposes and powers. This information had never been brought together before and in many cases was extremely difficult to extract from the responsible bodies. It provides an indispensable basis for considering many important issues of governance in the region.

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But much of the research needed by policy-change agencies is quite specific, needs only secondary sources, and would be unsuitable for publication in refereed journals. This does not mean it is shoddy or biased. Thus in 1991/92 the Institute of Public Policy Research drafted a proposed UK constitution which was based on comprehensive and detailed knowledge possessed by the authors. The Oxford Research Group needed to know how nuclear weapons decisions were actually made in the five recognised nuclear powers, and its research on this resulted in a series of hardback books published by Macmillan.

It is typical that the causes of manifest need, and the implications for action to relieve that need, turn out to be much more complex than is at first apparent to those who are concerned about it. Five years ago the Network for Social Change became concerned about homelessness. Investigation suggested research into attitudes in the City of London towards an incoming Labour government modifying the definition of the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement. Authoritative research in the City established that the fears of the then Opposition front bench on this point were exaggerated. Although Chancellor Gordon Brown has acted with prudence, his golden rules allow public sector borrowing for investment and £5 billion of capital receipts have been released to local authorities for housing expenditure.

Those who want to influence policy are not interested in publications which will simply gather dust in university libraries or clock up brownie points with the academic peer group. Dissemination is important to them. Column inches in the broadsheets, or discussion in the broadcast media, may influence public policy through influencing public opinion.

One target audience is opinion formers. 'Cathy Come Home' changed the views of a generation about homelessness. 'The War Game' could have done the same on nuclear war if it had not been kept off the air. In the 1960s, when Enoch Powell was making spurious claims about ethnic minorities and British society, it was the Runnymede Trust (which has recently produced an excellent report on race relations in Britain) that provided prompt rebuttals which appeared in serious papers alongside his allegations. Runnymede was consulted by reporters because its reliability was beyond question.

A second target audience of policy change agencies is decision takers. At the national level these include ministers and their officials, and MPs (particularly parliamentary select committees). It is necessary to know who they are and what they will read. Timing is also important - the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, for example, published a study of housing finance, intended to reach Whitehall shortly before scheduled meetings between relevant departments and the Treasury.

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The media publicise only what they deem will interest their audience, particularly 'news' - and normally bad news is more newsworthy than good news. One device for winning coverage is the 'award'. The Nobel Peace Prize is an outstanding example. One concerned individual started an 'alternative Nobel' prize called the 'Right Livelihood' award. The Freedom of Information Campaign holds an annual event lauding an individual who has promoted freedom of information. The Guardian newspaper and the Institute of Public Policy Research have recently started an award for the promotion of public involvement by voluntary groups and local authorities.

Some initiatives by 'social entrepreneurs', once they proved successful, have become 'demonstration projects', widely copied and with a later indirect effect on public policy. Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) have spread around the world, enabling local communities to opt out of the deflationary monetary policies of their governments, and forcing government departments to decide how to treat multilateral barter of services for purposes of welfare benefits and tax. The Grameen Bank in Bangla Desh has altered perceptions of the possibilities of micro-credit in very poor communities. Ashoka Fellows in developing countries have pioneered new forms of social entrepreneurship, with influential consequences.

But for many purposes the best course is direct lobbying. The tiny Global Commons Institute has promoted its founder's concept of the basis for a long-term international settlement on the release of global warming gases, not only by research and publication but by attendance at the relevant world conferences and direct intercession with leading decision-makers. Ann Pettifor, the director of the Debt Crisis Network (which later became Jubilee 2000), had previously worked in a parliamentary lobbying firm. She took the case to ministers and officials in the UK and elsewhere, and because she knew the ropes and knew her stuff she made an impact. Within days of a Labour Government being elected in May 1997, the director of the Freedom of Information Campaign was able to provide the incoming Cabinet Office minister with a draft parliamentary bill.

Not all direct contact with decision-makers is lobbying in the sense of attempting to persuade. Most issues are complex and intelligent decision-makers are fully aware of policy dilemmas and perplexities. They can welcome the opportunity to talk freely with well-informed outsiders who can offer an understanding ear. This has certainly been the experience of Quakers involved with international affairs over many years, in their conferences for diplomats and in their work at the UN in New York and Geneva, at Brussels with the EU and NATO, and in other centres.

And in many cases it may be more important to help decision-makers to meet together in learn to understand each others' positions, than to persuade them of any particular position. This has been a speciality of the Oxford Research Group as it developed in recent years. Private residential consultations which it has arranged, have in some cases led to concrete results, such as a UN resolution.

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We move now from the coffee table to the megaphone. The remaining means of influence can be more high-profile and are sometimes more confrontational. One is the use of the law. The World Court Project succeeded in getting an opinion from the World Court on the obligations of nuclear powers. Liberty, through its director, John Wadham, has supported those charged under official secrets legislation, such as David Shayler.

Legal precedent can change administrative practice. Through taking the case of Becky Holliday, profoundly deaf since birth, to the law lords, the Child Poverty Action Group and the National Deaf Children's Society secured a change in DSS practice over disability living allowance which has benefited thousands of other deaf people. Again, by taking the case of Sally Brown to the Court of Appeal, CPAG helped to secure the rights of casual workers to statutory sick pay.

Demonstrations have an important role in seeking a better society. It may be important to make a big splash, to turn out in numbers, to impress with the strength of feeling and support behind a particular cause. We think of the Jarrow March, of CND's Aldermaston marches, of rallies in Trafalgar Square, of the Jubilee 2000 ring of 70,000 people round the 1998 World Economic Summit in Birmingham. Much of this is legally non-charitable, though guidance (in its leaflet CC9) from the Charity Commission indicates the wide scope for charities properly to engage in or support campaigns or demonstrations in furtherance of their charitable objectives.

The mass rally can win headlines. So can NVDA - non-violent direct action. Much NVDA draws attention to whatever is the object of protest in a dramatic way that preferably makes a symbolic point about it. In many cases it consists in interposing the presence of protesters between the would-be doer and the deed they intend.

NVDA, both legal and illegal, has a long and honourable history. The suffragettes chained themselves to railings, or threw themselves under Ascot racehorses. Gandhi, publicly and illegally, burnt his pass in South Africa, and manufactured salt from sea-water in British India. The 'freedom riders' in the southern USA were simply asserting their legal rights to be served at inter-state transport facilities, though they were risking (some would say 'provoking') violence against them. In both world wars, under different legislative regimes, British conscientious objectors refused military service, and more recently people have gone to prison for withholding that portion of their tax liabilities which they regarded as attributable to defence expenditure. In an early instance of environmental concern, Friends of the Earth returned non-returnable and non-biodegradable plastic bottles en masse by depositing them outside the front door of the Mayfair head office of the major soft drinks company from which they had come. The Greenham women decorated the fence, and occasionally trespassed into the base. Greenpeace has undertaken non-violent confrontation on the high seas. Tree-dwellers and troglodytes have changed attitudes towards, and the economics of, building new roads. The case against the World Trade Organisation and the way that it controls international trade has been heard more effectively as a result of confrontations (mostly without violence on the part of the protesters) on the streets of Seattle than through dry, if cogent, arguments in economic journals.

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Although some protestors are prepared to break the law, one cannot always know whether an action is illegal until a court has ruled. Despite the strongest direction from the judge, a jury in 1985 refused to convict Clive Ponting for leaking information about the sinking of the Belgrano. A court recently acquitted Lord Melchett and other Greenpeace supporters on the grounds that their destruction of GM crops had prevented the greater damage that would flow from letting them germinate. Similar verdicts have been passed in respect of those inflicting or attempting to inflict damage on military aircraft intended for repression in Indonesia, or on nuclear submarines.

In summary, there is a wide variety of weapons available in the armoury for those outside government who wish to change the world. (I have not mentioned the remarkable growth and influence of ethical investment and ethical consumerism, since their primary influence is on the market position of commercial organisations rather than directly on public policy.) Different bodies use different means, or the same body may use different means at different times or for different purposes. It is useless to ask about relative effectiveness across the board. We need instead some profiling procedure to match the features of a situation and the appropriate means - what some social scientists would call a contingency approach.

An agency can produce 'output' in the form of reports, leaflets, posters, personal contacts, and demonstrations. But if no one takes any notice of them, the aims of the agency are not advanced. Output is only translated into 'outcome' if it make a difference. Clearly, outcome is more important than output.

Particular outcomes which have followed the work of voluntary bodies have been mentioned throughout this lecture, in the form of changes in legislation, in public policy, in administrative practice or in legal precedent. Perhaps the most fundamental sort of outcome is a change in public attitudes, from which indeed many of these other changes flow, and which may be a condition of their success.

But such outcomes are often sparse or long delayed. The Club of Rome arose from a meeting in Rome in April 1968, of thirty individuals from ten countries. It led to research at MIT, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, and the publication of 'The Limits to Growth' four years later. Ten further years passed before the UNO began to consider the terms of reference of what became the Brundtland World Commission on Environment and Development, which reported in 1987 under the title of 'Our Common Future', recommending development that should be environmentally sustainable. From that point on the world community had no choice but to take the issue seriously. There is no doubt that the Club of Rome was the controversial pioneer in bringing this whole issue to the world's attention, but it took 19 years to get it squarely on the agenda, and many others were involved in that time.

In 1988 Susan George wrote 'A Fate Worse than Debt', at a time when the inequity and devastating consequences of third world debt were barely acknowledged. It was ten years later that Jubilee 2000 gathered 70,000 people to form a 'human chain for debt relief' around the World Economic Summit in Birmingham, and made that issue unavoidable.

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To my mind the most influential book of the twentieth century was Keynes' 'General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money'. It was published in February 1936, and fundamentally altered the management of national economies and the levels of employment they could provide, from the second world war onwards. Although the book itself was influential very quickly, its publication had been the culmination of 'a long struggle of escape … from habitual modes of thought and expression'.

Generally speaking, It is hard or impossible to disentangle the contributions of different agencies and other factors. 'Success has many parents'. Evaluation of most policy work by voluntary bodies is therefore hard. Evaluation has however been increasingly promoted to the voluntary sector in the last 10-20 years. Providers of resources increasingly want to know what the results have been. Some projects undertake evaluation intermittently or regularly, some funders require that it be done, and some funders do it in respect of their own grants portfolio.

One form of evaluation for public-policy projects is to identify the target audience and for an independent evaluator to question members of it. Such an 'impact assessment' was carried out for the Arms and Disarmament Information Unit at the University of Sussex, assembling reactions to its briefings from officials, politicians, editorial staff and other readers. In 1993 Professor Michael Clarke, of Kings College London, interviewed the 'targets' in MoD, FCO, NATO and Parliament, of the work of ten major Rowntree Charitable Trust grant-holders in the field of Disarmament and Security. His report, which was discussed with them at a one-day conference in York, revealed that their reports were being read and used to an impressive degree at the highest levels. The work of the Oxford Research Group was evaluated in a similar way early in 2000, through responses from several dozen (in ten countries) of the participants in their residential consultations, and the responses were generally full of praise.

But although evaluation of particular projects is beset with difficulties, we can take heart if we look at the field as a whole. Most of the major reforms in the UK in this century have been the outcome of long and sustained campaigns, from women's suffrage and state pensions through the abolition of capital punishment to a parliament for Scotland. Typically, they have won popular support and been incorporated in the programme of a political party which has then won power and implemented them.

There may be a sceptical reaction to the whole scene which I have sketched. If a government is democratically elected by universal suffrage, should it not then be left to get on with governing along the lines presented to the electors in its party manifesto? What democratic mandate can these various high-minded pressure groups claim? Where so much depends on access and influence, how can we be sure that the right lobbies prevail?

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This position reflects a simplistic and mechanistic model of the democratic process and the workings of a democratic society. The process of governing is complex and subtle. However clear and detailed an election-winning manifesto, it cannot possibly cover changing and unforeseen circumstances, nor the many detailed issues that will need to be addressed. Relevant knowledge and sound judgement do not reside exclusively in politicians and officials, nor in focus groups, and are certainly not reflected in a simple cross on a quinquennial ballot paper. I have earlier made the point that many of the bodies making representations to government derive their authenticity and standing from their work in the field, at the grass-roots, at the cutting edge of need, or from independent study and research. Moreover, there are plenty of pressures from interested parties with axes to grind - why not from disinterested idealists too?

This is well recognised by government itself. It invites consultation, in green papers and in a thousand other ways. Central government insists that in many cases, local authorities have a duty to consult. Following the change of government in May 1997, there was a marked increase in the extent to which the views of NGOs were sought, in the Foreign Office and in other departments.

In these ways the endemic and inevitable 'democratic deficit' is slightly diminished. Policy-oriented voluntary bodies play a vital role in securing good government.

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