In this part of the book, we go through the process of consultancy, from the earliest stage of considering possible areas to work on, to looking back afterwards and reflecting critically on the work done. In one sense, the process was already begun in Chapter One, where we went through the debate about whether to title that chapter ‘starting out’ or ‘preparing to do consultancy’.

As professionals with experience of working with a variety of individuals, groups and organisations in public services, we have noted over the decades some recurrent similarities shared by these services. For instance, we repeatedly encounter in them a concern with delivering to the citizen a high quality service. This often begins with a notion of relating to the citizen in a professional manner. Often, too, this is associated with the principle of developing a positive style of interaction with the citizen, as customer, consumer, client, patient, service user, carer or whatever term we use. The common element we identify in all of these is that they are all based on the idea of a relationship between the service provider and the person who receives or uses the service; it is, as is commonly said, a relationship-based service. In commerce and industry, the main goal has been, and always will be, to make a profit; in public services, the main goal is to satisfy the citizen by providing a relationship-based service. Businesses carry out market research in anticipation, so that they are able to match the product as nearly as possible to the needs and expectations of the target market. It is clear when the customer likes the product or service, as they buy it and, perhaps, come back for more. Businesses may be able to improve the product to promote higher take-up of it – the bottom line is whether the customer buys the product. In public services there is not a similar bottom line, and the task of assessing customer satisfaction is more complex. Levels of service usage are a crude measure in that they only quantify the number of times the service is delivered, rather than giving feedback from the service user or citizen. Surveys and questionnaires at the point of service delivery, or soon afterwards, are not always representative of the quality of people's experience and perceptions, and in any case are expensive in both time and resources.