I submitted a response to the Government Economic Strategy: a copy is available here, in PDF format.
Having made the effort to respond to the consultation, I was interested to see how the report on the consultation would represent the answers. I was surprised to see the statement that everyone had approved the government’s priorities, when I had written that I did not; so I went back to the original submissions and compared the comments with the report on the consultation.
There were three significant differences. First, the report claimed that everyone had approved the priorities; it was clear that many, like myself, did not. Second, the government had asked whether it had the balance of prevention and response right, and the report claimed that it did. I had argued against the fashion for preventative work, but I was very much in a minority; the majority of other respondents took the opposite view, and felt the government had put too little emphasis on prevention. Third, the report claimed that respondents favoured the government taking a leading role. Most respondents argued against that, believing that change had to come from the bottom up.