APPENDIX 28
Memorandum by Professor Robert M Worcester,
Chairman of MORI
There are many forms of public consultation which
can be selected depending on the criteria and end objectives of
the inquiry. Cost is often an important consideration; efficacy
is important, and speed is sometimes essential. The appearance
of consultation is often an important consideration. Over the
past few years, the traditional break down of market research
into qualitative research (individual depth in research and focus
groups) and quantitative studies, using representative samples
of defined populations, has been augmented by people's panels
(such as the work MORI do for the Cabinet Office), citizens' juries
(employed by a number of local authorities), workshops, and so-called
"deliberative polling". Worst of all are what I call
"Voodoo polls". "Voodoo polls" began with
cheap and cheerful newspaper and radio/TV phone-ins which have,
although still used by some outlets, now become widely discredited.
Nonetheless, they continue to be a plague, as they are unrepresentative
of anything other than the views of those who choose to participate
and the efficacy of the pressure groups that organise their members
to manipulate them. My favourite "voodoo poll" story
is of one "Desmond", who some years ago wrote to the
Evening Standard to say how pleased he was that "his
side had won", stating that he had "voted" 157
times himself. Another illustration of the fatuousness of such
so-called "polls" was the infamous ITV broadcast on
the Monarchy, which incorporated a properly conducted opinion
poll with a phone-in poll (voodoo), which purported to come from
over 2 million phone calls. It was rumbled, however, by the televising
of Ann Leslie, columnist of the Daily Mail, who was shown
on camera repeatedly punching the repeat button on her mobile
phone, voting as often as she could get through.
But the worst of "consultations" of
recent years was some four or five years ago, when John Gummer,
as Secretary of State for the Environment, sent out millions of
questionnaires to Londoners to find out what they liked and disliked
about living in London. It was a nightmare to administer and analyse
and when they received it, the data was useless as research. I
hoped never to see such an exercise again. I am afraid, however,
the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Milburn, outdid it when
he sent out 12 million questionnaires on a Wednesday, at Tesco's,
NHS hospitals and NHS doctors' surgeries, with a deadline of response
by the following Monday evening. Though the deadline was extended
as a result of public uproar, only some 200,000 replies were received.
As it happened, I was giving a talk to the Bookman
Club, a group of publishers, on the Thursday night. When asked
a question about what I thought about the exercise, I conducted
a quick poll asking those who had seen the questionnaire to put
up their hands. Out of 50 diners, only one hand went up. Purportedly,
half a million pounds of taxpayers' money was wasted on this exercise,
which resulted in the finding that the public wanted more nurses,
more doctors, shorter waiting times and the like. As you know,
I was asked to comment on this on radio and TV and I indicated
that for less then £4,000, MORI could have asked one open
ended question on its weekly omnibus survey of c 2,000 people,
which could have asked the same question as the NHS questionnaire
but had it analysed by gender, age, social class, region of the
country, fully representative of the British electorate and much
more useful and it could have been done in the same period of
time or even quicker.
Alternatively, a more detailed survey could
have been done, providing more useful information using the people's
panel, the service provided departments of Government by the Cabinet
Office with a base sample of over 5,000.
I hope this is helpful to the Committee. I would
be glad to respond to any questions.
Robert M Worcester
Chairman
|