Last week Andrea Charman, head-teacher of Lydd primary school in Kent, resigned for personal reasons months into a campaign heralded in the media, despite support from the school's Governors, Kent County Council, local MP Michael Howard and a positive OFSTED report about a school Mrs Charman had taken out of special measures.  The campaign follows her decision to send a lamb reared by the school children to slaughter, a decision she took with the support of Governors, the school's pupil council (which voted 13 to 1 in favour last September) and from school parents, possibly a majority.

Mrs Charman did not help sweeten the pill by offering Marcus' meat in a fund-raising raffle, and arguably Marcus had been anthropomorphised and sentimentalised by being named and cared for as a pet. 

Cue campaign by parents (a minority?), articles in the Mail and other media (for and against), an offer to house Marcus from celebrity Paul O'Grady. Cue righteous indignation at the intervention of sentimental approaches to animal husbandry and meat production.  Cue complaints about Nanny-statism.

At the heart of this furore is a head-teacher trying to improve children's education and succeeding.

Also core are issues about involvement in decisions made by professionals over delivery of public services. 

So is this an example of Involvement not working?  Doesn't this illustrate why so many professionals fear and resist Involvement in their decision-making?

Well, 'Yes and No'.  Those who advocate involved decision-making must deal with the potential for the 'wrong' answer, contradicting professional opinion.  Our answer is that if the process has been properly involving, the full facts are available to those who are involved, and they have had good chance to really understand those facts, if people have come to trust the motives of  professionals, have been involved from the start, understand the limits including what is 'safe' and what risks to accept, and there is good (involved) control of the process of involvement, (those are all important 'ifs') then who is to say the decision they support is 'wrong', even if it isn't the one experts would have taken alone?  It would be bizarre if involving people in decision-making didn't affect the outcome of decisions, otherwise what is the point of involvement?

Involvement doesn't remove conflict and may highlight it, as in Kent.  Managing that conflict and that Involvement is a high-order skill.  And surely the problems in Kent have been as much to do with the impact of our media (feeding on conflict) on decision-making and on personal responses to the resulting fire-storm?  The best response to the media impact is to ensure the criteria for Involvement set out above are met, that Involvement is strengthened, and that effective support is given to those involving others, or who are at the centre of a media fire-storm.