The project was developed through discussions with members of the Project Steering Group for a previous ESRC award.  The Steering Group comprised representatives from local authorities, Defra, the Environment Agency, and Environmental Protection UK.  It was also discussed with the steering group of the MSc in Environmental Consultancy and relevant professional bodies including the Institution of Environmental Sciences, and the Institute of Air Quality management, representing air quality professionals in both the private and public sectors.

This project focuses on environmental consultancies and seeks to identify the difficulties consultancies are faced with, when undertaking consultation on behalf of their clients.  A combination of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are being used:

• a quantitative survey of environmental consultancies offering services for LAQM and Environmental Impact Assessment relating to air quality.
• qualitative investigation of focus groups  and case study interviews to understand specific needs of the consultancy sector

The survey will provide evidence of engagement by environmental consultancies in consultation, and assess use of the ESRC funded guidance.  Analysis will enable issues and concerns to be identified which will form the basis for focus group discussions.  As consultancies represent local authorities during consultation on different aspects of LAQM, it is important to assess and increase their level of engagement with the findings of the ESRC-funded project and the resulting guidance document. 

The focus groups will provide an opportunity to further explore the needs of environmental consultancies with regards to consultation, and identify gaps in the current guidance.  This will also help embed the guidance in practices which will potentially increase the effectiveness of public services and public policy, and identify strategies to improve its uptake and enhance the relevance of the ESRC-funded research to the private sector.