In any subject of endeavour the basics are always the same: you get the best output from the best input. In literature you start with the original texts; science has the controlled experiment; in engineering you work with the best materials you can get your hands on. In public policy the highest quality raw material is that most elusive of political realities: the voiced opinion of an engaged and informed group. Some days you might be convinced that there’s a lack of anything like a reasonable apparatus for citizen contact: that either the patrician class uses public consultation for cynical manipulation, to cloak their already-made-up minds in a fake legitimacy; or that citizens sometimes don’t rise above apathy. So as public policy practitioners, who do we turn to to provide us with this critical service?