Over the past 5 years most public services have conceded that simply imposing new or amended services on clients will no longer be acceptable. Over this period BTM has developed consultation expertise working on behalf of health and local authority departments to identify the needs and hopes that client groups require in response to changed service offers and often budgetary constraints. We now have several working groups we can call on to discuss new ideas and to unearth unexpected responses to new proposals that quite often change following consultation.