Have your say on having your say

It's always nice to be able to share your thoughts on big subjects of the day.

We get plenty of calls from people on the BBC Jersey phone-in and we regularly include a 'have your say' on the BBC Jersey website.

Even BBC Channel Island news invites your comments by e-mail on big stories.

And now the States of Jersey are stepping up their 'public opinion' act, with surveys, petitions, comments and discussions.

At the time of writing two of the top three stories on the States of Jersey website were reviews - asking for your opinion on postal services and the fiscal strategy.

That's before you get to the have your say box in the bottom right asking for your views on business tax.

The process of consultation takes many different forms - sometimes it's an online survey using 'Survey Monkey', a company that hosts surveys for business and government so they don't need to host it or build it on their own sites.

Other times it is more formal and requests an e-mail from people wanting to share their opinions that then gets compiled into a report.

And the least formal, but not necessarily the least successful, some departments, including Scrutiny, have started asking people for their thoughts through social media services like Facebook.

The States of Jersey even have a consultation section of their website. These include the island plan review, car and passenger ferry market, minimum wage and building bye-laws.

And now builders hoping to get a new project off the ground, especially more controversial projects, have started making use of the field of public opinion.

Le Masurier, a Jersey company that's been around for 175 years, have set up an all singing, all dancing website asking people for their thoughts on the companies proposal for Bath Street, including the Odeon building.

The question is, how much does all this consultation actually lead to a change of plans? A change to the decisions probably already made before the consultation started?

Why not have your say on all the people asking you to have your say on their projects.