Fair comment Steve and I take your point - and certainly if I'm aware a consultant is involved I suggest to the RP that they are included / invited along to any audits of meeting (some RPs say they won't pay for consultant to attend )
I must admit if the RP can't / won't get their appointed consultant to site I recommend they discuss what I have said with their consult, and that their consultant is more than welcome to contact me to discuss further. I won't necessarily contact the consultant on behalf of their client and repeat what I have said, as I feel its not my place to do so, however I do make it clear I am happy to discuss anything further.
For any I/O to cut out a consultant either during a face-to-face meeting or from a distance, so to speak, is totally unprofessional and it's dissapointing because we are all supposed to be on the same side to achieve the same - to protect people and property from fire at the end of the day.
I've always found that when you work with people rather than against them you get favourable results.