Monitor your department’s effectiveness at consultation, including through the use of a designated consultation co-ordinator.

Criterion 5: Monitor your department’s effectiveness at consultation, including through the use of a designated consultation co-ordinator.

1. Each department should have a nominated consultation co-ordinator, who should ensure that the consultation code is followed. They should act as an adviser to those conducting consultation exercises.
2. Consultation should be evaluated for effectiveness, looking at numbers and types of responses, whether some methods of consultation were more successful than others, and how the consultation responses clarified the policy options and affected the final decision.
3. This evaluation should be used to inform future consultations in the department, and lessons learnt can be disseminated across government.
4. The consultation co-ordinator should collate information regarding how many national consultations the department has carried out and any deviations from the code, with the reasons given for these. This data should be available for the Cabinet Office to collate annually, and will be made available to the public.