Closing the consultation
You will have given a date in your consultation document for the close of the consultation exercise. If organisations ask for an extension of a few days you should consider allowing such an extension, as even if you are under pressure to start the analysis, you will have other responses that you can start working on. However, it will clearly not be possible to extend the deadline indefinitely. In most cases you should exercise judgement when considering whether to accept late responses bearing in mind the circumstances of the case.
If several key stakeholders have expressed concern about being able to respond in the given timeframe, you should consider whether it would be possible to extend the deadline for all concerned. While you will probably not be able to reach all those considering replying, you could post a message on the consultation website and send an email to all those initially alerted electronically about the consultation exercise so that many consultees can profit from the extension.
After the consultation has closed
As responses come in, it can be good to send a short thank you/acknowledgement of receipt email. This puts people at ease that their response has made it to the right place. With most responses being sent by email nowadays, this can be done automatically for large-scale consultations that receive a high number of responses.
Analysing responses is one of the most important parts of the consultation process. All thought and work that has previously gone into planning your consultation, facilitating informal consultation, and producing and publicising a written document will be wasted if you do not implement an effective mechanism for analysing the responses you receive.
As with all consultation practice, the key to effective analysis is good planning. Start to think about how you will analyse responses when you begin planning the overall consultation process. For consultations that are particularly high profile or contentious or when large numbers of responses are expected, an independent element to the analysis can help maintain transparency and credibility. A neutral analysis of what was said during the consultation exercise is then usefully distinguishable from the policy decisions taken by Government in the light of the consultation exercise (see Producing a summary of responses).
If you have set clear objectives at the beginning of the consultation process and have approached it in an open, transparent way, analysing your responses and producing a comprehensive summary report should not be a problem. Being clear about your objectives for the whole consultation process will enable you to sift the responses you receive more effectively. It is easy to get too caught up in the detail of the process and the issues involved: revisiting your original objectives and asking yourself at this stage 'Why am I consulting?' will help you to analyse and weight responses more objectively.
You should keep records of all stakeholder engagement undertaken throughout the consultation process. This means making a note of all meetings and recording the names and views of all representatives present, as well as actions to be taken. The notes of such meetings should be analysed alongside written responses. If you record the names of participants you should make them aware in advance that you will be doing so and will need to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998.
Written consultation responses should be carefully documented. It can be useful to set up a 'Response Analysis Grid', entering the names of respondents and the contact details so that they can be kept informed later on; the organisation represented; and a summary of their comments for each of the questions asked in the consultation document. You may also find it useful to sort respondents into different types of stakeholder groups.
When analysing responses, remember that consultation is not a public vote, it is a qualitative exercise to seek evidence to help deliver the most effective and efficient policy within the constraints set. It is particularly important to keep this in mind if you receive a petition or a large number of responses as part of a campaign. If this happens, you should clearly state in your summary of responses the number of responses received in this way and how you have analysed them.
Once you have identified the range of views and ideas, you should explore the potential positive and negative implications of each option and update your Impact Assessment with the new evidence.
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