Consultations

Introduction to consultation exercises

Consultation exercises normally begin with publication of a consultation paper in which Defra invites comment from stakeholders on a policy issue, legislative or other proposal.

Consultations are carried out in accordance with the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Written Consultation. The consultation period will normally last a minimum of 12 weeks, although there are circumstances in which shorter consultations will be unavoidable (e.g. where tight timescales are dictated by EU processes). A draft Regulatory Impact Assessment will be included as part of the consultation where proposals may create burdens for business - for further information go to: www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/regulation/consultation/index.asp.

Once the deadline has passed, the consultation closes, and the comments received are carefully considered by Defra in developing its policies, plans for legislation etc. After this stage, a summary of consultation responses should be made publicly available on the Defra website.

Defra intends to make comments received available within three months after the consultation has closed. It is assumed, therefore, that your reply can be made publicly available. Please see the section on Freedom of Information in the Cabinet Office consultation guidance for more information.

You should also be aware that there may be circumstances in which Defra will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations.

The main Departmental library is at the Information Resource Centre (IRC) at Ergon House, c/o 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR (Telephone 020 7238 6712) and will supply, on request, copies of responses to personal callers or telephone enquirers. For those wishing to obtain copies of comments, an administrative charge to cover copying and postage will be made. To enable requests to be dealt with efficiently and to avoid delay for those calling at the Library in person, it would be appreciated if personal callers could give the Library at least 24 hours' notice of their requirements.

N.B. The three consultation indexes listed on the left of this page are intended only as "master lists" of recent Defra consultations and users should also look on the relevant subject page (linked from the subject headings listed in the dark green bar above) for information on current and older consultations related to that subject.

Many consultation documents have been published in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format .
Further information is available on our Help page about downloading or reading Adobe Acrobat documents.