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Standard content types

Consultations

When to use this content type

Use the consultation content type for content that will meet the consultation principles. That may include:

  • consultations (officially ‘documents requiring collective agreement across government’)
  • requests for people’s views on a question

Do not use the content type for:

  • documents that should be added to an existing consultation (such as supporting or outcome documents)
  • informal ‘consultations’ like surveys

How consultations work

Consultations stay on the same page of GOV.UK, including when they’re closed.

On the closing date, the contact details will automatically disappear. They will be replaced by a message saying ‘We are analysing your feedback’.

You can then add the government’s response to the consultation.

Add the government response in time

Government responses should be published within 12 weeks of the consultation closing.

Update the consultation page to explain the delay if it takes longer than that. Give an estimate about when the response will be ready if you can.

Do not add any more information or attachments to the page after the government response has been published.

Create a draft

To create or update this content type, you’ll need a Signon account with access to Whitehall Publisher.

Note:

If you select ‘Create new edition’ and you get a message telling you that the ‘document is in history mode’, you cannot update it without help from the Government Digital Service (GDS). See the guidance on removing history mode for more details.

If you’re creating a new consultation

  1. Go to Whitehall Publisher.
  2. Select the ‘New document’ tab.
  3. Select ‘Consultation’ and then select the ‘Next’ button.
  4. If the consultation is not in English, tick ‘Create a foreign language only consultation’ and select the language.
  5. Add the title and summary.
  6. In the body, add a brief account of what you are asking people about and who the consultation is aimed at. Keep it to under 100 words, and do not include the closing date as it’s added automatically.
  7. Add an opening and closing date for the consultation. You can also add a specific opening and closing time.
  8. If the consultation documents and the ways of responding are not hosted on GOV.UK, tick ‘This consultation is held on another website’ and include the link.
  9. Add details about the ‘Ways to respond’. This could be a link to an online form, an email address, a postal address or a downloadable form. If you’re attaching a downloadable form, make sure you’ve correctly formatted the attachment.
  10. Tick the UK nations where the content applies under ‘Excluded nations (required)’. If your content does not apply to a nation, you can optionally provide a link to alternative content for users in that nation.
  11. Tick the box to confirm you’ve considered the consultation principles.
  12. Select ‘Limit access’ under ‘Settings’ if your draft is sensitive. This means only users from organisations tagged to the content can see it before it’s published. It will not be copied across to Integration.
  13. Select the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.

Read the tone of voice guidance and formatting guidance for help with writing the title, summary and body.

Once that’s done, you can add the consultation documents as attachments.

Go to the ‘Attachments’ tab. Your attachments can either be file attachments or HTML attachments.

If you’re uploading a file attachment:

  • make sure you’ve correctly formatted the attachment before you upload it
  • do not tick ‘Attachment is accessible’ – this will let users see a box with information about requesting the attachment in an accessible format, like audio or Braille

If you’re uploading a HTML attachment, read the formatting guidance for help.

If you’re updating an open consultation

  1. Go to Whitehall Publisher.
  2. Select the ‘Documents’ tab.
  3. Search for the consultation you want to edit, and select the ‘View’ link next to it. This will take you to the edition summary page. If you only want to update the topic tags and nothing else, select ‘Change tags’ under ‘Topic taxonomy tags’. Otherwise, keep following these steps.
  4. Select the ‘Create new edition’ button. If a new edition has already been created, select the ‘Go to draft’ link. You can then select ‘Edit draft’ or, if you do not want to use this draft, select ‘Delete draft’ and then select ‘Create new edition’.
  5. Make any changes to the title, summary and body as needed. Read the tone of voice guidance and formatting guidance for help.
  6. Do not change anything under the ‘Political’ heading. This is related to history mode and it will only need to be changed if your organisation is asked to take part in an audit of content before a general election.
  7. Change the options under ‘Excluded nations (required)’ if needed.
  8. Select ‘Limit access’ under ‘Settings’ if your draft is sensitive. This means only users from organisations tagged to the content can see it before it’s published. It will not be copied across to Integration.
  9. Decide whether you need to write public change notes. If you do, select the relevant option under ‘Do users have to know the content has changed?’ and add your change notes (you can edit them again before you publish the draft).
  10. Select the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.
  11. Go to the ‘Attachments’ tab if you want to edit any of the consultation documents. You can quickly overwrite previous versions of attachments if you upload new files with the same file names as your old ones.

If you’re updating a closed consultation before adding the government response

You can update the consultation to:

  • explain why the government response is later than expected and say when it will be ready
  • add public feedback or other documents to the page before publishing the government response

Do not change the original content or consultation documents. They will move to the bottom of the page under the heading ‘Original consultation’.

  1. Go to Whitehall Publisher.
  2. Select the ‘Documents’ tab.
  3. Search for the consultation you want to edit, and select the ‘View’ link next to it. This will take you to the edition summary page.
  4. Select the ‘Create new edition’ button. If a new edition has already been created, select the ‘Go to draft’ link instead. You can then select ‘Edit draft’ or, if you do not want to use this draft, select ‘Delete draft’ and then select ‘Create new edition’.
  5. Select ‘Limit access’ under ‘Settings’ if your draft is sensitive. This means only users from organisations tagged to the content can see it before it’s published. It will not be copied across to Integration.
  6. Decide whether you need to write public change notes. If you do, go to the bottom of the page and select the relevant option under ‘Do users have to know the content has changed?’ and add your change notes (you can edit them again later).
  7. Select the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.
  8. Select the ‘Public feedback’ tab at the top of the page.

If you’re adding information about a delay to the government response, add the publication date and use the ‘Summary’ to explain the reasons for the delay. Select ‘Save’.

If you’re uploading details about public feedback or other documents:

  1. Add the publication date and use the ‘Summary’ to summarise the update. For example, you can say how many responses were received and which groups responded, but avoid summarising what their feedback said.
  2. Select ‘Save’.
  3. Upload the full details of the update as a file or HTML attachment.

If you’re uploading a file attachment:

  • make sure you’ve correctly formatted the attachment before you upload it
  • do not tick ‘Attachment is accessible’ – this will let users see a box with information about requesting the attachment in an accessible format, like audio or Braille

If you’re uploading a HTML attachment, read the formatting guidance for help.

If you’re adding the government response to a closed consultation

Do not change the original content or consultation documents. They will move to the bottom of the page under the heading ‘Original consultation’.

  1. Go to Whitehall Publisher.
  2. Select the ‘Documents’ tab.
  3. Search for the consultation you want to edit, and select the ‘View’ link next to it. This will take you to the edition summary page.
  4. Select the ‘Create new edition’ button. If a new edition has already been created, select the ‘Go to draft’ link instead. You can then select ‘Edit draft’ or, if you do not want to use this draft, select ‘Delete draft’ and then select ‘Create new edition’.
  5. Select ‘Limit access’ under ‘Settings’ if your draft is sensitive. This means only users from organisations tagged to the content can see it before it’s published. It will not be copied across to Integration.
  6. Decide whether you need to write public change notes. Go to the bottom of the page and select the relevant option under ‘Do users have to know the content has changed?’, and add your change notes if needed (you can edit them again later).
  7. Select the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.
  8. Select the ‘Final outcome’ tab at the top of the page. Add a publication date and use the ‘Summary’ to describe briefly what form the response takes, but do not describe what the response says.
  9. Select ‘Save’.
  10. Upload the full government response as a file or HTML attachment.

If you’re uploading a file attachment:

  • make sure you’ve correctly formatted the attachment before you upload it
  • do not tick ‘Attachment is accessible’ – this will let users see a box with information about requesting the attachment in an accessible format, like audio or Braille

If you’re uploading a HTML attachment, read the formatting guidance for help.

Do not attach any documents that will be relevant after the consultation is closed, like policy papers or new guidance. Create separate pages for them.

Add or remove images

Make sure you’ve correctly formatted the images before you add them.

Select the ‘Images’ tab at the top of the page. You can upload images here. Each image will need a different file name.

Once you upload an image, you’ll be given a ‘Markdown code’. You can copy and paste that into the body or HTML attachments and the image will appear there.

If you want to remove an image, you can remove its code from the body or HTML attachments. You can then upload a new version of the image and use its code instead.

Add or remove tags to organisations, people and events

You can tag your content under the ‘Associations’ heading. You do this by adding or removing associations.

These associations include:

  • ministers – use this if a government minister has had direct involvement with the content, like if they wrote a foreword
  • topical events – use this if you want the content to appear on a topical event page
  • lead and supporting organisations – your own organisation will be set as a lead organisation as default, but you can change that or add any other organisations if they’re responsible for the content

Update settings of the draft

Under the ‘Settings’ heading, you can:

  • change the ‘Email address for ordering attachment files in an accessible format’
  • select ‘Schedule publication’, if you want the draft published at a certain time and date
  • select ‘Review date’, if you want to get an email asking you to check the content at a later date after you’ve published it

Add or remove topic tags

You need to tag your draft to at least one topic page before you can publish it.

Your content will appear on the tagged topic pages when:

  • the draft is published, if it’s new content
  • you save the new tagged topic pages, if you’re updating existing content

See the ‘Education, training and skills’ topic page for an example of what these topic pages look like.

To add tags:

  1. Select ‘Save and go to document summary’ on your current draft.
  2. Under the ‘Topic taxonomy tags’ heading, select ‘Add tags’ or ‘Change tags’.
  3. Tick the boxes next to each topic that applies. The arrows next to each topic will expand the topic out, showing all sub-topics in that topic ‘tree’.
  4. Select ‘Save’.

To remove tags, select ‘Remove topic’ next to the one you want to remove and then select ‘Save’.

Choose topic tags:

  • based only on what the content is about
  • from anywhere in the topic ‘tree’, not just the areas that your organisation uses the most

Try to choose the most specific topics you can.

You can tag your content to as many topic pages as are relevant. There’s no limit.

Add or edit translations

Add a new translation

Read the guidance about deciding whether to add a translation.

If you want to add a translation, you’ll need to create a completely separate draft and select ‘Create a foreign language only consultation’.

Add the link to the foreign language version at the top of the English version. Use this format: “View this consultation in Arabic”.

Repeat the steps to link the English version to the foreign language version. If you have multiple translations, make sure all the translations are linked.

Edit an existing translation

Search for the translated version on Whitehall Publisher and create a new draft. It will exist as a completely separate piece of content to the English version.

Update the URL

URLs are automatically created from the page title when you first publish the content. You might want to update the URL if there’s a spelling mistake or if it no longer reflects the content.

If the content has never been published before

You can update the draft title and the URL will change.

If the content has been published already

You can:

  1. Create a new piece of content with the desired title and URL.
  2. Copy over the current content to this new draft.
  3. Publish the new draft.
  4. Unpublish the page with the incorrect URL. When you unpublish it, you’ll be able to set up a redirect to the new page.

The change notes history will be lost if you do this. If you need to keep that history, contact the Government Digital Service (GDS) and ask them to change the URL instead.

Publish the draft

Find out how to send the draft for review.

If you need to publish it urgently without a review, find out when you can publish your own draft.