Providing consultation guidance in alternative formats
If your consultation involves people who have certain needs, you should produce consultation documents in alternative formats where appropriate. You should also produce an alternative format if someone makes a reasonable request for it.
The stakeholder mapping that should have taken place during the planning of the consultation exercise should inform the decisions around the channels you will make available for people to feed in their views and inform the decisions as to the formats in which the written consultation document should be made.
If the stakeholder mapping shows that you need to consult specifically with people who have certain needs you should produce consultation documents in alternative formats where appropriate. You should also produce an alternative version if someone makes a reasonable request for it. Some such alternative formats are described below.
If your consultation document is likely to be of particular interest to or have a significant impact on any particular non-English speaking communities in the UK, you should ensure that you produce a translated version of the consultation document, or at least of a summary and the questions, and have an interpreter available for any meetings.
Ask your Consultation Co-ordinator if your Department has a Welsh language scheme and follow your Co-ordinator's advice on this. You may be obliged to produce the consultation document in Welsh, or you may just be obliged to do so if it is requested by one of your stakeholders. If your policy proposal is likely to affect Wales, you should always consider publishing your consultation document in Welsh.
Focus groups, seminars or public meetings are likely to be more appropriate if you are consulting with the general public and especially if you are consulting with a group where there are low levels of literacy or those with learning disabilities. “Easy-read” versions can also be very helpful for reaching such groups.
If you need to consult specifically with visually-impaired stakeholders, you should produce consultation documents in Braille, large print, or Audio-Visual formats where appropriate.
Children and young-person versions have been produced in the past so as to facilitate their input. Documents targeted at children and young people should be concise and very clearly written in language specifically targeted at a younger age group. Think about the design of your document too: break up the text with colourful pictures and relevant, concrete examples.
If you think you may have to produce alternative formats, remember to factor enough time for this into your project planning and to allow for this in your budget.
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