In response to my earlier post on improving communications, Mike asked if I would reproduce the Questions that I have tabled on Government consultation exercises.
They were published today:
Tabled on 12 November and due for answer by 26 November.
Lord Norton of Louth to ask Her Majesty’s Government why the Cabinet Office removed its webpage listing all open consultations being conducted by departments; and what plans they have to reintroduce such a webpage. HL6305
Lord Norton of Louth to ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that departments follow the practice of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills in making consultation papers available to third parties in machine-readable form. HL6306
Lord Norton of Louth to ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that consultation papers are published in a manner that allows them to be integrated in third-sector surfaces. HL6307
Lord Norton of Louth to ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps are taken to ensure that departments comply with the Code of Practice on Consultation. HL6308
Lord Norton of Louth to ask Her Majesty’s Government how many consultation exercises have been undertaken by Government departments since October 2007; and how many of them lasted or are due to last for the recommended period of at least 12 weeks. HL6309
Lord Norton of Louth to ask Her Majesty’s Government how many consultation documents produced by departments since July have been published in alternative formats, in line with recommendation 4.4 of the Code of Practice on Consultation. HL6310
Last night I also put down a Question about the websites of Government Departments, an issue some of you have raised in response to earlier posts. Each Department is responsible for its own website and they differ enormously in presentation and quality. Related to this, I had an extremely valuable conversation last night with Tom Watson MP, Parliamentary Secretary in the Cabinet Office (‘Tom’ in the responses to my earlier post) and I hope to be able to report more in due course.
Thanks, that’s interesting. Some of these questions should be easy to answer, others, I can understand why they take a while (eg how many consultations have there been – instant answer if it’s already available, slow if they have to be manually aggregated and counted).