This part of the Ofqual website has been designed to give you easier access to respond to our consultations and is open to allow anyone to comment on the work that we do. Each open consultation allows you to respond to as many or as few parts of the document as you wish, meaning that if you are only interested in an aspect of the consultation you can respond to that bit alone.

Consultations

Ofqual is committed to effective consultation; consultation which is targeted at, and easily accessible. In line with the Government’s Code of Practice on Consultation, Ofqual supports the seven criteria:

• Formal consultation should take place at a stage when there is scope to influence the policy outcome.
• Consultations should normally last for at least 12 weeks with consideration given to longer timescales where feasible and sensible.
• Consultation documents should be clear about the consultation process, what is being proposed, the scope to influence and the expected costs and benefits of the proposals.
• Consultation exercises should be designed to be accessible to, and clearly targeted at, those people the exercise is intended to reach.
• Keeping the burden of consultation to a minimum is essential if consultations are to be effective and if consultees’ buy-in to the process is to be obtained.
• Consultation responses should be analysed carefully and clear feedback should be provided to participants following the consultation.
• Officials running consultations should seek guidance in how to run an effective consultation exercise and share what they have learned from the experience.

Commenting

We are offering you the opportunity to comment on these consultations and in doing so we'd like you to be aware that we will not usually delete comments so long as you keep within the commenting guidelines below. We will never edit comments that you leave.

We would ask that you avoid posting:

• party political material. This is a government website. We cannot publish party political content under the normal rules governing the Civil Service. Essentially it is advisable not to refer specifically to any political party. This does not mean you cannot raise controversial issues,
• potentially libelous, false, or defamatory statements,
• any commercial endorsement, promotion of any product, service or publication,
• language which is offensive, intemperate, or provocative. This not only includes obvious swear words and insults, but any language to which people reading it could reasonably take offence,

Please also ensure that your ideas and comments:

• are respectful of others - comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature, and should not constitute a personal attack on a person's character,
• don't incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristic
• don't reveal personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
• don't break the law - this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright
• are reasonably concise, and don't constitute spamming of the site
• are in English - unfortunately, we do not currently have the resource to moderate comments in other languages
• are relevant - please don't post messages unrelated to this channel or the subject under discussion

We reserve the right to delete ideas and comments that breach our guidelines and to suspend the ability to comment at any time.

Comments are usually held in a queue before publication and will usually be published within 24 hours of submission.

If you wish to remove a comment that you have made, or enquire about why a comment was moderated, please contact info@ofqual.gov.uk with details.

If you have a specific question that requires a response, then you may find it helpful to contact the Ofqual Helpdesk on 0300 303 3342.

Credits

This site is developed and maintained by the Ofqual Web Team and the theme is based on Commentariat by Steph Grey.