Departments publish consultations as an integral part of their policy development work. In compliance with the Government’s Code of Practice on Consultation, departments publish summaries of the responses received to their consultation exercises. These state how may responses were received.
Information is not held centrally on how many respondents took part in each consultation for over the last three years. To acquire this information would be at disproportionate cost. The number of responses to DEFRA consultations varies greatly, from 12 in the case of our Consultation on the Reform of Fruit and Vegetable Regime to 16,919 responses for the Climate Change Bill.
Since January 2005 until December 2007 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched 289 public consultations.
The breakdown, per year, is as follows:
Calendar year Number 2005 100 2006 108 2007 81