Supplementary memorandum from Mencap
My colleague has passed on to me an email you
sent her on 2 May. In it, you asked if we could tell you the number
of central government consultations Mencap has been invited to
respond to within the last year, and how many times these invitations
have been taken up.
In our experience, this is not how the consultation
process works. It is rare for Mencap to be approached directly
by central government to respond to a consultation—we monitor
new public consultations as they are published, and we respond
when we think this is appropriate. Like many organistions, we
use a parliamentary monitoring service which, amongst other thins,
send us a list every week of all new consultations that have been
published. I am not aware of any occasions in the last year in
which we have been invited to respond to a central government
consultation. Occasionally specialist staff are approached directly
by officials to comment on draft policies or guidance before publication,
but this is not part of a formal consultation process.
I hope this has been helpful.
June 2007
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