Example Consultation Document

Chapter 8 - Custom Forms

When to use custom forms

Forms are an alternate way of gathering information from your respondents within a consultation document. Responses gathered via this method should be treated as an entirely separate process from your standard consultations and your supporting document style consultations. This consultation style is often used for Call for Sites / Candidate Sites consultations. You can also use custom forms for creating questionnaires or surveys for Regulation 18 consultations.

While online forms can be complex and include rules that ensure that user submissions are valid note that if you also need to accept forms via email and post these forms will not be subject to the same automated validation. The more complex the form the more challenging it can be to record all submissions consistently.

The alternative approach is to reword your questions so that they simply list options then ask users to support or object to each and provide comments on each using one standardised form. You can also use Yes / No as the options. This makes it easier to record the results and easier to provide consistent forms for postal / email respondents.

Custom Forms - What We Can Do Comment

Custom forms are completely customisable. To have an overview of the different options available and an explanation of how they work, we have created a demonstration form for you to view. Click on the comment button next to the heading to begin viewing. 

If you would like to see an example form, you can also view our Call for Sites form in the next chapter.