GovWire

Calls for evidence

Government Digital Service

August 8
09:05 2023

Before you create a call for evidence, make sure that you are not carrying out (or required to carry out) a consultation. You may wish to refer to the Consultation Principles or speak to your legal advisers. There could be legal consequences if you create a call for evidence when you are carrying out a consultation.

If you need to publish a consultation, theres separate guidance on consultations

Call for evidence lifecycle

A call for evidence stays on the same page of GOV.UK throughout its lifecycle. The status starts as Open and changes to Closed on the closing date you specify. If you upload an outcome, it will change to Closed with outcome. The contact details will also disappear.

Create a call for evidence

  1. Select the New document tab and then select Call for evidence.

  2. Add a title and summary and enter some body copy of no more than 100 words which summarises the call for evidence.

  3. Enter the opening and closing dates.

  4. If the call for evidence is held on another website, select the box and enter the URL of the website.

  5. Under Ways to respond, add the contact details for public responses. If youre providing a downloadable response form, use the Downloadable response form title field and the Choose file button to add it here.

  6. The email address for ordering attachment files in an alternative format should automatically be your organisation. If this is not the case, select the correct organisation from the dropdown menu.

  7. If there are any ministers or topical events related to your call for evidence, use the drop down menu to assign ministers and topical events.

  8. Select the nations this call for evidence applies to. If it doesnt apply to a nation, select the country, then enter the URL of the corresponding content.

  9. The call for evidence will automatically be tagged to your organisation. If more organisations are involved you can tag them under Lead organisations and Supporting organisations.

  10. Schedule the publication for the opening date. Select the box next to Schedule for publication and enter the date in the boxes that appear.

  11. Select Save to go to the edition summary page, or Save and continue to add topic tagging. The attachments tab will not appear until you have saved the document.

  12. Select Edit draft to edit the document and add attachments.

Upload the call for evidence document

Upload the main call for evidence document, plus any relevant supporting documents using the following steps.

  1. Select the Attachments tab.
  2. Select Upload new file attachments.
  3. Enter the title of your document in the Title field.
  4. Select Choose file to upload your document.
  5. Select Save.
  6. Select the Document tab.
  7. Select Save and continue to assign topic taxonomy tags.
  8. If there are no specialist topic tags associated with the call for evidence, select Update tags. To assign specialist topic tags, select Update and review specialist topic tags.
  9. Select Submit for 2nd eyes. The editor reviewing the page will need to select Schedule in order for the consultation to go live at the scheduled time. If it has not been scheduled for publication, they will select Publish.

When the call for evidence reaches its closing date the status changes to Closed.

Uploading an outcome

You must save the summary before you can add attachments. Select the Outcome tab.

  1. Select the published date using the dropdown menu.
  2. Enter a short summary of the outcome in the summary field.
  3. Select Save.

Upload a file attachment

  1. Select Upload new file attachment link.
  2. Enter the title of your attachment in the title field.
  3. Select Choose file to select the attachment.
  4. Select Save.
  5. If you have multiple attachments, you can reorder them by selecting the Reorder attachments link.

Upload an HTML attachment

  1. Select Add new HTML attachment link.
  2. Enter the title of your page in the title field.
  3. Enter the body in the body field. You can use Markdown to format your text.
  4. Select the Preview button to check your formatting.
  5. Select Save.
  6. If you have multiple attachments, you can reorder them by selecting the Reorder attachments link.

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