Create Better Consultation Documents
Your community deserves consultation documents that are clear, well-structured and focused on the questions that actually matter. This hands-on training gives you a proven set of AI tools so you can produce higher-quality documents in less time.
Who this training is for
This training is for council staff who need to prepare any type of consultation document – with variations on these tools available for staff preparing a Long-Term Plan.
You don’t need to be experienced with AI. The tools are designed as guided conversations, to help you organise and express your thinking clearly. The judgment and subject matter expertise is all yours.
What the training involves
This is a practical workshop where you’ll learn to use four AI tools that follow the natural sequence of building a consultation document. You’ll work through real scenarios from your own projects, so the training produces outputs you can use straight away.
I’ll demonstrate each prompt using a worked example, and then guide you as you apply them to your own topics. By the end, you’ll have a repeatable workflow you can use for any consultation document you need to prepare.
About the tools
Tool 1: Clarify the issues and options
You’ll learn to articulate exactly what you’re consulting on in language your readers will understand. This tool helps you define the core issues, identify viable options and make sure you’ve considered the full range of alternatives before going public.
Getting the options right at the start shapes everything that follows. Rather than drafting background content and hoping the consultation questions emerge from it, you begin with the central decisions and build outward. This approach produces documents that are more focused and more useful to your community.
Tool 2: Develop the structure and outline
With your issues and options defined, this tool helps you create the framework for your consultation document. You can apply the structure of an existing document, or build a new structure from scratch. Either way, you’ll end up with a detailed outline to guide your writing.
Prompt 3: Apply best practice to your draft
Once you have a draft, this tool provides specific feedback on how to improve it. It looks at how clearly the options are presented, whether the background information supports the decisions readers need to make, and where visual elements like comparison tables or diagrams could help.
Prompt 4: Develop feedback questions
Good consultation questions go well beyond “do you support this proposal?” This prompt helps you craft questions that invite meaningful, specific responses, giving your council genuinely useful feedback to inform its decisions.
LTP consultation documents
Long Term Plan consultation documents are among the highest-stakes documents a council produces. They need to present significant issues clearly, lay out genuine options and ask the right questions, all in a format that’s concise enough for your community to engage with.
The Auditor-General has consistently found that many councils miss the opportunity to engage effectively through these documents. Common issues include unclear consultation questions, poor separation of background information from the actual issues being consulted on, and a lack of focus on what the council genuinely needs feedback on.
I have developed four LTP Consultation Documents tools for staff to use as a variation of the training described above, which reflect Audit NZ advice and best practice examples of LTPs.
For more on what makes an effective LTP consultation document, see my blog post on Audit New Zealand’s advice on LTP consultation documents and community engagement.
What you walk away with
After this training, you will have a set of tools you can use immediately for your next consultation document, whether that’s an LTP document, a statement of proposal for a bylaw review, or an informal consultation on a local issue.
You’ll also have a reliable, repeatable process for development of consultation documents. Each tool builds on the one before it, creating a logical workflow that produces consistently well-structured documents.
How the training works
The workshop is designed for groups of up to 10 people.
You choose what topic you want to develop a consultation document for, so that the training is directly relevant and produces useful outputs from the start.
I then demonstrate each of the four prompts using a worked example, then you practise applying it to your scenario.
The session runs for approximately two hours. I’ll provide the tools on a password-protected website page that you can continue to access after the training.
About me
I spent nearly 20 years in policy and planning roles at Nelson City Council, where I wrote consultation documents, summarised and analysed thousands of submissions, and prepared deliberations reports across topics including waste minimisation, climate change, freshwater management and bylaws.
I founded Writing for Councils in 2014 and have since helped councils around New Zealand write a broad range of documents, including consultation documents for Long Term Plan processes.
You can read more about how the tools work in practice in my blog post on creating better consultation documents by starting with the options.
Frequently asked questions
What types of consultation documents does this cover?
The tools work for any type of consultation document, from informal community consultations through to statements of proposal for bylaw processes and LTP consultation documents. The workflow is the same regardless of the formality of the document: clarify the issues and options, build a structure, improve the draft, and develop strong feedback questions.
How many people can attend?
Up to 10 people per workshop, to make sure everyone gets hands-on practice and individual guidance during the session.
Do we need to prepare anything before the workshop?
You’ll get the most out of this training if you come along with a real-life topic to work on during the training.
What if my manager has concerns about using third-party AI tools to develop council documents?
I will not be asking you to upload any sensitive or personal information to the Pickaxe platform. Any sensitive details can be added to your consultation document in Word after you’ve finished using the tools to develop your structure and draft.
However, we can also discuss adapting the tools as prompts for use in Copilot if you prefer.
Can this training help with community engagement planning as well?
I also offer training on community engagement planning, which covers the broader strategy for how you’ll engage with your community on a particular issue.
Related reading
Create better consultation documents by starting with the options – A case study showing how the consultation document methodology works in practice, using a fictional kerbside food waste collection scenario.
Ideas for your next consultation document – Practical ideas sourced from nine of the best LTP consultation documents, as judged in the Taituarā Great Consultation Documents Competition.
Ready to create a consultation document?
Get in touch to discuss how this workshop could work for you if you’re preparing for an LTP consultation process, working on a bylaw review, or have another type of consultation document to create.
Email: debra.bradley@writingforcouncils.co.nz
Phone: 021 215 4698
