How ConsultAI helps you meet Statutory consultation requirements

From Local Plans to parking strategies, public consultations come with strict rules on how feedback is gathered, considered, and reported. As the interest in using AI on consultations is growing, councils are asking important questions:

Can we use AI responsibly? Will it help or hinder public trust? And can it support us in meeting our statutory consultation obligations?

For consultation teams, these questions matter — because the bar for legal compliance, transparency, and public scrutiny is high.

Here’s how ConsultAI helps you meet that bar with confidence.

What are the statutory requirements for consultation?

The most widely accepted legal standard is the Gunning Principles, which originated in a 1985 High Court ruling (R v Brent LBC ex parte Gunning). These four principles remain the basis by which the fairness and legality of consultations are judged, particularly in the case of judicial review:

“To be proper, consultation must be undertaken at a time when proposals are

still at a formative stage; it must include sufficient reasons for particular

proposals to allow those consulted to give intelligent consideration and an

intelligent response; adequate time must be given for this purpose; and the

product of consultation must be conscientiously taken into account when the

ultimate decision is taken.” 

How ConsultAI helps councils meet the Gunning Principles

Principle #1:  Consultation undertaken at formative stage

We often speak with council teams who are worried about the time it will take to read through all the responses to a planned consultation, and the time it will take to adjust their plans according to the feedback. It typically takes a long time to develop and get sign off on their consultation materials, even leaving some teams looking to shorten the consultation period. By accelerating the analysis stage, ConsultAI frees up weeks of time in the calendar, allowing teams to run the consultation at the right stage, gather insight while proposals are open to influence, and respond meaningfully before decisions are made.

Principle #2: Sufficient information for intelligent consideration

For multi-staged projects like Local Plans and NSIPs, clear reports on ‘You said, we did’ are essential for consultees to consider before the next consultation. ConsultAI produces consistent, high quality, accurate and unbiased reports of consultation feedback, making it easier for council teams to provide the information back to the public and other consultees for consideration.

Principle #3: Adequate time for consideration and response

ConsultAI reduces the pressure to shorten consultations due to tight reporting timelines. By cutting down analysis time from weeks to hours, councils can even keep consultations open longer, knowing they’ll still meet internal or statutory deadlines.

Principle #4: Responses conscientiously taken into account

This is where ConsultAI can add the most value. It processes every response, including free text and uploaded documents, and provides structured outputs with full traceability to the original comment. This means no issue is missed. But it doesn’t aim to replace the need to read each comment; instead, its user-friendly interface makes it easier to read and digest comments grouped by category (instead of reviewing spreadsheets like most teams currently do). Officers can clearly demonstrate that all views were considered, and show their work if challenged.

What about Regulation 18/19 and planning inspectors?

The reports in the platform have been designed in collaboration with local authority teams, aligning with reporting needs for these types of statutory consultations. But ConsultAI isn’t just theoretically compliant, it’s already proven.

ConsultAI’s reports are the first and only to have been accepted by the Planning Inspectorate as part of Regulation 19 submissions. That’s a UK first for AI in consultation reporting.

When AI is used responsibly it can support statutory consultation processes, and - while yet to be proven in the courts - could even reduce legal risk by improving consistency, traceability, and auditability. We’ve heard how staff turnover hinders councils’ ability to 

The risk isn’t using AI; it’s not considering it

Local authorities are under growing pressure to do more with less:

• Response volumes are growing

• Expectations for transparency are rising

• Timeframes are tightening

Manual analysis of consultation responses is no longer scalable. AI offers a practical, proven way to reduce the burden, while improving the quality of evidence and reporting.

As Hannah Gooden, Planning Policy Team Leader at Sevenoaks District Council, told us:

"Meeting our report deadlines would not have been possible without the use of ConsultAI."

Being transparent about AI use

Some councils are still forming their approach to AI. If that’s you, you’re not alone, and now is a great time to engage in the evolving field and learn from those who’ve battle-tested their approach.

Transparency is key to maintaining public trust and legal defensibility. We recommend that all councils and consultation teams openly declare the use of AI in their reporting. Doing so demonstrates integrity, reinforces your control over the final outputs, and aligns with the principles of responsible, explainable AI.

Here’s an example statement you can include in your reports:

“This report was produced with assistance from The Future Fox’s ConsultAI software, which classifies and summarises consultation responses. This helped us rapidly analyse large volumes of feedback, save significant resources, and meet tight timescales in order to progress the project. We reviewed and validated the AI-generated insights, and the final interpretations and decisions remain ours. We ensured that personal data was protected and never used to train AI models or retained by third parties.”

This approach is in line with our Responsible AI Policy, which emphasises human oversight, transparency, and data privacy.

Share your views

This is an evolving field, and every team’s starting point is different. What would give you confidence to adopt AI in your consultation process?

We bring together local authority AI users to discuss these issues - including policy, procurement and safeguards - so we help can share best practise. Join us for the next roundtable or get in touch to discuss.

Want to see how it works on your data? [Book a demo] or [join the next roundtable].