Case studies / 03
Over 500 public submissions on the Local Government White Paper, each claim linked to its source
We built the evidence base behind the review of the White Paper on Local Government: every public submission coded into claims and themes, synthesised for the drafting team, and tracked through consultation.
- Client
- Specialist drafting team working for COGTA
- For
- COGTA, White Paper on Local Government review
- Period
- Mid-2025 to August 2026
- Our role
- Evidence and synthesis subcontractor
- Service
- Data System Build, delivered as a subcontractor
- Status
- Our work complete. White Paper in final edits
The problem
Two rounds of public submissions came in, each with more than 250 responses, from individuals, community organisations, non-profits, political parties, government departments, municipalities and specialists. Some were a paragraph. Others were long and technical, repeated points made elsewhere, or were politically sensitive.
The drafting team needed to know what people had said, how often, and by whom, and to be able to show it later. In a public process, a theme in the White Paper has to be traceable back to the submissions behind it.
What we did
Every submission entered one controlled intake, with metadata, duplicate checks and status tracking. Each was broken into individual claims, coded to a shared set of themes, with the quote and its location recorded against it.
From that database we produced the synthesis and thematic reports, and compared public submissions with specialist input. An evidence assistant let drafters retrieve and compare material while writing. When the draft went out for comment, review comments were coded into their own database, so feedback stayed connected to the evidence instead of disappearing into tracked changes.
AI supported retrieval and comparison on approved source material. Policy decisions stayed with the drafting team.
What we built
- Controlled intake for mixed-format submissions
- A claims database with themes, quotes and source locations
- A 100-page integrated synthesis
- 11 thematic reports
- Comparison views of public and specialist input
- An evidence assistant for drafting
- A coded review-comments database for the consultation phase
The work in figures
- 2 rounds of public submissions, more than 250 in each
- 100 page integrated synthesis
- 11 thematic reports
What changed
Submissions, synthesis, drafting and consultation comments sat in one linked record for the life of the process. Any theme could be followed back to the submissions that formed it.
Limits
We handled the evidence. Policy positions and final drafting were the responsibility of the specialist team and the department.