Guidance on consultation has been given in case law. The essence of a consultation exercise is the communication of a genuine invitation to the consulted body to give advice, and a genuine receipt of that advice by the consulting body, at time when proposals are still in their formative stage; accordingly, for there to be sufficient consultation, there must be provided to the consultees sufficient information to enable them to consider the proposals intelligently and to tender an intelligent response or helpful advice, in sufficient time for them to do so, and in sufficient time for the product of consultation to be taken into account before reaching the relevant decision.