Civil servants have been urged by ministers to use less jargon when they ask the public for views on government policy.
The latest government consultation principles were published by Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin this week, and they call for consultation exercises to be "clear and concise", use "plain English" and avoid acronyms.
The new document, which updates guidance first issued in 2012, tells civil servants: "Be clear what questions you are asking and limit the number of questions to those that are necessary. Make them easy to understand and easy to answer. Avoid lengthy documents when possible and consider merging those on related topics."
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It also calls on officials to ensure that consultations "have a purpose", adding: "Do not consult for the sake of it".
"Ask departmental lawyers whether you have a legal duty to consult. Take consultation responses into account when taking policy forward. Consult about policies or implementation plans when the development of the policies or plans is at a formative stage. Do not ask questions about issues on which you already have a final view."
In addition, the new guidance encourages civil servants to make consultation responses easier to find on GOV.UK, the official government website, and warns against consulting "too quickly" which it says will "not give enough time for consideration and will reduce the quality of responses".
The 2012 overhaul of the rules governing consultations scrapped a previous 12-week minimum duration – replacing it with a voluntary two-week minimum, and allowing departments to decide whether or not to consult on policy proposals.
According to GOV.UK, the government is currently consulting on 96 different policy proposals. Although the consultation process is well-established in the civil service, campaigners sometimes accuse departments of using them as a "box-ticking" exercise to give the impression of seeking views on areas of policy that have, in reality, been decided in advance.
Launching the revised guidance, Letwin said the document demonstrated the government's "desire to engage more effectively with the public", and end "consultation fatigue".
He said: "We will use more digital methods to involve a wider group of consultees at an earlier stage in the policy forming process. We will make it easier for the public to contribute and feed in their views, and we will try harder to use clear language and plain English in consultation documents.
"We will also reduce the risk of 'consultation fatigue' by making sure that we consult only on issues that are genuinely undecided."
The move follows David Cameron's launch of a prize for "clarity" at the most recent Civil Service Awards, with officials urged by the prime minister to make communcations with the public "human, clear, simple, helpful and professional".