Consultation that is real and evidenced

Who was consulted, what they said, and what changed as a result.

Consultation requirements exist in most accreditation frameworks and are commonly satisfied by a meeting, a list of attendees and a statement that the course was supported. That demonstrates that consultation occurred and not that it influenced anything.

The evidence that carries weight shows the loop closing: this is what was said, this is what we changed, and here is the version before and after. That demonstrates the course was shaped by the people who will employ the graduates, which is the point of the requirement.

It also protects against a particular failure, which is consulting people who agree. A consultation record in which every participant endorsed everything suggests either a remarkable design or a process that did not invite disagreement. A record containing objections that were addressed is more credible.

Keep the records contemporaneously. Reconstructing a consultation history afterwards is both difficult and, if the records are presented as contemporaneous when they are not, a much more serious matter than a thin consultation would have been.

It is worth adding that consultation records should identify participants by role rather than only by name and organisation. An assessor reading a list of attendees cannot tell whether the people consulted actually employ graduates or supervise the work, and recording that turns a list of names into evidence about whether the right people were in the room.