You've been invited to a conversation.

The conversation is run on behalf of the authority named in your invitation, to understand the market before any procurement decisions are made. Nothing you say is scored, and it does not affect any current or future bid.

The council sees a written transcript and, if you choose to talk, a recording. Quotes in the council's report are anonymised and never name a company or a person. You can mark any answer confidential so that it is not quoted at all. You can stop at any time.

About fifteen minutes, by voice or by typing, whichever you prefer. You can switch between the two part way through.

An AI interviewer works through the council's questions and asks a follow-up where something is interesting. There is no form and no scoring rubric. If you would rather come back to a question, say so. If you need to stop, use the same link to pick up where you left off.

• Nothing you say is scored or graded.
• Nothing confidential is disclosed to you, and anything you mark confidential is never quoted.
• If you are quoted, it is anonymous: your role and company size, never your name.
• You are never paid to take part, and taking part never affects a bid.

Recordings and transcripts are kept for the period the council sets — between six and sixty months — and are then deleted. The exact figure is in the disclosure you are shown before the conversation starts.

You can ask for your recording to be deleted sooner, and you can change what you agreed to at the end of the conversation. Every email we send on a council's behalf carries an unsubscribe link, and it works without signing in.

An invitation reaches you in one of two ways, and both are normal. Some councils send from their own web address, such as procurement@engage.council.gov.uk: the sender is the council's own name and domain, and Soundings sends it for them. Others are sent by Soundings on the council's behalf, so the council's name shows as the sender but the address behind it is ours. Either way the email says at the foot of it that it was sent through Soundings. Here is how to check the rest.

• Every link in the email starts with https://runsoundings.com/ — check it by hovering over the button before you click it. If a link goes anywhere else, it is not from us.
• If the sender is not the council's own web address, it is invitations@runsoundings.com, shown as “[your council] via Soundings”. If it is the council's own address, the domain after the @ is the council's: ring the council on a number you already have if you want to be sure.
• Nothing we send ever asks for a password, a bank detail, an invoice or a document, and there is no attachment.
• If anything looks wrong, forward it to support@astario.co.uk and we will confirm whether it came from us. You can also ring the council named in the email and ask.