Open Space Strategies and Play Sufficiency Assessments Regulations: consultation

Scottish Government Consultation Process

Consultation is an essential part of the policymaking process. It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion and expertise on a proposed area of work.

You can find all our consultations online: http://consult.gov.scot. Each consultation details the issues under consideration, as well as a way for you to give us your views, either online, by email or by post.

Responses will be analysed and used as part of the decision making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence. We will publish a report of this analysis for every consultation. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:

• indicate the need for policy development or review
• inform the development of a particular policy
• help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals
• be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented

While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body.

Responding to this Consultation

We are inviting responses to this consultation by 31 March 2022. Please ensure that consultation responses are submitted before the closing date.

Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government's consultation hub, Citizen Space. Access and respond to this consultation online.

You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open.

If you are unable to respond using our consultation hub, please complete the Respondent Information Form and send to: OSSPSAconsultation@gov.scot or

Handling your response

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

If you respond using the consultation hub, you will be directed to the About You page before submitting your response. Please indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are content for your response to be published. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete and return the Respondent Information Form included in this document. (see supporting documents)

To find out how we handle your personal data, please see our privacy policy.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, and after we have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public at Citizen Space. If you use the consultation hub to respond, you will receive a copy of your response via email.

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help us finalise the regulations. Responses will be published where we have been given permission to do so. An analysis report will also be made available.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to the contact address above or at chief.planner@gov.scot.

Consultation to date, and planned

In developing these proposals, the Scottish Government has engaged with stakeholders from across Scotland to understand their views, experiences and thoughts around open space and play opportunities. This collaborative, open stakeholder engagement has been used to shape the provisions in the Draft Regulations and also highlighted points stakeholders would like covered in future guidance.

Core group

In developing these draft proposals on Open Space Strategies (OSS) and Play Sufficiency Assessments (PSA), we have worked closely with a Core Group, consisting of representatives from Greenspace Scotland, Play Scotland, NatureScot and Public Health Scotland.

Working Group

A joint OSSPSA working group, with a range of stakeholders with interests in open space and play, has been convened as a sounding board in preparing the proposals for both sets of Regulations. Members of the Working Group have also taken part in further focussed sessions or breakout workshops to discuss and advise on particular aspects.

Local authorities

Local authorities and Heads of Planning Scotland (HOPS) are represented on the Working Group, via two nominated authorities, offering valuable insights. Additionally, working through the Improvement Service and HOPS, we contacted every local authority in Scotland - and presentations and interactive workshops sessions took place. To date 66 local authority contacts have been involved in our various discussions.

Children and young people

Alongside this public consultation, we intend to specifically engage to seek the views of children and young people from across Scotland. We have been working with Play Scotland and A Place in Childhood to develop an engagement plan. Tailored questionnaires suitable for children and young people will be used to engage either online or in facilitated workshop sessions. We want to gather feedback from a wide range of children and young people representative of those from different age groups, backgrounds, different parts of the country, as well as engaging with groups working with children and young people with additional support needs, and those who are refugees/asylum seekers, LGBTQ, and young carers

We are grateful to the inputs from all those we have spoken to, and thanks go to all those involved to-date.