Scottish Languages Bill - Gaelic and Scots commitments: consultation analysis

Introduction

1.1 Overview

This report presents an analysis of the public consultation initiated by the Scottish Government. The consultation process facilitated through Citizen Space explores four significant commitments the Scottish Government has made to promote the Gaelic and Scots languages. These commitments are:

• to establish a new strategic approach to Gaelic Medium Education
• to explore the creation of a Gàidhealtachd
• to review the structure and functions of Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and
• to support the Scots language.

The commitment to a Scottish Languages Bill is the legislative vehicle to enable progress with these commitments where changes require primary legislation. The consultation asked 13 open-ended questions. The consultation remained open from 24 August to 8 December 2022. Respondents included the following; Pre School sector and users, school parents, pupils and staff (across nursery, primary and secondary sectors), staff and students in other educational establishments including the tertiary sector, stakeholder groups (such as trade unions, local government, parent groups, etc.), think tanks and academics active in Gaelic research and Scots, Bòrd na Gàidhlig and organisations which receive funded through Bòrd na Gàidhlig, members of the Gaelic speaking communities in rural and urban areas with views on how the language should be further used and protected, Scots language bodies and other members of the public.

For all consultation questions, some responses were more detailed and descriptive than others. This report explores the qualitative findings for the four commitments and all thirteen questions. A total of 750 responses were received via Citizen Space. In this initial analysis, we provide the figures on the respondent category, number of responses received for each question, most common responses, and descriptive analysis using respondent quotations.

1.2 Methodology

We began our analysis with data cleaning. The responses were gathered from Citizen Space and directly used in the form of an Excel database. We excluded blank, incomplete, or duplicate responses from our database in our first data review.

For the analysis, we exported the database to our analysis tool, Dovetail App and categorised the data using codes for the responses. Responses for each question were carefully reviewed and assigned a code for its meaning. We grouped the codes for each question and reviewed all 750 responses. We have identified the most common themes and less common themes separately. In the qualitative insights section, we used direct quotations from respondents to add more depth for the reader.

To ensure quality control, two researchers from our team cross-checked the responses to ensure that the categories and codes reflected the critical points that a response was reflecting. Finally, we must highlight that we have attempted to conduct this analysis objectively and rigorously. None of the responses mentioned below reflects any of the researchers’ opinions. We have remained impartial and unbiased throughout this analysis.

1.3 Report Structure

The analysis below depicts the variations in the answers received from respondents for each question. There was repetition and duplication in some responses for all questions. The descriptions of the findings in Section 2 (Consultation Findings) categorise the responses in the following ways:

• Most common themes: These responses have a high frequency of more than or equal to 50. These themes may include a mixture of responses from all questions within the larger thematic categories of Gaelic Medium Education, Gàidhealtachd, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and Scots Language.
• Less common themes: These responses have a low frequency or were occasionally mentioned. These may range between 1 to 50.

In Section 3, we have included the feedback received on the consultation process and the Citizen Space platform. At the end of the report, graphs included as annexes visually show the frequency of major themes and tags identified during the analysis. For each thematic area, i.e. Gaelic Medium Education, Gàidhealtachd, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and Scots Language, graphs demonstrate the frequency of specified tags based on all questions under the respective theme.

1.4 Terms of Reference

The terms, ‘Gaelic’ and ‘Scots’, refer to languages spoken in Scotland. For the purpose of this report, Scots is being referred to as ‘Scots Language’ to ensure linguistic coherence (as taken forward from the consultation form/questions). As highlighted in the introduction above and analysis below, the Scottish Government aims to strengthen both Gaelic and Scots languages in Scotland through the Scottish Languages Bill – with a focus on increasing the number of people learning, speaking and using these languages in Scotland.