Analysis Of Responses To The Consultation On Draft Statutory Guidance For Parts 4, 5 & 18 (Section 96) Of The Children And Young People (Scotland) Act 2014

2 The Consultation Responses and Respondents

2.1 This section provides information about the respondents to the consultation.

Number of responses received

2.2 The consultation received 282 responses - 149 from organisations and 133 from individuals. (See Table 2.1.)

Table 2.1: Number of respondents

2.3 The majority of respondents (72%) submitted their response using the consultation questionnaire provided. However a significant minority of respondents (28%) provided free-text responses. These included short emails and handwritten letters, largely from individuals, as well as lengthy and detailed responses from organisations. For the purposes of analysis, material from free-text responses was assigned to individual consultation questions where this was possible. Any text that did not directly address one or more of the consultation questions was analysed separately.

2.4 Not all respondents answered all questions in the consultation. Most questions were answered by between a third and a half of all respondents, with organisational respondents generally more likely than individual respondents to directly address the questions. The questions that attracted most responses were Questions 1, 2, 7 and 23, all of which attracted comment from over half of the respondents.^[5] Full details of the numbers responding to individual questions are shown at Annex 1.

The respondents

2.5 Table 2.2 below provides a breakdown of the number and type of respondents who participated in the consultation. Organisational respondents included those with statutory duties in relation to the Act (local authorities, health organisations, partnership bodies and other national public sector bodies). In addition, approximately one-fifth of responses were from third sector organisations, including many that provide services to children and families.

2.6 A complete list of organisational respondents is included at Annex 2.

Table 2.2: Organisational respondents

* Other organisational respondents included: Faith organisations and groups, private sector organisations, and the Children's and Youth Parliaments.