Climate Change Bill: consultation

Annex C: Responding to this consultation

We are inviting responses to this consultation by 22 September 2017.

Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government's consultation platform, Citizen Space, at: https://consult.scotland.gov.uk/energy-and-climate-change-directorate/climate-change-bill-consultation. You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open.

It would be most helpful to have your response through Citizen Space. Alternatively, you can email your response to CCBill@gov.scot or send a hard copy to:

Climate Change Bill Consultation
Scottish Government
3J South
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ

Handling your response

If you respond using Citizen Space ( http://consult.scotland.gov.uk/), you will be directed to the Respondent Information Form. Please indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to published.

If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete and return the Respondent Information Form together with your response. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

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.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to:

Climate Change Bill Consultation
Scottish Government
3J South
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ

Scottish Government consultation process

Consultation is an essential part of the policy-making 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.scotland.gov.uk. 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.

Consultations may involve seeking views in a number of different ways, such as public meetings, focus groups, or other online methods such as Dialogue ( https://www.ideas.gov.scot).

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; and
• 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.

Next steps

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 http://consult.scotland.gov.uk. If you use Citizen Space to respond, you will receive a copy of your response via email.

The Scottish Government will review responses to the consultation and the issues raised during engagement with stakeholders to inform the design of the Climate Change Bill. A summary of the consultation responses received will be made available on the Scottish Government website, and a Scottish Government response will be published, by the end of 2017.