Consultation on a draft Referendum Bill

4 How to Comment

• This consultation is your opportunity to shape the referendum on Scotland's constitutional future. Responses should be made by Wednesday January 11th 2017.
• It would be helpful to have your response by email or using the electronic response form. The electronic response form can be accessed at the following website address: https://consult.scotland.gov.uk. You can also email your response to the mailbox below.
• We are, of course, happy to receive written submissions too.

Responding to this Consultation

We are inviting responses to this consultation by 11 ^th January 2017.

Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government's consultation platform, Citizen Space. You view and respond to this consultation online at https://consult.scotland.gov.uk/elections-and-constitutional-development-division/draft-referendum-bill/. You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open. Please ensure that consultation responses are submitted before the closing date of 11 ^th January 2017.

If you are unable to respond online, please complete the Respondent Information Form (see "Handling your Response" below) to:

Referendum Consultation
Elections Team
Area 2 West
St Andrew's House
Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG

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 included in this document. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.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.

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 http://consult.scotland.gov.uk. If you use Citizen Space 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. Responses will be published where we have been given permission to do so.

Comments and complaints

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

Referendum Consultation
Elections Team
Area 2 West
St Andrew's House
Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG

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
• 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.