Consultation on draft Statutory Guidance on the Delivery of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) Education in Scottish Schools.

Responding to this Consultation

You are invited to respond to this consultation by 23 November 2023.

Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government's consultation platform, Citizen Space, where you can view and respond to this consultation online. You can save and return to your response while the consultation is open. However, please ensure your response is submitted before the closing date noted above.

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

Handling your response

If you respond using Citizen Space, 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 be published.

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 If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.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

Next steps in the consultation process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, and after we have checked they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public through Citizen Space. If you use Citizen Space to respond, you will receive a copy of your response through e‑mail.

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:

Or by e‑mail to: personalandsocialeducation@gov.scot

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 the proposed area of work.

You can find all our consultations online at Citizen Space. Each consultation details the issues under consideration, as well as a way for you to give us your views, either online, by e‑mail 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.

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; or,
• be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented.

While details of particular circumstances described in the 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.