Consultation on the Fair Isle Demonstration and Research MPA Proposal

Appendix A - How to Respond to The Consultation

Responding to this Consultation

We are inviting responses to this consultation by 26 May 2016.

Please respond to this consultation online via Citizen Space at
https://consult.scotland.gov.uk/marine-conservation/fair-isle-demonstration-and-research .

You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open. Please ensure that consultation responses are submitted before the close date.

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

Marine_Conservation@gov.scot

Or by post to:

Handling your response

If you respond using Citizen Space, you will be automatically directed to the Respondent Information Form at the start of the questionnaire. This will let us know what we need to know on how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public.

If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete and return the Respondent Information Form attached to the end of this document as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.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, they will be published 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.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to the Marine Conservation mailbox or phone on 0131 244 5301.

Scottish Government consultation process

Typically Scottish Government consultations involve a written paper inviting answers to specific questions or more general views about the material presented. Written papers are distributed to organisations and individuals with an interest in the issue, and they are also placed on the Scottish Government web site enabling a wider audience to access the paper and submit their responses.

Consultation is an essential part the policy making process. It gives us the opportunity to get 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 ( http://ideas.scotland.gov.uk).

After a consultation is closed we publish all responses where we have been given permission to do so.

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.