Onshore unconventional oil and gas in Scotland: analysis of responses to consultations

2. About the responses and respondents

2.1 This chapter presents information about (i) the types of responses received by the consultation, and (ii) the consultation respondents.

Number and type of responses received

2.2 Altogether, 2,577 responses were received to the consultation. These comprised:

• 181 responses submitted on the Scottish Government's online response form
• 15 responses submitted by email, post or other route (including relevant correspondence sent to the First Minister's office)
• 2,381 campaign responses (see below, paragraph 2.6)

2.3 The 2,381 campaign responses comprised 2,243 'standard' campaign responses (i.e. responses which reproduced the exact text suggested by the campaign) (94% of all campaign responses), and 138 'non-standard' campaign responses (i.e. responses for which the respondent personalised the text suggested by the campaign in some way) (6% of all campaign responses). For the purposes of the analysis, these non-standard campaign responses have been classified as 'substantive' responses and included in the main analysis database with all the other individual responses received.

2.4 Altogether, therefore, 334 substantive consultation responses were received (181 online responses + 15 email or post responses + 138 non-standard campaign responses).

2.5 Of these 334 responses, five were removed because the respondents (all individuals) had each submitted two responses to the consultation. In one of these five cases the second response was an exact duplicate of the first response; in the remaining four cases the individuals submitted two different responses. The duplicate response was removed, and in the other four cases the two responses were combined to form a single composite response. This aspect of the 'data cleaning' resulted in a final total of 329 substantive responses. Thus, the analysis was based on 2,572 responses, comprising 329 substantive responses and 2,243 standard campaign responses. (See Table 2.1 below.)

Table 2.1: Responses received, responses removed, and responses included in the analysis

Campaign responses

2.6 The campaign group Friends of the Earth Scotland (FoES) provided a standardised text for their supporters to submit to the First Minister via the FoES website. This was not explicitly advertised as a response to the consultation; as a result, the standard campaign text did not directly address the consultation questions, but instead it called for legislation to be brought forward to "ban fracking in Scotland". Completion of an online response resulted in a respondent's comments being sent by email to the Scottish Government. Respondents could simply add their name and contact details to the standard response, and then send their message. Such responses are referred to in this report as 'standard campaign responses', as noted above. Alternatively, respondents could edit the standard campaign text or add their own comments. Again, as noted above, these personalised responses, submitted via the campaign, are referred to in this report as 'non-standard campaign responses'.

2.7 Any comments made in non-standard campaign responses which addressed specific consultation questions have been analysed together with other comments submitted in relation to the respective questions.

2.8 Annex 1 contains the full text of the FoES campaign response.

The respondents (substantive responses only)

2.9 Respondents were asked to specify whether they were submitting their response as an individual, or on behalf of an organisation or group. Most respondents (287; 87%) were individuals. (See Table 2.3.)

Table 2.3: Types of respondent

2.10 Table 2.4 provides information about the types of organisations that responded to the consultation. The two largest groups of organisational respondents were community councils (29%) and other community groups (also 29%). Together, these two groups comprised nearly three-fifths of the organisational responses. Responses were also received from public bodies (including local authorities and regulatory bodies) (21%); third sector organisations / non-governmental organisations (7%); and business / industry respondents (7%). A final group of 'other organisations' (7%) included a Facebook group, a UK-wide campaign group, and a university research group.

2.11 Note that the public bodies included three organisations that are statutory consultees for Strategic Environmental Assessments. These are Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and Historic Environment Scotland (HES).

Table 2.4: Types of organisational respondents

* Note that one community council response was signed by 34 community councils.

** 'Other' organisations comprised a Facebook group, a UK-wide campaign group, and a university research group.

2.12 See Annex 2 for a full list of organisational / group respondents.

Responses to individual questions (substantive responses only)

2.13 As has been indicated above, there were 329 substantive responses included in the main analysis database. However, only around half of the respondents (between 47% and 55%) answered each of the individual consultation questions. The reason for this relatively low response rate across all questions is that respondents who submitted non-standard campaign responses did not, in general, provide question-specific comments.

2.14 Annex 3 provides details of the response rates for each of the consultation questions.