A Healthier Future: analysis of consultation responses

2. About the respondents and responses

2.1 This chapter provides information about the respondents to the consultation and the responses submitted.

Number of responses received

2.2 The consultation received 363 responses. This included one duplicate response submitted via the online hub and e-mail. After this duplicate response was removed, the analysis was based on 362 responses. ^[16]

About the respondents

2.3 Responses were submitted by 179 individuals and 183 organisations or groups. (See Table 2.1.) These figures do not include individuals who took part in a variety of engagement exercises organised by third parties (described below in paragraphs 2.7 and 2.8).

Table 2.1: Types of respondent

2.4 Many of the individual respondents to this consultation were public health professionals or academics with specialist knowledge of this subject.

2.5 A complete list of organisational respondents is provided at Annex 3 of this report. For the purposes of the analysis, organisational respondents were grouped into three categories as follows:

• Public health and third sector organisations and groups ^[17] (n=136)
• Private sector and business organisations and groups (n=37)
• Other organisational respondents (n=10).

2.6 The first category included third sector organisations; public health professional and representative groups; NHS organisations; local authorities and partnership bodies; organisations concerned with sport, fitness and play; and academic / research organisations. The second category included food and drink industry and business representative bodies; food and drink manufacturers; retailers; and advertising and media organisations. The third category comprised organisational respondents who did not fit into either of the first two categories. This group included five private sector weight management organisations. (See Table 2.2.)

Table 2.2: Organisation / group types

Engagement exercises

2.7 In addition to the responses received directly by the Scottish Government (described in the paragraphs above), four organisations carried out engagement exercises among specific stakeholder groups on behalf of the Scottish Government. The organisers, the nature of the engagement, and the participating groups are described in Box 2.1 below. Altogether, 632 people were reported to have participated in these exercises.

2.8 Summary findings from these exercises were submitted in separate reports and are incorporated into the qualitative analysis in this report, but are referred to only where they contributed distinctive, or new information / views. Copies of the reports from the engagement exercises are available from the Scottish Government. ^[18]

Box 2.1: Engagement exercises among stakeholder groups

Scottish Youth Parliament – held a focus group on 18 January 2018 with young people exploring their views and opinions in relation to diet and obesity. Topics of discussion included healthy eating, advertising, food promotions and ideas of how to improve diet and influence healthy eating choices. In addition, local consultations focusing on similar issues were carried out by Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament ( MSYPs). Altogether, 11 young people took part in the focus group and 34 additional responses were gathered by MSYPs.

Young Scot – hosted a focus group on 22 November 2017 with young people exploring their views and opinions around the topic of diet and obesity. In conjunction with this event, Young Scot also conducted a Diet, Activity and Healthy Weight Survey between 22 October 2017 and 21 January 2018. The survey included 19 questions which sought information about young people’s perceptions and experiences of a healthy lifestyle (including diet and physical activity), food promotions and ‘unhealthy’ food. Altogether, 15 young people took part in the focus group and the survey was completed by 308 young people in Scotland aged 11-25.

Food Standards Scotland – conducted a workshop on 7 December 2017 for local authority environmental health officers. The workshop programme included two introductory presentations and three themed workshops focused on: (i) the out of home food environment; (ii) the planning system and the food environment; and (iii) leadership and transforming the food environment. Altogether 55 representatives from 21 local authorities attended.

Scottish Public Health Network ( ScotPHN) – conducted a series of workshops attended by representatives from public health organisations – primarily from the public and third sectors. Four events were held in total, in Glasgow (6 December), Edinburgh (8 December), Inverness (10 January) and a ‘virtual event’ (11 January) which included mainly participants from rural NHS Boards. The workshops included introductory presentations, followed by two facilitated discussions. These focused on carrying out a SWOT analysis of certain aspects of the proposals set out in the consultation paper; and a discussion of how the proposals could be implemented at a local level. Altogether, 224 individuals attended these events.

Responses to individual questions

2.9 Not all respondents answered all the questions in the consultation questionnaire. In particular, private sector and business organisations mainly focused their comments on Questions 1 to 6, and did not respond (or did not respond in the same detail) to the remaining questions. At the same time, not all of the comments made at each question were necessarily directly relevant to the question being posed – some related to other consultation questions, or to other issues not covered by any of the questions in the consultation document.

2.10 Details of the number of respondents who made comments at each question are shown in Annex 4. However, given the point above, the figures shown in Annex 4 should be considered as indicative only and should not be seen as ‘response rates’ for the questions.

2.11 Responses to Question 14 (any other comments) generally reiterated points made earlier in the responses. Comments made at Question 14 have therefore been integrated throughout this report, and no separate analysis of this material is presented.