Islands Bond: consultation responses analysis

3. Structure of the report

3.1 Before going on to present the findings from the consultation, this chapter provides an overview of the main themes which arose repeatedly, in response to nearly every question – and especially in response to Questions 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6. ^[7]

Question 1: What are your initial thoughts on the proposed criteria of the Islands Bond?

Question 3: If you are a resident of an island, what do you think are the most significant population challenges in your area and why?

Question 4: If you are a resident of an island, are there any particular demographics under-represented in your area that you think the Islands Bond should target? [Multiple options given]

Please set out your reasons.

Question 5: What do you think should be the priority focus for the Islands Bond? (please select one of the options below):

• Population Growth (encouraging migration to islands)
• Population Retention (supporting existing community to remain)
• Both
• Other

Question 6: What additional capital investment through the Islands Bond would most influence people's decisions to stay in or more to island communities?

3.2 These five questions focused on slightly different issues; however, respondents often made similar points in response to all of them. Thus, given the repetitive nature of the responses, this report does not present the findings of the analysis on a question-by-question basis for these five questions in the consultation. Instead, Chapters 4 to 9 discuss the main recurring themes from the comments made across this set of questions. These themes were as follows:

• Population challenges in island communities (Chapter 4)
• Overall views on the Islands Bond (Chapter 5)
• Priority focus: retention or growth? (Chapter 6)
• Demographic targeting (Chapter 7)
• Bond value, allowable expenditure and conditions (Chapter 8)
• Decision-making processes (Chapter 9).

3.3 Chapters 10, 11 and 12 then present a question-by-question analysis of the responses to Questions 7 to 11, as follows:

• Chapter 10 discusses views about the need for an advisory service linked to the Islands Bond scheme (covering Questions 7–9).
• Chapter 11 summarises respondents' comments about the potential equality impacts of the scheme (covering Question 10).
• Chapter 12 discusses respondents' suggestions about how to measure the overall impact and progress of the scheme (covering Question 11).

3.4 The last chapter of the report (Chapter 13) covers respondents' views – expressed across all questions – about possible alternatives to the Islands Bond.

3.5 Note that the final question in the consultation (Question 12) asked respondents if they had any other comments. Most of the comments in response to this question simply repeated or reiterated issues already discussed at earlier questions. As such, there is no separate analysis of the comments made at this question.

3.6 Finally, the report includes three annexes as follows:

• Annex 1 contains information on engagement sessions run by the Scottish Government.
• Annex 2 contains a list of the organisational respondents to the consultation.
• Annex 3 contains a table showing the response rates for individual questions.