Managing Deer for Climate and Nature: Analysis of consultation responses

2 Description of the responses and respondents

2.1 This chapter provides information about the responses and the respondents.

Number of responses received, and number included in the analysis

2.2 Altogether, the consultation received 1,632 responses. Of these, the vast majority – 1,592 – were submitted through Citizen Space, the Scottish Government’s online consultation platform; the remaining 40 responses were sent by email.

2.3 A review of the responses identified one completely blank online response. This response was removed from the consultation database. In addition, 26 respondents submitted two responses to the consultation. In some cases, these respondents submitted one online response and a second response by email with supplementary comments. In these cases, comments from the second response were copied into the online response and the second response was removed from the database. In other cases, the respondent submitted two different online responses. In these cases, comments from the earlier response were combined into the later response, and the earlier response was removed from the consultation database. If there were differences in the answers to the closed questions across the two responses, the answers to the closed questions from the later response were retained. This process resulted in the removal of a further 26 responses.

2.4 Thus, the analysis presented in this report is based on 1,605 responses (Table 2.1).

Description of the respondents

2.5 Responses were received from 107 organisations and 1,498 individuals (Table 2.2).

2.6 Table 2.3 shows a breakdown of the organisational respondents by organisation type. The table shows that there were three main types of organisational respondent:

• Land management, estates and farming organisations – These comprised 29% of organisational respondents and included a range of rural estates, estate and land management organisations, and their representative bodies. This group also included farms (including farms involved in rewilding projects) and organisations representing farmers and crofters.
• Conservation, nature and environment organisations – These comprised just over a quarter (27%) of organisational respondents and included small community groups, large non-governmental organisations and charities at a local, regional and national level. The focus of organisations in this group was on conservation of species and landscapes, environmental protection, improving biodiversity, tree planting, and climate issues.
• Deer management groups and deer services – These comprised 12% of organisational respondents, and included regional deer management groups, and individuals/organisations that provide deer stalking and other deer-related services.

2.7 Smaller groups of organisational respondents included public bodies (8%), animal welfare organisations (7%), countryside sporting organisations (7%), and food sector organisations (4%). A final group, comprising 7% of organisational respondents, did not fit into any of the other groups and are referred to as ‘other organisation types’.

* Other organisation types comprised two universities, two organisations with responsibility for fisheries management, an organisation representing walkers in Scotland, a private investment fund, and an organisation representing members of the legal profession.

Percentages may not total 100% due to rounding.

2.8 A complete list of organisational respondents is shown in Annex 2.

2.9 To simplify the presentation of the findings and improve the accessibility of the report, the eight organisational categories shown in Table 2.3 were grouped into three categories based on the similarity of their roles and perspectives on the topics addressed by the consultation (see Table 2.4). This simplified classification is used in the tables throughout the remainder of this report. However, the views of sub-groups within this broader classification (i.e. deer management groups, food sector groups, etc.) are referred to, where appropriate, in the qualitative analysis. In addition, Annex 3 shows a breakdown of responses to each closed question using the original (8-category) organisational classification.

Percentages may not total 100% due to rounding.

Response rates for individual questions

2.10 Response rates were higher for the closed questions than for the open questions. There were very high response rates for the closed questions (ranging from 95% to 99% overall), while response rates for the open questions ranged from 10% to 32%. Organisations were more likely than individuals to offer comments, and response rates to the open questions among organisations ranged from 23% to 65%.

2.11 Of the total 1,605 responses, around half (799, 50%) contained answers to the closed questions only (i.e. the respondents made no comments in relation to any of the questions). Most of these respondents were individuals who answered ‘yes’ (occasionally ‘don’t know’) in response to all questions. See Annex 4 for details.

Campaign responses

2.12 There was evidence of shared text (and in a handful of cases, identical comments) being submitted by a small number of organisations and individuals, and of individuals referring to and aligning themselves with the position of certain organisations. All such responses have been treated as substantive responses to the consultation. However, there was no evidence of large numbers of identical responses being submitted by different respondents allied to a specific organised campaign.^[3]