Scotland's Sustainable Housing Strategy: Analysis of Responses to 'Homes that Don't Cost the Earth' Consultation

Introduction

1 This report summarises the responses to the 14 week consultation on 'Homes that don't cost the earth,' undertaken as a stage in the development of the Sustainable Housing Strategy (SHS). The consultation sought views from a wide range of stakeholders, including local authority, housing association, private business, and third sector groups as well as individuals.

Background to the consultation

2 'Homes Fit for the 21st Century', the Scottish Government's housing strategy for the next decade, includes a commitment to develop a sustainable housing strategy for Scotland bringing together policies on climate change, energy efficiency, fuel poverty, planning and the built environment. 'Homes that don't cost the earth' also reflects the commitments of the Energy Efficiency Action Plan under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, the Low Carbon Economic Strategy, and the Scottish Fuel Poverty Statement.

3 'Homes that don't cost the earth' sets out a vision for sustainable housing and policies and actions on the five themes emerging from the Greener Homes Summit, seeking opinions on the following:

• vision and objectives for the Sustainable Housing Strategy;
• a National Retrofit Programme (NRP);
• the role of standards;
• financial market transformation;
• new build market transformation; and
• skills and training.

Consultation process

4 The consultation document was developed with the Sustainable Housing Strategy Group, whose members include leading housing, fuel poverty, environmental and consumer interests. The development process included meetings and a workshop as well as discussion of an early draft of the consultation document.

5 'Homes that don't cost the earth' was published on 25 June 2012, together with an on-line questionnaire prefixed by a Respondent Information Form. The 14-week consultation closed on 28 September, with a few extensions given until 5 October. Officials invited a number of organisations to respond as well as issuing the general invitation online. The consultation was supported by a number of events attended by Scottish Government policy officials.

Methodology

Respective roles of LSA and Scottish Government

6 Scottish Government required an independent analysis of the consultation responses and Liz Shiel Associates (LSA) was commissioned to do this work. Scottish Government officials have advised on factual issues relating to the consultation and the consultation process. The consultation document was published on the Scottish Government website. A link to the consultation was circulated by email to a wide range of organisations and groups. Respondents were invited to use a standard questionnaire available on-line. All responses were given a unique number and passed to LSA for processing, including those where the respondent had requested that their response should not be published: LSA's copies have since been deleted.

7 Both SG officials and LSA checked responses generated by the WWF campaign for any variations from the exemplar text published online. LSA checked the content of responses with variations and if there were substantial variations, reserved them for individual analysis.

8 A simplified categorisation of non-campaign respondent types is used in this study. The groupings are: RSL sector (RSLs and their representative organisations); local authority sector (local authorities and their representative organisations); private sector (businesses and their representative organisations); professional (representative bodies for professionals);'other' groups(third sector, building related organisations, an NDPB, public sector bodies, and multi-disciplinary networks), and individuals. Table A in Annex A summarises the declared respondent categories and the simplified categories, while Table B details the allocation of organisations to the simplified respondent categories.

Analysis of non-campaign responses

9 The consultation questions comprised: closed questions with a Yes/No response, mostly plus an invitation to comment, and open questions. Each questionnaire was checked for which questions had been answered. Open questions were recorded as Comment or Nil response. The questionnaire had a tick box for the closed questions. Where this was not used but comments given, we did not input a value for the closed question to avoid the risk of misinterpretation. For closed questions we recorded: Yes, Yes + comment, No, No + comment, Comment only, or Nil response. This is compressed in the summary tables to Yes, No, Comment only, and Nil response. Where respondents did not use the questionnaire, a statement that related directly to a question was recorded as Comment only, otherwise as Nil response. Quantitative analysis tables for each question are presented in Annex B. In a few instances, as noted in the text, comments under one question were more relevant to another and they are discussed under the appropriate question.

10 The main focus of the analysis was qualitative, concerned with understanding the full range of respondents' views. LSA used an initial review of responses to develop an analytical framework for each question, which identified key themes and issues. Each questionnaire was checked against the earlier recording of responses, then the comments were pasted into the framework. The framework was modified where new themes or key issues emerged as the analysis progressed. LSA then reviewed all the comments, organised by the key themes, to write the analysis of responses to each question. Where respondents gave information about current good practice, studies or publications pertinent to the strategy, references are presented in Annex C.

Analysis of campaign responses

11 The standard text of the WWF campaign is shown in full at Annex D. None of the campaign responses adopted the questionnaire format or directly answered the consultation questions. However, the content of the standard text and of the responses with substantial variations is noted at relevant points.

Structure of this report

12 Chapters 1 to 5 contain the question by question analysis of the consultation responses, structured similarly to the consultation chapters. The annexes contain a list of respondents, tables relating the respondent category to the responses, examples of current good practice, the text of campaign responses, and a glossary.

Profile of responses

13 There were 91 non-campaign responses to the consultation, 89 from groups and 2 from individuals. The distribution of responses by simplified categories is shown in Table 1.

14 Amongst the group responses, Homes for Scotland noted that it represents the home-building sector in Scotland and had discussed the draft strategy with members. There was only one response from an individual house-builder. The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) response notes it reflects opinion gathered during consultation events with members. None of the other representative bodies commented on how they had compiled their responses.

15 The Existing Homes Alliance Scotland response was endorsed by another respondent, the Chartered Institute of Housing. There were considerable similarities between the Existing Homes Alliance, Consumer Focus Scotland, Age Scotland, and WWF responses. The responses by Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Services and the Chief Fire Officers Association Scotland were similar to each other.

Table 1: Respondents, by simplified categories

RSL sector	Local authority sector	Private sector	Professional	'Other' groups	Individual	ALL
20	26	16	6	21	2	91
22%	29%	18%	7%	23%	2%	100%

16 A WWF Scotland campaign generated 358 responses, of which 21 varied substantially from the standard text and 37 included minor variations. One response was defamatory and not further considered.

17 Not all respondents responded to each question. Some respondents did not answer a closed 'Yes/No' question but did offer a comment. Where this occurred, the total number of respondents is noted as well as the numbers answering 'Yes/No'. Response rates for each question are shown for the simplified respondent categories. Table 2 shows the level of response to each question and the average level of response for each section.

18 Response rates were fairly high, with many over 60% and particularly high rates for the sections on the National Retrofit Programme and the role of standards. Response rates were less than 50% for Q8 concerning the devolution of additional powers, Q16 about the maintenance order process and most of the skills and training section.

Table 2: Summary of consultation response, by section and by question

Total respondents N =91
Section, question	Response		Section, question	Response		Section, question	Response
	No.	%		No.	%		No.	%
Background			The role of standards			Financial market transformation
1	83	91%	11a)	70	77%	34a)	55	60%
A National Retrofit Programme			11b)	74	81%	34b)	55	60%
2	77	85%	12a)	69	76%	35	51	56%
3	77	85%	12b)	57	63%	36	55	60%
4	79	87%	13	74	81%	37a)	60	66%
5a)	64	70%	14	66	73%	37b)	61	67%
5b)	64	70%	15	57	63%	average:	56	62%
6	79	87%	16	45	49%	New build market transformation
7	78	86%	17	53	58%	38	62	68%
8	43	47%	18	56	62%	39	54	59%
9	69	76%	19	48	53%	40	58	64%
10	71	78%	20	72	79%	41	54	59%
average:	70	77%	21	79	87%	42	55	60%
			22	66	73%	average:	57	62%
			23	63	69%	Skills and training
			24	61	67%	43a)	55	60%
			25	61	67%	43b)	40	44%
			26	74	81%	44	52	57%
			27	69	76%	45	42	46%
			28	58	64%	46	44	48%
			29	66	73%	47	31	34%
			30	69	76%	48	29	32%
			31	53	58%	average:	42	46%
			32a)	60	66%
			32b)	63	69%
			33	62	68%
			average:	63	70%