Seaweed Policy Statement Consultation Analysis Report 2014

3 Respondents overview

This section provides an overview of the respondents to the consultation, including the sectors on whose behalf they have commented. There were 36 responses:

• 33% from public bodies
• 14 % from the fishing industry
• 11% from the seaweed industry
• 42% from aquaculture; voluntary and academic organisations; the recreational, farming and land use sectors; and interested members of the public and other commercial businesses.

3.1 Responses overview

3.1.1 The consultation generated 36 responses from the seaweed, aquaculture and fishing industries; public bodies; voluntary and academic organisations; the recreational, farming and land use sectors; and interested members of the public and other commercial businesses.

3.2 Stakeholder group breakdown

3.2.1 It was a key principle of the policy development process and the consultation analysis that each response be given due consideration. Each response received for the consultation was read in detail.

3.2.2 Each respondent to the consultation was assigned to one of 12 broad stakeholder groups, and also to a further sub-group (21 in total; Table 1).

3.2.3 A third of the responses were from public bodies, and the fishing and seaweed industries accounted for 14% and 11% of the responses respectively (Figure 1 and Table 1). The other nine stakeholder groups accounted for the remaining 42% of responses. Figure 1 shows the relative proportion of responses from the broad stakeholder groups.

Figure 1: Response rates by broad stakeholder group

Table 1: Response rates by stakeholder group