Allotments: further guidance for local authorities: 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 229 responses. Three respondents submitted two responses to the consultation. These responses were combined to create a single amalgamated response for each respondent. ^[3]

2.3 Thus, the analysis in this report is based on 226 responses.

About the respondents

2.4 Responses were submitted by 201 individuals and 25 organisations or groups. (See Table 2.1.)

Table 2.1: Types of respondent

2.5 Table 2.2 below provides further information about the organisational respondents.

Table 2.2: Organisation / group types

2.6 The 25 organisational respondents to the consultation were made up of local authority and other public bodies (six local authorities and one national public sector organisation); and third sector organisations (fifteen local allotment and gardening groups, one local community group, one allotments / gardening national body, and one national third sector group with a focus on sustainable food).

2.7 A complete list of organisational respondents is included at Annex 1.

2.8 The consultation questionnaire did not ask if respondents were allotments holders. However, some individual respondents explicitly identified themselves as allotment holders and / or members of allotment societies. Additionally, in many other cases, it was clear from people's responses to individual questions that they were allotment holders.

About the responses

2.9 All but one of the responses were submitted using the online questionnaire on the Scottish Government's consultation website. The remaining response was a completed questionnaire submitted by post.

2.10 A review of the comments provided by respondents indicated the presence of 'campaign' responses, i.e. responses using identical wording or incorporating common text and phrases at individual questions. These responses have not been quantified, and all have been considered as individual responses within the analysis undertaken.

Responses to individual questions

2.11 Almost all respondents answered all the closed tick-box questions – all respondents answered the tick-box part of Questions 1, 5 and 6, while the remaining tick-box questions were answered by 96% of respondents or more.

2.12 The proportion of respondents providing comments ranged from 28% at Question 10 to 50% at Question 3.

2.13 See Annex 2 for full details of the number of responses to individual questions.