Community benefits from net zero energy developments consultation: engagement findings report

2. Methodology

The engagement plan was designed to have a large geographical spread to enable participation from different communities across Scotland and ensure a mix of urban/semi-urban, coastal, rural, remote rural, and island communities were included through online and in-person sessions.

In total, 13 sessions were held - two national information webinars, nine location-specific community conversations, and two national community conversations, as shown in Appendices 1 and 2.

Community conversation times, and where possible, dates, were selected following discussions with local partners. Contacts varied across areas but included community councils, anchor organisations, intermediary organisations, other local community groups and organisations, and public sector community workers. These conversations were intended to encourage maximum participation from local community members.

Webinars

The purpose of the information webinars was to introduce the local community conversations to interested community organisations who could encourage attendance from local community members, community groups and networks.

In addition to cascading information on local sessions, the webinars were used to identify issues important for communities to discuss within conversations and to promote the online public consultation. They also provided an opportunity for stakeholders to pose questions to the Scottish Government team leading the review of the Good Practice Principles.

In total, 114 individuals attended the webinar sessions. The programme and recruitment process for the webinars was developed and approved with the Scottish Government and is included in Appendix 1.

Information communicated prior to webinar attendance included links to the main online consultation document, response form and a Guide to Community Benefits from Renewable Energy that was developed specifically for this contract and agreed with the Scottish Government.

Community Conversations

A comprehensive session plan was developed and agreed with the Scottish Government for the community conversations (Appendix 2). Sessions were designed to foster a participative environment and encourage people to discuss their experience and opinions in relation to the Good Practice Principles for community benefits, and to feel valued and heard in the wider consultative process.

The plan was designed to focus on key areas emerging from webinar feedback and discussions with the Scottish Government and its Review Advisory Group (RAG) for the Good Practice Principles for Community Benefits from Offshore Renewable Energy Developments. The RAG is a group of community stakeholders, industry, public and third sector partners convened to advise the Scottish Government throughout the review of the offshore Good Practice Principles.

To encourage attendance at conversations, localised contact lists were used to promote the sessions (in Appendix 1). As well as direct e-mails, graphics were also created which allowed key contacts to cascade information easily within local publications and social media sites.

The target audience for conversations were community members living in the selected areas and community groups that played an active role in community life – both those completely new to community benefits, and those with experience. Community members could sign-up online to register their interest in attending or call SCDC.

All nine targeted community conversations lasted for a maximum of three hours. There was a significant last minute drop off rate for most of the targeted conversations, so an additional two national sessions were arranged. These were reduced in length to 1.5 hours to attract participants that may have found it difficult to attend a full-length conversation.

The original session plan was adapted to focus on a reduced number of core questions, ensuring that consistency was maintained, and allowing for collective analysis to be possible without reducing confidence in the findings.

Each session plan along with further detail on facilitation processes and engagement figures can be found in Appendix 2.

Participant Figures

A total of 116 individuals took part in the 11 community conversations facilitated. Of these, 94 indicated that they attended as part of a community group, 21 attended as individuals and one person did not say.