Financial transparency and profit limitation in children's residential care: consultation analysis

2 Description of the responses and respondents

2.1 This chapter provides information about the respondents and the responses to the consultation. It also provides a brief description of the engagement sessions carried out by the Scottish Government as part of the consultation process.

Respondents and responses

2.2 Altogether, the consultation received 31 responses. Of these, 27 were submitted through the Scottish Government’s online consultation hub, with the remaining 4 responses sent by email. Responses were received from 23 organisations and 8 individuals (see Table 2.1).

Organisational respondents

2.3 Organisational responses were submitted by seven care provider organisations; six public sector, regulatory and professional bodies; four organisations with a specific focus on children and young people and / or care-experienced people; and two membership organisations. In addition, four organisations that could not be assigned to any of the other organisational categories also submitted responses (see Table 2.2). A complete list of organisational respondents is shown in Annex 1.

1. To simplify the tables in the remainder of this report, the organisational categories of (i) children & young people / care-focused organisations, (ii) membership organisations, and (iii) other organisation types have been combined into a single ‘other organisation types’ category.

2. Includes a trade union, a legal firm, a think tank and an organisation that provides support for Scottish public sector procurement.

2.4 It is important to note that all of the care provider organisations that submitted responses to this consultation were registered charities in Scotland. No official organisational responses were submitted by private sector care providers (although note paragraph 2.5 below regarding individual respondents). In addition, responses were submitted by just two local authorities and one health and social care partnership. The types of organisations that submitted responses, taken together with the overall small number of responses received in the public consultation, suggests that there are likely to be gaps in the stakeholder views presented in Chapters 3 to 8 of this report, and therefore the findings presented should be treated with caution.

Individual respondents

2.5 Two respondents indicated that their responses were submitted on behalf of organisations, but did not provide an organisation name. It was unclear if these responses were, in fact, official responses from organisations or represented the views of individuals working within organisations. These respondents have been re-categorised as individuals. Several other individual respondents made comments that indicated that they may be associated with, or may work in, private or not-for-profit children’s residential care provider organisations.

Response rates for individual questions

2.6 As noted in Chapter 1, not all respondents answered all the consultation questions. Response rates ranged from 77% to 87% for closed questions, and from 55% to 84% for open questions.

2.7 The closed part of Question 3 received the highest response (87%). This question asked respondents if the Bill provisions should also cover other services such as secure care. The second open part of Question 2 received the lowest response (55%). Question 2 asked respondents if they agreed that not-for-profit and private residential care services should be included in the proposals. The open follow-up question asked if any other type of services should also be included.

2.8 See Annex 2 for full details of the question response rates.

Stakeholder engagement sessions

2.9 As stated in Chapter 1, the Scottish Government organised six engagement sessions with stakeholders (including both individuals and organisational representatives) to discuss the Bill proposals. These were a combination of online and face-to-face sessions. The dates, locations and the number of participants who attended are shown in Table 2.3. Altogether, 101 participants took part in these sessions.^[2] (See Annex 3 for a list of participants).

* Sessions organised as part of a larger consultation event on the wider Bill proposals.

2.10 It is worth noting that the profile of participants in the engagement sessions was quite different to that of the respondents to the public consultation. In particular, the number of engagement session participants was around three times the number of respondents to the consultation. Around half of Scotland’s local authorities (17, including one health and social care partnership) were represented at one or more of the events, and a break-out session specifically for private sector care providers was held as part of one of the events. This suggests that the engagement sessions reached a wider range of stakeholders than the public consultation and therefore the views expressed in these sessions may provide a fuller and more accurate reflection of the views of stakeholder groups. See Chapter 9 for a summary of the discussions recorded across all sessions.