Hunting consultation method and responses from Scottish addresses: FOI release

Information requested

 

You asked in the recent hunting consultation how many people responded with addresses in Scotland and what checks were in place to make sure one person did not use multiple identities/addresses when answering the consultation questions?

Response

 

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have all the information you have requested. The reasons why we don’t have the information are explained in the Annex to this letter.

The answer to your second question is, upon initial analysis of the consultation response data, responses with duplicate email addresses and duplicate names were removed. The responses were then analysed by Griesbach and Associates, the full report can be found;
https://consult.gov.scot/wildlife-management-and-protected-areas/improving-protection-for-wild-mammals/
The consultation received 18,792 submissions. This included 295 ‘substantive’ (i.e. personalised) submissions and 18,497 responses submitted through five different campaigns Among the substantive submissions, it was found that five individual respondents had submitted two different (substantive) responses. These were combined into a single amalgamated response for each of the five individuals and the individuals have been counted only once for the purposes of the analysis. Thus, the analysis was based on 18,787 responses.

 

ANNEX
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

The Scottish Government does not have the information
The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because the address of those submitting consultation responses is not collected.
More information can be found at
https://delib.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020431272-Multiple-Responses-in-Citizen-Space
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.