Correspondence and funding on commissioned polling: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for:

1. Any opinion polling and research into public attitudes to the Union/Scottish independence carried out by the Scottish Government over the last year?
2. Details of all questions and all subjects on which the Scottish Government has carried out or commissioned polling in the last year?
3. Details of any focus groups carried out by or on behalf of the Scottish Government over the last year?
4. Any reports on the findings of these focus groups?
5. Detail on how much the Scottish Government is paying on this private polling and research?

Response

Question 1
The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because the Scottish Government has not commissioned any opinion polls or research into public attitudes to the Union/Scottish independence over the last year.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Questions 2 to 5
I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested with regard to polling and focus groups (see Annex A and Annex B; see also Annexes C to H for information on survey questionnaires). However, under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. In some cases the information you have requested is already published online.

Annexes A and B highlight where this is the case, and provide the relevant web links. Further, as per section 17(1) of FOISA, we do not hold some of the information you asked for with reference to survey questionnaires. We have, however, signalled who does hold this information (see Annex A).

The Scottish Government does not commission polling as such, although the term is sometimes used interchangeably with quick turnaround public opinion surveys or omnibus surveys. We have provided details of subjects and questions on which the Scottish Government has commissioned this type of research in the past year.

For information, the Scottish Government commissions several large scale surveys, such as the Scottish Household Survey, the Scottish Health Survey and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, as well as a range of surveys within evaluations of policies or services or other research projects. All research publishes questionnaires and survey reports, and evaluation/research reports available on www.gov.scot/research.

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.

FOI/202000093739 - Annexes - Information Released

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