Future of council tax in Scotland: Consultation analysis Final Report

2. Methodology

Number of responses received to the public consultation

The consultation received a total of 1,311 responses with 1,278 responses (98%) submitted online via Citizen Space. The remaining 33 responses (3%) were non-Citizen Space responses (for example, email submissions) and were manually uploaded to Citizen Space by Scottish Government officials.

Data management and cleaning

All responses were moderated by Scottish Government officials. Two responses contained inappropriate language and were removed and not included in the final data set. This reduced the number of responses from 1,311 to 1,309.

EKOS exported consultation responses from Citizen Space into Microsoft Excel for data management and cleaning. All responses were reviewed to identify any duplicate, blank, or campaign responses.

There were 17 instances of duplicate responses, meaning the same individual or organisation submitted two responses. Where possible (three cases), these were combined into single composite responses. In the remaining 14 cases, where differing viewpoints to questions meant the duplicate responses could not be merged, the most recent submission was retained for analysis.

One blank response was identified, meaning no questions were answered. This submission was removed from the dataset.

No campaign responses were identified.

Following the data review and cleaning stage, 1,291 validated responses were included in the final analysis.

The public consultation and respondent profile

The respondents can be divided by respondent type as follows: (i) 1,219 (94%) were individuals and (ii) 72 (6%) were organisations.

The consultation received responses from individuals living in 31 of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas. The greatest proportion of individual respondents lived in the City of Edinburgh (14%, 171 respondents), West Lothian (14%, 162 respondents), and Dumfries and Galloway (11%, 130 respondents).

Over one-third of individual respondents (37%, 444 respondents) said they paid council tax for properties in Bands A to D, and 55% (653 individual respondents) said they paid council tax for properties in Bands E to H. Overall, the most represented council tax band was Band E, with 20% (239 individual respondents) reporting paying council tax in that band. The consultation received a small number of responses from individuals who said that they do not pay council tax (15 responses; 1% of individual respondents), and 76 (6% of individual respondents) said that they did not know their council tax band.

Seventy-two organisations responded to the consultation. These are listed in Appendix A.

Full responses to the consultation, where permission for publication was granted, can be found on the Scottish Government’s website.

Public engagement events and attendee profile

Deciding Matters was commissioned by the Scottish Government to design, recruit for, and facilitate five public engagement events. EKOS took notes and undertook independent analysis of the discussions at the events.

Short online ‘micro-sessions’ were held by Deciding Matters and the Scottish Government in advance of the public engagement events. People who had confirmed attendance at one of the public engagement events were encouraged to attend or watch a recording of amicro-session. These sessions were designed to give participants time to digest the information so they could come to the events prepared to discuss the topics.

A total of 115 participants took part in the public engagement events, as follows:

• Online workshop – Thursday 15 January 2026 – 23 participants.
• Aberdeen (Town House) – Friday 16 January 2026 – 23 participants.
• Glasgow (City Chambers) – Monday 19 January 2026 – 25 participants.
• Inverness (Eden Court) – Saturday 24 January 2026 – 20 participants.
• Edinburgh (Verity House) – Monday 26 January 2026 – 24 participants.

Points to note on event attendee demographics included that:

• A higher proportion of women attended the events than men (53%, 61 participants and 43%, 50 participants respectively).
• Attendance was broadly distributed across age groups, with the highest representation from those aged 25-34 (22%, 25 participants) and 45-54 (22%, 25 participants).
• Attendees reflected a broad mix of housing tenures – the largest proportions were people who owned their homes outright (30%, 35 participants), had a mortgage (20%, 23 participants) or rented from private landlords (20%, 23 participants).
• Attendees represented a spread of household incomes – the largest proportions of attendees said they had a household income of £36,400-£51,999 (21%, 24 participants) or £52,000-£77,999 (19%, 22 participants).
• Almost two-thirds (65%, 75 participants) of event attendees said that they were not in receipt of council tax benefits, reductions, or exemptions.

Appendix B provides information on the approach and methodology, attendees and discussion topics for the engagement events.

Approach to the analysis

Quantitative analysis

Quantitative analysis was conducted on the responses to the 14 closed questions using descriptive statistics. For each question, the research team calculated both the proportion of all respondents and proportion of subgroups of respondents (based on respondent type) selecting each answer choice.

The main body of this report presents the overall findings plus a breakdown of responses to each consultation question by individuals in different council tax band groupings (council tax Bands A-D and Bands E-H). Tables show the count (number) and percentage of respondents who answered the question by selecting one of the available options, including “Don’t know”. Please note that figures in the tables may not add to 100% exactly due to rounding, or for questions in which respondents were able to provide multiple responses. Where the data table appears in the main report, the text reports only percentages. Where the relevant data table is appended the text reports both the percentage and the count of respondents. All of the quantitative data tables are provided in Appendix C.

Qualitative analysis

A qualitative approach was taken to the analysis of the comments provided under the ‘other, please specify’ option in questions 3, 5, 9, 11 and 14 in the consultation and of the responses to the two open questions (questions 15 and 16).

The analysis adopted an inductive approach in which the qualitative data (open text responses) were first collated and reviewed to identify common themes in the data. The research team then developed an outline coding scheme, based on the themes identified in the data, and manually coded the responses into one or more themes. New codes were created during the full coding process if additional themes emerged.

For the ‘other, please specify’ questions, only responses that related directly to the closed question were coded and included within the analysis of that closed question. Where a response did not directly relate to the question, it was incorporated into the wider qualitative analysis, where relevant, to minimise repetition across chapters and avoid over‑reporting and double counting.

There was a high level of duplication where respondents had made the same point in multiple questions. In these cases, the repeated point was considered only once. Many comments also contained more than one issue and were coded according to each issue raised.

Where appropriate, quotes from a range of respondents have been included to illustrate key points and provide useful examples, insights and contextual information. This does not indicate that these comments will be acted upon or given greater weight than others.

Analysis of public engagement events

Participants at each public engagement event were split into four smaller groups, and each group had one facilitator from Deciding Matters and one notetaker from EKOS. A template was designed and used by all notetakers to ensure consistency in notetaking across the groups and events.

Notes from the public engagement events were collated, reviewed, and analysed using a consistent thematic framework. This involved bringing together written notes from the events, coding them against agreed themes, and identifying common views, differences, and areas of nuance across the participant groups.

Weight of opinion

For ease of reading and interpretation, this report presents themes in order of how frequently they were represented in responses. Qualitative analysis sections are structured thematically, describing the themes identified in responses from most to least commonly identified. All themes, including views shared by a few respondents, are covered; views expressed by a few participants are not given less weight than those shared by a majority.

Similarly, all responses have equal weighting. We recognise that this means a response from an individual has the same weight as a response from an organisation that may represent many members. There is no subjective interpretation of the relative weight or merit of one stakeholder’s response over another; however, any patterns in views expressed, for example, by respondent type, are highlighted in the analysis.

To assist the reader in interpreting the findings, a framework was used to convey the most to least commonly identified themes in responses to each question:

• The most common/second most common theme – the most frequently identified theme(s).
• Many respondents (100+) – another prevalent theme.
• Several respondents (50-99) – a recurring theme.
• Some respondents (10-49) – a less common theme.
• A few respondents (<10) – a less commonly mentioned theme.
• Qualitative comments did not always align with the quantitative results. For example, respondents might have selected an option from the predefined list at a closed question and then also provided a free text response under the ‘other, please specify’ response option. As such, the number of free text responses does not match the number selecting ‘other please specify’. This is detailed for each relevant question.
• Comments made by respondents under ‘other, please specify’ did not always relate directly to the question. Where this occurred, these comments were considered as part of the final qualitative analysis rather than analysed under the relevant question. Where the comments were identified as relevant to the question, they were analysed as part of that question.
• Any information cited in respondent quotes might not be accurate and has not been validated or fact checked – the quotes represent, and should be treated as, the subjective views or experiences of respondents alone, rather than as factual information.
• The quantitative analysis presents results split by individual and organisational respondents and offers commentary on where relevant or notable differences are evident. It is important to bear in mind the much smaller sample size of organisations compared to individuals when interpreting these findings.

Limitations

When reviewing the analysis in this report, the reader should consider the following points:

• Public consultations invite everyone to express their views – individuals and organisations interested in the topic are more likely to respond than those without a direct or known interest. This self-selection means the views of respondents do not necessarily represent the views of the population as a whole. It is important that this is borne in mind when interpreting the results.
• Responses to the consultation from individuals and organisations (or attendance at the events) are in general unlikely to be representative of any specific demographic group or to be representative of geographical areas such as local authorities – responses from some areas or groups may be disproportionately under- or over-represented.
• Not all respondents answered all of the questions. The numbers responding to each question are noted throughout the report and proportions have been calculated based on the numbers answering, excluding those that did not answer.