Marine litter strategy for Scotland: consultation analysis

2. Consultation Approach and Responses

Consultation Process

2.1 The Scottish Government promoted an online public consultation on the refreshed Marine Litter Strategy for Scotland on its Consultation Hub website (Citizen Space). The consultation ran from 29 December 2021 to 22 March 2022.

2.2 A vast majority of consultation responses were submitted through the online portal, with the remainder submitted to the Scottish Government directly, for example, by email. Where this was the case, the Scottish Government passed all correspondence directly to EKOS for review and logging.

2.3 EKOS exported consultation responses from Citizen Space into Microsoft Excel and manually added non-Citizen Space responses for data cleaning, review and analysis.

2.4 A total of 220 responses were received (all valid e.g. no duplicates or blank responses), a majority of which were submitted by individuals (75.5%), Table 1.

N=220.

2.5 A wide range of organisations responded to the consultation, and they have been categorised as follows, Table 2 and Table 3. Key points to note include:

• Voluntary or third sector organisations are the most common type of organisation (44.4% of all organisation responses), followed by umbrella or membership bodies (27.7%).
• Organisations' areas of interest are wide, and most commonly focus on an industry perspective (35.1% of all organisation responses), followed by environment and conservation, including those with a specific focus on the marine environment (22.2%).

N=54. EKOS coding in discussion with Marine Scotland.

N=54. EKOS coding in discussion with Marine Scotland.

2.6 Appendix D provides details of how organisation respondents have been categorised.

Analysis

2.7 The analysis seeks to identify the most common themes and issues. It does not report on every single point raised in the consultation responses. All responses, where the respondent has given permission for their comments to be published, will be made available on the Citizen Space website.

2.8 Equal weighting has been given to all responses. This includes the spectrum of views, from large organisations with a national or UK remit or membership, to individual's viewpoints.

2.9 In reading the consultation analysis report, it is important to note that most respondents reported that the planned actions under the objectives would contribute to the achievement of the Strategic Directions.

2.10 All submissions to the consultation will be reviewed separately by Marine Scotland.

2.11 This analysis report quotes and paraphrases some of the comments received. However, this does not indicate that these comments will be acted upon or given greater credence than others.

Campaign Responses

2.12 Appendix C provides a summary overview of potential campaign responses to the consultation. This largely centres on the expression of support for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes and a ban on wet wipes containing plastic.

Limitations

2.13 Respondents to any consultation or survey are self-selecting.

2.14 The depth of responses to consultation questions is varied – some respondents provide full and detailed responses, while others provide short or single sentence responses. Not every respondent provided a response to each question, and some submissions (e.g. non-Citizen Space responses) provided wider narrative not aligned under a specific consultation question.

2.15 Some, but not all, respondents who provided qualitative responses regarding perceived omissions or gaps in the planned actions provided supplementary evidence in support of the points raised.

2.16 There were also various comments regarding a need for SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) objectives/actions. It should be noted that the action plan, comprising of SMART actions with timescales, deliverables and named responsible leads, was provided on the same webpage as the Consultation Document as a separate Excel document.

2.17 The action plan is limited to new and high priority actions only. These have been written as SMART actions. This format is necessary to be able to demonstrate progress being made. The actions relate to high priority areas, where progress and a tangible outcome can realistically be achieved within the lifecycle of the Strategy (2021-2027) and does not list ongoing or existing actions.

2.18 Finally, given the cross-cutting nature of the Strategic Directions, some perceived omissions or gaps identified for a particular Strategic Direction did not always sit comfortably in that Section within the consultation analysis report. Rather, the points often referred to another Strategic Direction, and were taken account of in another Section. For example, terrestrial litter is mentioned throughout the responses to the consultation questions.