Scotland's draft Climate Change Plan 2026-2040: consultation analysis

Methods

Data processing

The consultation comprised 40 questions, including seven on respondent details and 33 substantive questions. Almost all the substantial questions on Citizen Space^[1] included free-text fields, with no limit to the amount of text that respondents could write. There was also one closed-ended question (q7).

Data was gathered through Citizen Space, emails, and 112 engagement events. All the responses submitted via Citizen Space were transferred to Alma Economics to be thematically coded. Email responses were classified as either structured, meaning they followed the questionnaire’s format, or unstructured, meaning they addressed all questions together. The structured email responses were thematically coded alongside Citizen Space responses. Unstructured responses and feedback from the engagement events were mapped to respective questions and consolidated. All responses were treated equally, regardless of how they were submitted.

Data analysis

The consultation responses were screened to identify duplicate submissions or campaigns organised by external groups, as well as coordinated responses by individuals. This review found no significant number of duplicate or coordinated responses, and the data were therefore analysed using standard procedures. If a substantial volume of campaign responses were received, we would have identified the main campaign groups, assigned individual responses to those groups, and then carried out thematic analysis at the group level.

All responses to the open-text questions were read in full by our team of researchers, with thematic analysis of each response being conducted to capture the main opinions expressed by respondents per question, to understand the reasoning behind answers. A team of researchers then manually reviewed the responses and conducted thematic analysis of the 32 open-text questions and the single closed-ended question, with regular review meetings being used to ensure themes were defined consistently across researchers.

The Scottish Government encouraged responses from individuals and organisations across Scotland. As a result, responses to the consultation differed in depth and approach, and while many responses included evidence to back up opinions, other responses primarily expressed preferences, concerns, or expectations without further analysis. Our approach to handling these differences involved:

• Capturing the main idea regardless of whether it was expressed as a personal view or if evidence was provided to sustain the argument.
• Including every response in the analysis, reading beyond grammar or spelling mistakes, and capturing the main idea regardless of difficulty in distilling the information.

The findings are presented by question. For each question, the core themes are ordered by prevalence and outlined in the main body of this report. Where appropriate, individual quotations are used to illustrate key themes. Quotations were drawn only from respondents who gave permission for their views to be published, and any potential identifiers (such as the name of a specific organisation) have been removed.

Limitations

There are several limitations to note. The responses submitted are not representative of the overall population or any specific demographic or stakeholder group. Responses from some areas or groups may be disproportionately under- or over-represented.

Any information cited in quotes has not been validated or fact-checked. Instead, the quotes represent, and should be treated as the subjective views or experiences of respondents alone rather than as factual information.

Finally, many responses did not directly address the consultation questions or addressed only part of a question that contained multiple sub-questions. Although these responses were coded, parts of those with no relevance to the question were not included in the findings. Several responses expressing climate change denial were also received; these were treated as out of scope and, while coded, were not included in the thematic analysis, as establishing the reality of climate change was not the intention of this engagement.

Despite these limitations, the remaining in-scope responses were deemed sufficient to enable robust thematic and quantitative analysis and meaningfully contribute to public policy.