Offshore wind energy – sectoral marine plan: further research for social impact assessment

3. Approach

Overview of research methodology

The aim of the study was to support the draft plan-level SEIA by understanding the views of local communities associated with the potential social and economic impacts of OWE and INTOG. A methodology was developed to explore, test and make recommendations for refining the draft plan-level SEIA using a three-staged process as follows:

Stage 1: Desk based review of the draft plan-level SEIA, existing academic and grey literature and the socio-demographic and economic profiles of the coastal areas selected for primary research;

Stage 2: Deliberative focus groups with members of the public living within five coastal communities located near to existing or planned OWF developments;

Stage 3: Analysis and reporting including recommendations resulting from this study relating to the technical and policy implications for the draft plan-level SEIA and project-level SEIAs, as well as reflections on the approach used for the research.

Stage 1: Desk-based review

A desk-based review was conducted comprising three elements. Firstly, the draft plan-level SEIA was reviewed and summarised by theme. Secondly, a wider review of literature on the social and community impacts related to OWF and renewable energy developments was undertaken with the aim of establishing a coherent overview of potential social and economic impacts, as well as social and economic impacts that have occurred in the past. A full list of all literature reviewed is presented at the end of this report and includes both national and international academic and wider literature such as industry reports and policy documents. The review presented in this report outlines the central themes that were explored in the focus groups.

Further to the review of the draft plan-level SEIA and literature review, a desk-based research activity was conducted to capture relevant data and information on the local socio-demographic context of the five chosen coastal areas as outlined in the next section. A profile was developed for each coastal area with regards to age, deprivation, employment, education, and health information. The aim of this exercise was to highlight to each focus group the identified key characteristics of their area relevant to the themes identified in the literature review, and to help facilitate discussion. The social profiling also included maps created through GIS to visually demonstrate deprivation and other socio-economic characteristics within the communities in relation to OWF infrastructure and associated developments or supporting infrastructure.

Stage 2: Deliberative focus groups

Deliberative research was used to provide valuable in-depth insights into participants’ views on a specific topic and how these views potentially change when participants were provided with information and given the opportunity to discuss and reflect. Focus groups were used to conduct this research as they provided the opportunity to discuss information and build on participants’ responses throughout the session, with potential for debating the impacts which had limited coverage in the draft plan-level SEIA.

Five virtual focus groups were conducted between 11th October – 20th October 2023. These discussions involved a total of 44 members of the public across the following five coastal locations:

• Lewis (Na h-Eileanan Siar);
• Orkney Islands;
• Dundee City (Dundee);
• Buckie (Moray); and
• Stonehaven (Aberdeenshire).

Initially, the research team had planned to undertake three in-person focus groups in Dundee, Buckie and Stonehaven and two virtual focus groups for Lewis and Orkney Islands. This was to increase accessibility in the latter two locations given the low population density and travel distances. However, a red weather warning issued on 18th October 2023 as a result of storm Babet considered travel across central and eastern Scotland a threat to life. Following agreement with the Scottish Government, the in-person focus groups were held virtually on the date and time formerly planned. This had no impact on the number of participants attending. In fact, there was a strong preference for online focus groups (rather than in-person focus groups) amongst most research participants.

Coastal locations

The locations from which participants were recruited were selected on the basis of a range of criteria. The project aimed to recruit people who lived near OWF as well as people who did not have a direct experience of OWF to ensure a diverse representation of attitudes towards and experiences of OWF. All focus groups participants lived in a coastal community (within 5 km of the coast as defined by the James Hutton Institute (no date)). When deciding which locations should be selected as research sites, the following criteria were considered.

Urban/rural:

Rurality served as a proxy for population density, access to and availability of services, business and economic profile and the workforce, but also factors such as seascape/landscape.

Focus group participants needed to be from locations representing both urban and rural areas applying the Scottish Government’s 6-fold (2022b) and 10-fold classifications for urban/rural (Thomson et al., 2023).

The concentration of OWF projects in direct proximity:

Focus group participants came from locations with varying degrees of exposure to OWF to ensure that areas with a relatively high or low number of OWF were included as attitudes towards OWF may vary with increased exposure (Scottish Government, 2022c).

The stage of OWF developments:

Focus group participants needed to be in areas experiencing different stages of the development of OWF covering the planning and development, construction, and lastly the operational phase to identify if impacts and experiences change once OWF are operational, as suggested by early research (Scottish Government, 2022c).

Relevant initial findings of the draft plan-level SEIA were also considered when choosing research locations. In the draft plan-level SEIA, some locations were highlighted as potential places for significant socio-economic impacts. These locations were considered when deciding the research sites for this study.

The rationale for selecting each research location is included in appendix A.

For each location, the project team developed a socio-economic profile with the aim of providing further local context during the focus group sessions and facilitating the conversation by referring back to specific local challenges. Each coastal area was described with regards to the following factors:

Age, specifically the share of the population over 65 years old in comparison to the working age population, but also other age groups.

Gender to indicate the share of male, female and nonbinary people within the population.

Disability to indicate whether the population has a relatively higher level of people with long-term health problems or disabilities.

Employment and employment deprivation: An area is employment deprived if compared to other areas a high proportion of its working age population receive jobseekers’ allowance, Universal Credit and are not in employment, or Incapacity Benefit, employment and Support, Allowance (ESA), or Severe Disablement Allowance.

Educational performance and education deprivation, which is associated with school pupil attendance, attainment of school leavers, working age population with no qualifications, enrolment into higher education, and young people not partaking in education, employment or training.

Health levels and health deprivation which relates to mortality rates, alcohol and drug misuse, illnesses, emergency stays in hospitals, population being prescribed drugs for anxiety, depression or psychosis, and low birth weight.

Access deprivation which includes travel time to services such as GPs, petrol stations and schools, private and public transport, digital access and access to broadband.

Housing deprivation which considers overcrowding of houses, and access to central heating.

Overall levels of deprivation including income, employment, education, health and housing.

Whilst a full assessment by location for each of the criteria is in appendix B, including data references, the following high-level findings were taken to the focus groups:

Aberdeenshire was found to have an ageing population and overall low levels of deprivation. The least deprived area in Aberdeenshire is Stonehaven with highly accessible services in contrast to wider Aberdeenshire where access to services is poor. Aberdeenshire overall has higher than average median gross weekly income.

Na h-Eileanan Siar has a decreasing and ageing population, and relatively low levels of deprivation. However, access to services in Na h-Eileanan Siar is poorer than in all other Scottish local authorities and the median gross weekly income is below the national average.

Orkney as well has an ageing population and low levels of deprivation. Again, access to services in Orkney is poorer than in most other Scottish local authorities. Orkney has experienced a recent increase in child poverty, but the average median gross weekly income is higher than average.

Dundee also has an ageing population and deprivation in Dundee is higher than in most other Scottish local authorities. Levels of income are generally poor across Dundee and the average median gross weekly income is lower than the national average. However, access to services is relatively high in comparison to neighbouring areas.

Lastly, Moray also has an ageing population. Whilst the majority of Moray has low levels of deprivation, despite low median gross weekly incomes and poor access to services across Moray. Buckie specifically however has highly accessible services.

Recruitment

Focus group participants were members of the public living within approximately 5 km of the coast recruited through a combination of targeted advertisement on a social media platform (Meta) and targeted in-person recruitment to ensure the sampling quotas were met and a sampling bias due to social media advertisement was avoided.

Eight to ten participants were recruited per focus group to maximise the number of participants across the fieldwork whilst keeping each focus group engaging. Each participant was offered up to £50 compensation for partaking in this research.

A sampling frame reflecting key demographics for each of the locations was developed from the findings of the socio-demographic review. This included a target recruitment quota for age, gender, education and occupational status shown in appendix C. Recruitment was then conducted using both paid social media advertisement targeting the specific locations, and a face-to-face recruiter. The social media advertisement included a link to a pre-screening survey to determine eligibility in line with this sampling frame, while the in-person recruiter recorded these prior to recruiting a participant. All participants provided their consent to taking part in the research.

It should be noted that whilst the focus group participants were recruited to reflect the local population, qualitative research cannot be representative of the population and findings cannot be generalised without further quantitative research.

Focus group approach

Each focus group was two hours long and followed a deliberative approach. To capture views and opinions before deliberation, the focus group began by circulating a pre-deliberation survey (see example in appendix D) to all participants. This was done to identify participants’ level of awareness of OWF in their local area and Scotland as a whole.

The remainder of the session was structured into an evidence and information presentation followed by a thematic discussion. Participants were provided with an information pack at the start of each session containing an overview of current evidence around social and economic impacts of offshore wind, including a full list of references (see example in appendix E). The information pack was presented by the research team during the evidence session to contextualise the thematic discussion of potential impacts that followed.

The basis of the thematic discussion was a discussion guide produced to prompt in-depth discussions about potential impacts of OWF in Scotland. The discussion guide was structured around the conclusions of the review of the draft plan-level SEIA and wider literature on socio-economic impacts that was produced by the AECOM research team (see chapter 4 of this report).

A PowerPoint presentation was also produced to aid focus group sessions. The presentation covered the same potential impacts as the information pack to prompt the thematic discussion.

Within one week after each focus group, participants were asked to complete a follow-up survey to gauge if opinions had changed after more time to reflect.

Stage 3: Analysis and reporting

The analytical approach to the study was to firstly establish a thematic framework that allowed the researchers to systematically summarise the draft plan-level SEIA and incorporate wider literature. Findings were then written up by themes in order to synthesise evidence from relevant sources coherently. The Scottish Government’s research advisory group reviewed the review of the draft plan-level SEIA and literature review and, where appropriate, suggested further sources to be included. This literature review then formed the basis for the information pack provided to participants.

The next analytical step was to compare the identified themes with the detailed notes that had been taken throughout the focus groups. This was to ensure that the thematic framework was still applicable and to assess if further themes had to be added to the analysis. The summary of the focus groups by themes is provided in chapter 4 of this report.

Following this summary of contributions, further analysis was conducted to compare the conclusions from the draft plan-level SEIA with the views of the public as voiced throughout the focus groups and the surveys. The analysis did not only highlight whether the draft plan-level SEIA’s conclusions were conclusions that participants agreed with, but also what considerations and impacts may be missing or underreported according to the views of focus group participants. The specific aim of this task was to use these insights to develop tangible recommendations on how to further improve the draft plan-level SEIA, and to highlight where public opinions differ from the evidence presented. Additional to the initial objectives of the project, the research team also provided an insight into the impact of deliberation and access to information on the participants’ views which was used to shape the recommendations of this report.

The recommendations resulting from this study are threefold:

Firstly, the report suggests technical improvements to the draft plan-level SEIA to address any gaps and limitations identified and to improve future project-level SEIAs.

Secondly and based on the analysis of the focus groups, the recommendations include actions for the Scottish Government and developers of OWF to mitigate any negative impacts and harness potential positive impacts to address the concerns and expectations residents living in coastal communities adjacent to offshore developments.

Lastly, the report reflects critically on the research approach itself with the aim of pointing out what worked well and what could be improved for future research studies.