Transport Just Transition Plan: Consultation Analysis

Appendix A Respondent Profile

Written Responses

Organisational Sector

Organisations were asked to identify their sector within the Respondent Information Form (RIF) issued alongside the consultation. This information was checked by the research team to ensure consistency, and to allocate sectors to organisations that had not identified a sector^[8]. The number of respondents per sector are outlined in the table below.

Urban Rural Classification

Respondents were also asked to identify where they lived against the Scottish Government’s six-point urban rural classification system, plus options for the islands and outside of Scotland. Due to the wording of this question, it was mostly answered by individuals, with many organisations either providing no response or basing their answer on their main office location (despite often having wider coverage). Individual’s responses to this question were reviewed manually for accuracy and consistency. Classifications were checked against postcode data provided in the RIF, resulting in two respondents being recategorised. As the question asked about where respondents lived, location classification data was removed from all organisations. It was assumed that most/all organisations would have a national remit covering all of Scotland, or that they would either represent people from or provide services across a mix of different geographic areas. The final number of respondents per urban rural classification is outlined in the table below.

Following this initial classification, it was agreed with the Scottish Government that some categories would be collated in order to provide more robust numbers per group for the analysis. As such, the final categories and numbers were:

• Organisations (national/mixed coverage): n=68
• Urban: n=23
• Accessible areas: n=26; and
• Remote, rural and island areas: n=6.

Engagement Events

In addition to the written responses, a number of engagement events were held to provide an alternative method of engagement. Discussions across these events focused on the first three sections of the consultation document, i.e. the draft vision and outcomes, the people and communities section, and on workers. Engagement event participants were not specifically asked to comment on the businesses and organisations section of the consultation document, or on monitoring and reporting, although some comments were provided in relation to this final section.

In total, 10 sets of summary notes were provided for analysis, however, not all outlined the number of engagement events that had taken place, or the number of people who had participated. Nine sets of summary notes did indicate that focus groups had taken place. These provided feedback from 25 separate focus groups. Eight sets of notes indicated the number of people who attended these focus groups, representing feedback from 266 attendees. One organisation also reported feedback from a roundtable discussion, a national survey, one-to-one discussions, and a site visit to a bus operator. However, the survey element was the only area where the numbers of participants was disclosed, with over 200 people responding to the organisation’s questionnaire. As such, the engagement events represent feedback from a large but unknown number of people.

Across the event feedback, various groups were represented, including:

• Children and young people;
• Women;
• People experiencing poverty;
• People from minority ethnic backgrounds;
• Transport workers and those involved in the transport industry;
• Those representing public health and mental health interests; and
• Those interested in climate policy.

At least one organisational written response was also informed by a focus group with disabled people, as well as in-person sessions and other engagement work. Their engagement activities specifically focused on the draft Plan and drew upon feedback from previous transport based engagement. While this response was treated as a written response (as it largely offered the organisational perspective), it is important to note this was also informed by wider feedback.

Previous Participation Reports

In the summer of 2023, a public participation programme was undertaken, which conducted engagement to set out areas of priority for the Just Transition Plans. This participation programme consisted of over 100 online or in-person events across Scotland, with around 1,000 attendees in total. Several of these events were transport-specific or included consideration of transport, using a transport discussion paper developed by the Scottish Government as guiding material. In order to determine whether there had been any changes in priorities or progression of the issues between 2023 and now, the results of the current consultation were compared to findings of the previous participation programme.

In total, 12 previous participation reports were identified by the Scottish Government as including relevant information to transport, and were included in this analysis (see Appendix B). These reports varied in style, with some representing notes taken at workshop events, and others being final published reports that collated findings from the different sectors explored as part of this programme. Some reports were publicly available online, while other unpublished sources were provided by the Scottish Government.