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IMPROVING FAMILY LAW IN SCOTLAND: ANALYSIS OF WRITTEN CONSULTATION RESPONSES

CHAPTER TWO THE CONSULTATION PROCESS

TIMING OF CONSULTATION

The consultation opened on 5 April 2004 and closed on 28 June 2004 although responses received in the week following this deadline have been included in the analysis. The scale of the consultation was wide in terms of distribution to stakeholders and large in terms of the volume of responses received. Staff in the Civil Law Division of the Scottish Executive's Justice Department supported the exercise.

NATURE OF CONSULTATION

The consultation document comprised 55 pages (plus covering letter). The document set out the background to the consultation and provided an overview of the reform proposals. It highlighted the areas where firm proposals had been identified and those areas where no consensus had yet emerged. The issues were divided into 7 topics with their respective status classified thus:

In addition, the document outlined a small number of technical amendments which are also planned. These are intended to remove anomalies and redundant provisions in family law and provide clarification of a small number of aspects of the law.

DISTRIBUTION AND ADVERTISING OF CONSULTATION DOCUMENT

To launch the consultation over 4,000 documents were distributed. Many more documents were issued in response to requests, with further copies distributed along with invitations to a series of consultation events around Scotland. Copies of the document were also sent to key public places: libraries, register offices, sheriff courts, Citizens Advice Bureaux (CABx) Offices, and local authority public offices. This ensured an extensive coverage of public, private and voluntary organisations along with accessibility for individual members of the public. The consultation was also made available on the Scottish Executive website.

Some respondents indicated in their responses how they had heard about the consultation. Although this information was not always available, the details which were provided demonstrated that publicity about the consultation had reached a local level. For example, although many respondents had been alerted to the exercise via the internet, others reported information reaching them via newspapers, TV, charity groups, CABx, their MSP or local library.

NATURE OF RESPONSES

The structure of the consultation document provided a significant steer in promoting some consistency in form of response. Many respondents used the formal consultation response form to submit their response either electronically or in hard copy. Respondents chose which topics to respond to with many focusing on just one or two of the issues posed for consultation. Whilst most provided some indication of a clear view for or against the proposals relating to their chosen topic(s), others simply provided commentary without arriving at a final verdict.

Where respondents elected to draft their own response (not using the response form provided), submissions ranged from one paragraph responses to relatively long arguments sent with supporting attachments.

The consultation was characterised by the substantial volume of responses from individual members of the public. Many submissions contained detailed accounts of personal circumstances, often communicated in emotive language, from which the analysis has been able to draw general views. In addition, a significant minority of responses from individuals contained a degree of identical wording of phrases and sentences, indicating the likelihood of various campaigns and lobbying of views amongst some communities. From some of the comments made in such responses, it could perhaps be deduced that some respondents had not had sight of the consultation paper itself but had based their submissions on information provided to them by a third party.

WHO WERE THE RESPONDENTS?

The full list of organisations that responded is documented at Annex 3. Respondents could be grouped into broad categories as shown in Table 1 overleaf.

The largest group of respondents comprised those responding on an individual basis (72% of total). The vast majority of these appeared to be ordinary members of the public, some of whom had first-hand experience of some the issues under consultation. Other members of this group stipulated that they were responding on an individual basis but highlighted that their views had been shaped by their current or previous professional involvement in, for example, legal firms or church organisations. Charities formed the next largest category of respondents (8%), followed by faith groups (5%).

Table 1: Respondents by Category

(..) Less than 0.5%

NB Percentages may not total 100% exactly due to rounding

*The 'Individuals' category are those people who stated they were responding as an individual rather than on behalf of an organisation, this included people whose views were informed by their professional experience.

In addition to these responses, a petition containing 2282 signatures was submitted to the consultation team. The petition was organised by "Grandparents Apart Self Help Groups" and was in favour of fathers and grandparents having a legal presumption of contact with their children/grandchildren.

Naming Respondents

After discussion with the Scottish Executive consultation team, the convention adopted for this consultation has been to preserve anonymity of individual respondents and organisations, by attributing their comments and quotes to the grouped respondent category to which they fit along with the addition of a their unique reference number. In this way, individual requests for anonymity are met, but a further depth is added to the analysis by providing some contextual information about the respondent type. The terms used to describe the different category of respondent are as follows:

Where similar views have been expressed by a small number of respondents, each of these consultees is referenced.

Gaps in Respondent Type

A scan of the consultee list along with a review of the respondent organisations revealed no obvious gaps. The consultation attracted a sizeable volume of responses from a wide spectrum of respondents representing a variety of perspectives. Remote, rural and urban locations were also represented amongst respondents. It was interesting to note the relatively high percentage of responses to this consultation from individuals compared with other similar consultation exercises.

APPROACH TO ANALYSIS

The main challenges for the analysis of responses to the consultation were the relatively large volume of responses and the need to sift through a significant quantity of responses from members of the public which documented personal stories relating to the issues under consideration. Obviously it would be inappropriate to refer to these personal details and circumstances in the analysis report. However, where patterns of barriers and situations emerged more generally and were relevant to the analysis, these have been included.

A comprehensive electronic framework for identifying and recording relevant comments from respondents was developed and a number of ground-rules established to ensure responses were prepared for analysis in a consistent and sensible fashion.

Analytical Framework

An electronic Excel database was used to store and assist analysis of the responses. This database enabled the storage of either free text or numerical data in a systematic manner whilst providing the flexibility for framework amendments should these be required as the work progressed.

The fields used to record the material were based on the questions set out in the consultation document and were designed to accommodate both the yes/no responses and more detailed commentary. Once responses had been examined, a small number of additional fields were added to accommodate the further themes which arose. The result was a comprehensive list of fields which formed the headings for the consultation database of responses.

Ground-Rules

Separate Responses from the Same Individual/Organisation

On occasions, one respondent may send in more than one response. This can occur, for example, when they have further thoughts on the issue and wish to make more comment. In other instances, the respondent may have simply forgotten to enclose some evidence in their first reply and they contact the Review team again with more information. Sometimes the view of one individual or organisation may be submitted more than once by virtue of their involvement in more than one organisational/professional body. For example, a consumer group may collate and submit responses on behalf of a pool of individuals who may have already responded on an individual or professional basis. On occasions, a respondent may send the same response in both electronic and hard forms.

Both the Scottish Executive consultation team and the research team were alert to the possibilities of such double entries. Any identical responses were picked up by hand searching or electronic screening and removed from the exercise. Where several non-identical responses containing fresh material could be associated with one individual or organisation then these were collated into one comprehensive response and attributed to that one respondent.

Quantitative Material

Although much of the analysis was based on descriptive free text, scope existed for quantitative analysis and this was exploited. Quantitative data was generated by the incorporation of yes/no tick boxes into the consultation response form. Such data also involved approximate counts of the numbers of respondents who commented on particular topics and, within these groups, the numbers of respondents holding particular views. However, because of the open nature of the consultation, which did not require people to provide a response on every issue, the approach of many consultees in providing more general comments rather than responding to each question posed, and the way that respondents could "opt in" to their chosen response topics. Quantification of responses was not appropriate in all instances and should be treated as simply indicative and illustrative rather than absolute. In addition, it should be noted that any statistics quoted here cannot be extrapolated to a wider population outwith the consultation population.

Factual Accuracy

The views presented in this analysis have not been vetted in any way for factual accuracy. The opinions and comments submitted to the consultation may be based on fact or may, indeed, be based on what respondents perceive to be accurate from their perspective, but which others may interpret differently. It is important for the analysis to represent views from all perspectives. The report may, therefore, contain analysis of responses which may be factually inaccurate, but are objective in terms of their reflection of strongly held perceptions.

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