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CHAPTER TWO: THE CONSULTATION EXERCISE.

DISTRIBUTION ARRANGEMENTS

2.1 In contrast to the approach adopted with the related consultation paper, Getting Involved in Planning, there was no exact monitoring of the distribution arrangements. 88 responses were received including 4 requests for complete anonymity or confidentiality. Respondents were asked by the Executive to complete a "Respondee Information Form" (RIF) by the Executive. This form requested information on whether the respondent was responding as an individual or on behalf of a group or organisation, whether the respondent agreed to their response being made public (with the option of personal details being kept confidential) and whether the respondent was content to be contacted in future for consultation or research purposes.

Stakeholder Groups

2.2 Consultees were assigned to six broad stakeholder groups, all of which were further subdivided to permit more detailed analysis. This classification scheme was designed to mirror that employed in Getting Involved in Planning ¹². The reasons for adopting the same approach are given in paragraph 1.4 above. Table 2.1 shows both the broad and detailed categories utilised. There were no responses received from universities and research units. The category of individual responses includes a predominance of responses by professionals involved in planning as lawyers or consultants who indicated on their RIFs that they were responding as individuals not as members of an organisation, firm or group. These responses were all categorised as individual responses since it was not possible to distinguish between those who were responding in a professional individual capacity and those who were responding in a private individual capacity. A small number of requests for anonymity were received.

Table 2.1

2.3 The classification of stakeholder groups has facilitated the identification of those groups who have been active in the consultation exercise and also those which have remained silent or relatively silent. However, it obviously did not assist in the identification of the reasons lying behind decisions to participate or not although qualitative analysis of responses of those who did respond in some cases provided an indication of the reasons why they did so.

Response Rates

2.4 Unlike the consultation exercise, Getting Involved in Planning, no details were kept of the exact number of copies of the consultation paper distributed. Therefore it is not possible to establish a response rate relative to the number of papers distributed. However, it is still possible to calculate the percentage of responses from each group relative to the total responses received and this is presented in table 2.2. Given this consultation exercise was a detailed follow-up to an issue raised in Getting Involved in Planning a comparison is also presented in table 2.2 of the total replies received in that exercise.

Table 2.2

* Excludes responses for which complete anonymity or confidentiality was requested.

The main points to note from this table are, first, the low level of responses received overall relative to the number received for Getting Involved in Planning. The relative scope of the two consultation papers is the likely explanation for that disparity with this paper having a relatively narrow focus on proposed changes to the public local inquiry system. Inevitably that was not likely to interest the voluntary sector and the public as much as the wider range of issues raised in Getting Involved in Planning. Secondly, it is unsurprising that the largest number from a group was from local authorities given their regular involvement in public local inquiries and the operational and resource implications which that involvement has for them. Thirdly, although the number of responses from business and trade organisations was lower than for Getting Involved in Planning, overall the number of responses represented a much higher proportion of the whole than was the case in Getting Involved in Planning. Clearly, many businesses and their representative organisations have a direct interest in Public Local Inquiries as appellants or interested parties in Local Plan Inquiries. Fourthly, the number of responses from professional bodies was just higher than in Getting Involved in Planning and this again represented a much higher percentage of the total number of responses than in Getting Involved in Planning. This is presumably explained in much the same way as for the number of responses from businesses except the professionals would be appearing on behalf of developers or local authorities in Public Local Inquiries. Again there were no responses from Universities or Research Units. This may be explained in part by the demands of the Research Assessment Exercise which provides credit for publications rather than responses to consultation papers which may discourage academics or University research units from responding to such papers. Finally, the much lower number of responses from the voluntary sector and the public should be noted. In particular there were only 3 responses from community councils in stark contrast to the large number which responded to Getting Involved in Planning. The low response rate relative to Getting Involved in Planning can presumably be partly explained by the lower levels of interest likely to be engendered by more technical proposals relating to Public Local Inquiries and the lower level of public involvement at the stage of inquiries dealing with appeals. As noted above many of the individual responses received were actually from planning professionals responding in their private capacity. This and the low response rates overall suggest that any overall conclusions drawn must be regarded as qualified and not necessarily fully representative of all stakeholder group views. Nonetheless the responses can be taken to represent a reasonable indication of local authority and most likely, business and professional views.

Response to questions by stakeholder category

Table 2.3

Note 1: The percentages against stakeholders represent the share of total responses to each question.

Note 2: The percentage in the final column shows the share that the total responses to each question represents of all responses (85).

Note 3: Figures do not always sum to 100% due to rounding up.

Note 4: Some questions also have subsidiary parts. This table does not provide a breakdown of the responses to those parts but only to the question overall. Tables providing a breakdown of answers to those subsidiary questions are provided in the appropriate sections later in this report.

2.5 Comparing the overall response rate for each separate stakeholder group with their rate for individual questions does not reveal significant variations. Local authorities have higher rates for all questions. This is because nearly all of the local authority respondents answered all of the questions. They were followed by the business respondents, nearly all of which again answered all of the questions. Few of the respondents overall were particularly selective in their responses although three made only general comments and did not answer any of the specific questions and one local authority focused its answers on development plan inquiries only. However, a number of respondents did not clearly indicate which questions they were answering in their responses and it was necessary to exercise judgement to identify which section(s) of the responses related to particular questions.

COMMENTS ON THE CONSULTATION EXERCISE

2.6 There were no direct comments on the consultation exercise made by respondents. Most indicated that they welcomed the opportunity to comment and some raised issues about the scope of the paper (these are dealt with in other sections as appropriate) but no points were made about how the consultation exercise was carried out.

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