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EXTENDING PLANNING CONTROLS TO MARINE FISH FARMING
Consultation Paper

Dear Consultee

CONSULTATION ON EXTENDING PLANNING CONTROLS TO MARINE FISH FARMING

I enclose a consultation paper Extending Planning Controls to Marine Fish Farming and invite your comments on this document.

Responding to this consultation paper

We are inviting written responses to the consultation on Extending Planning Controls to Marine Fish Farming by 14 January 2005. Please send your response to:

Planning.fishfarms@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

or

Katrina Burns
Scottish Executive Development Department
Planning Division
Area 2-H (B)
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ

We would be grateful if you could clearly indicate in your response the sections or paragraphs to which you are responding. Any further comments may also be included. This will aid our analysis of the responses received.

I also enclose a note about the Executive’s consultation processes which includes a Respondee Information Form. This form allows you to indicate how you wish your consultation response to be handled. Please return your completed form along with your response to the consultation. All responses will be acknowledged.

Access to consultation responses

We will make all responses available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library 21 days after the closing date of the consultation unless confidentiality is requested. All responses will also be posted on the Scottish Executive website. In addition, we will later publish an analysis of responses on the Scottish Executive website. While numerical totals may include confidential responses, the name or content of the response will not be published. All responses not marked confidential will be checked for any potentially defamatory material before being logged in the library or placed on the website.

SEConsult

A new email alert system for SE consultations (SEconsult) was launched in March 2004. This system will allow stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new Scottish Executive consultations (including web links). SEconsult will complement, but in no way replace the Scottish Executive’s distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to ‘keep an eye’ on all Scottish Executive consultation activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We encourage you to register as soon as possible on http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/seconsult.aspx.

Further copies of this consultation can be obtained by telephoning 0131 244 7064. It can also be found on the Scottish Executive website at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. Freephone 0800 771234 to find out where your nearest public Internet access point is, if you prefer to submit your response by e-mail. A shortened list of those who we are consulting/informing can be found at the back of the consultation paper. A full list is available on request. If you are aware of any other organisations who should be consulted please contact Katrina Burns on 0131 244 7064.

Yours faithfully

DAVID FERGUSON

The Scottish Executive Consultation Process

Consultation is an essential and important aspect of Scottish Executive working methods. Given the wide-ranging areas of work of the Scottish Executive, there are many varied types of consultation. However, in general Scottish Executive consultation exercises aim to provide opportunities for all those who wish to express their opinions on a proposed area of work to do so in ways which will inform and enhance that work.

While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body. Consultation exercises may involve seeking views in a number of different ways, such as public meetings, focus groups or questionnaire exercises.

Typically, Scottish Executive consultations involve a written paper inviting answers to specific questions or more general views about the material presented. Written papers are distributed to organisations and individuals with an interest in the area of consultation, and they are also placed on the Scottish Executive web site¹ enabling a wider audience to access the paper and submit their responses. Copies of all the responses received to consultation exercises (except those where the individual or organisation requested confidentiality) are placed in the Scottish Executive library at Saughton House, Edinburgh (K Spur, Saughton House, Broomhouse Drive, Edinburgh, EH11 3XD, telephone 0131 244 4552).

The views and suggestions detailed in consultation responses are analysed and used as part of the decision making process. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:

• indicate the need for policy development or review
• inform the development of a particular policy
• help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals
• be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to:

Graham Robinson
Scottish Executive Development Department
Area 2-H (B)
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ
E-mail: graham.robinson@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

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