The Scottish Government

« Previous | Contents | Next »

Listen

REPORT OF THE SUMMARY JUSTICE REVIEW COMMITTEE: SUMMARY OF RESPONSES TO THE WRITTEN CONSULTATION - FINAL REPORT

CHAPTER TWO THE WRITTEN CONSULTATION

2.1 The Report of the Summary Justice Review Committee was circulated to over 1,500 organisations and individuals in all relevant sectors in March 2004. The consultation exercise opened on 16 March with a return date for responses of 16 July 2004.

2.2 The Report was also made available on the internet with the opportunity to submit a response via the written response form which was available on the Scottish Executive website.

2.3 The distribution list for the written consultation reflected a range of organisations interested in and involved in the criminal justice system in Scotland, and included sheriffs, Justice of the Peace groups, individual JPs and local authorities.

2.4 Although it was recognised that it would be impossible to circulate the Report to every possible respondent with a potential input to the Report, the range of organisations involved was considered to reflect a wide cross-section of interests from all sectors.

2.5 Within the response form, respondents were asked to detail their views on the Report's proposals on lay involvement; the unification of the summary court system; alternatives to prosecution; reforms to summary criminal procedure; fine enforcement; and any comments they had on other issues covered by the Report.

RESPONSES RECEIVED

2.6 A total of 240 written responses were received from a range of organisations and individuals. The length of submissions varied greatly from a single page commenting on one particular proposal to lengthy responses that commented on a large number of recommendations.

2.7 Written responses were grouped as follows:

Table 2.1: Number and Type of Responses: Individuals & Groups

Response handling

2.8 Respondents to the consultation were offered a number of options regarding their wishes for making their name, address and response public. Individual respondents could opt to have:

• Their name, address and response all made available for inspection
• Their name and response made available, but not their address
• Their response made available for inspection, but not their name and address
• Their name, address and response treated in full confidence.

2.9 Overall, 30% of individual respondents requested some degree of confidentiality; 11% of individuals asked for full confidentiality and 19% wished their name and address not to be made public. We have decided not to attribute comments to individual respondents in this analysis.

2.10 Organisations responding were advised that their name and address would be made available, but were given two options regarding their wishes for making their response public. They could opt to have:

• Their response publicised
• Their response treated in full confidence.

2.11 Only 9% of the 116 organisations responding requested confidentiality. Where organisations requested that their response remain confidential, we have tried to ensure that anonymous comments could not be matched to responding organisations by a process of elimination.

2.12 A list of organisational respondents and individual respondents happy for their name, address and response or their name and response to be publicised is contained in Appendix A to this report.

Table 2.2: Confidentiality Level Requested By Respondents

2.13 All major sectors with a potential interest in the Report's proposals appear to be represented in the responses received. It can be noted (and is not surprising) that the highest number of responses were received from individual Justices of the Peace (38%) with Justice of the Peace Committees (16%) also well represented. Local government submissions formed the next largest organisational group with 13% of total responses received.

Table 2.3: Number of Responses Received Grouped by Type

'*' in the % column denotes a proportion of less than one per cent.

2.14 The category 'other organisations' comprised a variety of responses including Community Council submissions; the Society of Messengers at Arms; the Turriff and District Heritage Association; and Northgate Information Solutions plc.

ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION OF THE DATA

2.15 The written consultation exercise resulted in a large amount of qualitative data being received from organisations and individuals alike. Some written responses were submitted in order of the questions posed in the response form, others provided a full detailed submission on the Report in general and each point on the written response form and some detailed short points within the form itself. Many respondents detailed similar arguments to specific proposals. The qualitative analysis undertaken attempted to take account of all these factors whilst preserving the detail of the data provided.

2.16 The actual qualitative analysis was carried out in a number of stages. In the first instance the Scottish Executive developed a Microsoft Access database to log each response as it came in and scan the actual submission linked to the organisation or individual. The database comprised categories for name; address; type of submission; organisation; areas covered; and type of confidentiality requested. Categories were also developed to show which areas of the Report the submission related to, and if any other comments were made.

2.17 Each response was read in full and each comment was matched with the relevant section of the Report. Next, summary data were manually extracted from each response to identify emerging themes. The final stage comprised building up a profile for each theme, allocating responses to themes in order to analyse levels of support and opposition.

2.18 This manual method of analysis allowed the researchers to ensure that, as far as possible, the broad issues that were raised by the respondents were clearly identified. This does not mean, however, that every single point raised in each response can be detailed - many of the points raised were identical or similar - in a summary document such as this as in many cases this would have generated lengthy lists and created a document that was not user-friendly. Variations by types of respondents or specific organisations have therefore, on the whole, only been identified where there was a clear difference and where the individual / organisation requested that their response could be identified. Copies of all those individual responses where the respondent did not request confidentiality can be inspected in the Scottish Executive library.

THE PRESENTATION OF THE DATA

2.19 The data presented in the following six main sections broadly follows the order of the consultation response form. These were logged by the Scottish Executive and the number of responses commenting on each area were as follows:

Table 2.4: Areas Covered by Responses

2.20 We would suggest that an analysis of responses in terms of numbers in favour and numbers against each key theme would be too simplistic. We have, therefore, tried to preserve the richness of the material contained in responses by including quotations (attributed, where their authors permitted) to give a clear indication of some of the key concerns and issues raised by respondents.

« Previous | Contents | Next »