Analysis

Methodology

Respondents were able to take part in the consultation by completing a questionnaire form, or by submitting a freeform response via email or post.

The questionnaire included both closed and open questions. Closed question data was analysed to produce a series of charts.

Responses to open questions consist of free text commentary. Free text comments can be used provide additional context to complement closed question answers or can be standalone to give consultees the opportunity to give their feedback in their own words. Open text comments can be broad ranging, ambiguous and often cover multiple issues or comments.

The free text responses required further processing, or thematic coding to make sense of the issues raised and enable the presentation of the feedback. Data coding is the process of applying thematic codes to text from open questions to categorise and group comments. To inform this process, a code frame was developed.

A code frame is a list of codes which represent the different themes and areas of comment raised by respondents. This is created by reviewing a large sample of the responses and identifying common themes and areas of comment. The code frame for this exercise was reviewed on an ongoing basis during the analysis to ensure that any new codes that emerged in the data were incorporated. The coding of responses was subject to a series of quality assurance checks to ensure consistency and accuracy throughout the process.

Any email responses were coded using the same coding process as applied to other open text feedback gathered via the questionnaire.

Respondents were asked to confirm if they were completing the questionnaire as an “individual” or as an “organisation”.

Respondents were also asked for their permission to publish their consultation response.

Responses submitted by organisations through Citizenspace and who gave their permission to publish their consultation response will be published in full.