Climate change duties - draft statutory guidance for public bodies: consultation
About you
Please indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are content for your response to published. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will still take account of your views in our analysis but we will not publish your response, quote anything that you have said or list your name. We will regard your response as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.
To find out how we handle your personal data, please see our privacy policy and our Privacy Notice below. By clicking submit you agree to our privacy policy and Privacy Notice.
Privacy Notice
General information
This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information when you respond to this consultation, including by email and post.
When we process your personal information, we promise to:
- make sure you know why we need it
- only ask for what we need, and not collect too much or irrelevant information
- make sure it is accurate and up to date
- let you know if we share it with other organisations, unless we have a legal obligation to pass it on without telling you
- protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn't
- make sure we don't keep it longer than is necessary.
Please see our privacy pages for further general information: https://www.gov.scot/privacy/
Our contact details
This consultation is being run by the Net Zero Public Sector Team, Domestic Climate Change Division, Scottish Government. The Net Zero Public Sector Team led on the development of the draft Statutory Guidance which is the focus of this consultation.
The Scottish Government falls under the legal entity of the Scottish Ministers in relation to processing of your personal information. We are the data controller for the personal information we process, unless otherwise stated.
You can email us at: climate.change@gov.scot
Postal enquiries should be sent to:
Scottish Government
Net Zero Public Sector Team, DCCD
Area 3F - South
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ
Data Protection Officer's contact details
You can contact our Data Protection Officer at DataProtectionOfficer@gov.scot or via our postal address. Please mark the envelope ‘Data Protection Officer’.
Your data protection rights
Data protection law gives you certain rights that you may exercise in respect of your own personal information. Not all these may be relevant to this consultation as some of the types of information mentioned below may not be requested or provided during this consultation.
- you have a right to request a copy of personal information we hold about you, by making a subject access request. This right always applies. There are some exemptions, which means you may not always receive all the information we process. We have published further information on this (https://www.gov.scot/publications/subject-access-request-form/)
- you have the right to ask us to update our records if you believe that the data we hold is inaccurate or incomplete. This right always applies
- you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information. There may however be some circumstances in which we cannot comply. Such as, if we have a legal duty to keep data, or we process it in a particular way
- you have the right to ask that we stop or restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances
- you have the right to object to processing if we are able to process your information because the process forms part of our public tasks
- you have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us from one organisation to another, or give it to you. This right only applies to information you have given us and we are processing information based on your consent or under, or in talks about entering into a contract and the processing is automated
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. We have one month to respond to you. Please contact us at dpa@gov.scot if you wish to make a request, or contact our Central Enquires Unit on 0300 244 4000.
Your right to complain
If you have concerns about our compliance with data protection laws, please contact our Data Protection Officer in the first instance at DataProtectionOfficer@gov.scot. They will look into the concerns you have raised and provides the response.
If you are not satisfied with the DPO’s response you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO are the supervisory authority responsible for data protection in the UK. You can contact the Information Commissioner at:
The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 08456 30 60 60
Website: www.ico.org.uk
More information is available at make a complaint on the Information Commissioner's site.
How we will collect the information
The personal information we will process is provided to us directly by you, as you respond to this consultation. If you respond online through the Citizen Space platform, the information will be gathered on the ‘About you’ page. If you respond by email or post, the information will be gathered through the Respondent Information Form.
Why the information is needed and how it will be used
Purpose of this consultation
The purpose of this consultation is to gather feedback on draft Statutory Guidance for public bodies in relation to the climate change duties, and to inform the development of the final guidance.
Lawful basis for processing personal data
The lawful basis for processing personal data is article 6(1)(e) of the UK GDPR, which allows the processing of personal data when this is necessary for the performance of a public task in exercise of official authority and article 6(1)(a) of the UK GDPR which allows the processing of personal data where clear consent has been given for the processing of data for a specific purpose.
Under section 45(1) of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, Scottish Ministers must give guidance to relevant public bodies in relation to the climate change duties.
Sections 45(2) and (3) of the Act require Scottish Minsters to consult local authorities and other such persons as the Scottish Ministers consider appropriate, before giving such guidance.
Data processing is necessary for us to perform these tasks for our official functions, and the task has a clear basis in law, i.e. it is a ‘public task’.
Why have we asked for your name and contact details?
Names and email addresses, and if applicable, postal addresses and postcodes, are requested solely in relation to communication about the consultation.
Your name will only be published as part of your response if you give us permission to do so (see ‘Publication of responses’ below).
Names and contact details will not form part of the analysis.
Why have we asked for organisational information?
We have asked for information regarding organisational responses, sector and whether the organisation is subject to the climate change duties and to the reporting duty. This is to enable us to differentiate between responses submitted by those who will be required to have regard to the guidance (i.e. the intended audience - public bodies subject to the climate change duties) and those who will not. This will inform the analysis, and in turn the final version of the guidance.
We are requesting information about the type of role that responders have, to further inform the analysis. We envisage that different users will utilise different sections of the guidance, e.g. that senior managers may find the leadership and governance sections of most use, while staff in delivery roles may focus on the chapters on implementing the duties. The guidance needs to be fit for purpose and gathering this data will help us ensure that it has been tailored correctly to the different users.
These questions are voluntary and respondents can choose not to answer, or to select a response such as ‘don’t know’ or ‘prefer not to say’. The responses given to these questions will not be published.
Where a responder submits an organisational response, and provides the name of the organisation, we may use publicly available data to verify and or determine whether the organisation is subject to the climate change duties, and to the related reporting duty.
Public bodies subject to the climate change duties are defined as Scottish public authorities within the meaning of section 3(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (asp 13). This defines public authorities as being: (i) those listed in schedule 1 of that Act; or (ii) those designated by order under section 5(1).
Public bodies subject to the reporting duty are listed in schedule 1 of The Climate Change (Duties of Public Bodies: Reporting Requirements) (Scotland) Order 2015, as amended.
Data sharing
The consultation responses will be shared with an external contractor (the data processor) solely for the purposes of conducting an analysis of the consultation and producing a consultation analysis report. At the end of the contract, any datasets required will be transferred back to Scottish Government. The contractor will not retain any copies of the individual responses or related datasets.
Publication of responses
Responses will be published in accordance with respondents’ expressed publication preferences. These preferences can be selected on the ‘About you’ page on Citizen Space for online responses; or on the Respondent Information Form for email and postal responses.
Where respondents have given permission for their response to be published, with or without their name, and after the Scottish Government has redacted any defamatory content which contravenes the moderation policy, consultation responses will be published online on Citizen Space at http://consult.gov.scot
How long your data will be kept
Information will only be kept for as long as is necessary to achieve the purpose it was collected for, i.e. to inform the development of the Statutory Guidance. After 12 months, Scottish Government will undertake a review to determine whether the data needs to be retained or destroyed. If it is decided that there is no rationale to justify continuing to hold the data, then it will be destroyed. If it is decided that there is justification to continue to hold the data then it can be held until a further review 12 months later.
Data protection policy document