Scottish Government

Responding to this consultation paper

We are inviting written responses to this consultation paper as early as possible but no later than 28th April 2006. Please send your response to:

Philip.Hogben@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

or

If you have any queries contact Philip Hogben on 0131 244 2209 or Philip.Hogben@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.

We would be grateful if you would use the consultation questionnaire provided in the covering letter or photocopy the one in Annex 2, as this will aid our analysis of the responses received.

This consultation, and all other Scottish Executive consultation exercises, can be viewed online on the consultation web pages of the Scottish Executive website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.

The Scottish Executive now has an email alert system for consultations ( SEconsult: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/seconsult.aspx). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements, but in no way replaces SE distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all SE consultation activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Handling your response

We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form enclosed with this consultation paper as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Executive is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to them under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public (see the attached Respondent Information Form), these will be made available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library and on the Scottish Executive consultation web pages by June. We will check all responses where agreement to publish has been given for any potentially defamatory material before logging them in the library or placing them on the website. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the SE Library on 0131 244 4565. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

What happens next?

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help us reach a decision on The Quality Standards for Substance Misuse Services in Scotland. We aim to issue a report on this consultation process by autumn and publish the final document early autumn 2006.

Comments and complaints

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

E-mail: Carole.Ross@scotland.gsi.gov.uk