Scottish Government

Section One: Summary of the research methodology

The project combined a number of research methods in order to complete a comprehensive picture of the issues faced by unpaid carers, thereby creating a robust evidence base from which solutions to existing problems and emerging trends can be created. These include:

• Review of existing research, incorporating a literature review and international case studies.
• National household survey of 2,000 members of the general public about perceptions of the caring role and their expectations about their future caring role and responsibilities.
• 'Voices of Carers' - a national, postal and web-based survey of over 4,000 carers, and a series of targeted focus groups and individual interviews with carers.
• 'Delphi' survey - a survey of a panel of over 1,000 senior managers, policy makers and representatives from carers agencies about the future context in which caring will take place, and likely 'forces and drivers' (political, social, technological etc).
• Economic Modelling Tool - the development of an economic modelling tool based on future projections of the Scottish population, and the likelihood of people being in caring roles (numbers of carers) to 2014. ⁴
• A Stakeholder Steering Group, which has overseen progress, received interim results and acted as a panel of experts to generate recommendations, promoting the project through various networks, and acting as a critical friend. The group comprises leading academics, representatives from community and voluntary organisations, statutory organisations, and carer representatives. The Group formed the core participants for the stakeholder event.
• Project website - as a communication tool (for posting interim findings, reports and notes of meetings) and incorporating an online survey for carers and former carers, young carers, and people working in community and voluntary and/or statutory organisations.
• Future Scenarios - an important output of the exercise is to produce a number of scenarios or plausible futures. At a large stakeholder event on the 26 August 2005, the scenarios were utilised as planning tools to identify and develop 'robust actions', or recommendations that are consensus based and thought to hold for multiple possible and plausible futures.