Scottish Government

Response

8. Survey forms were sent out to all operators whose address appeared in the 2005/2006 Directory of Quarries & Quarrying Equipment ⁴. This information was supplemented by that gathered by the BGS through its annual updating exercise to gather information for ONS for Business Monitor PA1007. This produced 207 useable responses. However, because of confidentiality agreements, the returns from sand and gravel operators in Shetland have had to be excluded from the Survey. Similarly, two sites with small outputs producing neither crushed rock or sand and gravel have also been excluded from the Survey. The main conclusions are therefore drawn from returns elsewhere relating to 160 active and new sites, with consideration given to 43 inactive sites solely in relation to reserves. The geographical spread of the active and new sites are shown in Table 1:

TABLE 1: GEOGRAPHICAL SPREAD

9. The total amount of production in 2005 recorded by SAS was 22.0 million tonnes (mt) of crushed rock and 7.5 mt of sand and gravel. The equivalent figures in ONS's Business Monitor PA1007 was 24.7 mt for crushed rock and 8.8 mt for sand and gravel. This represents a return rate, based on output, of 89% and 85% for the Scottish Survey. It is believed that this return level represents a reasonable basis for taking the Survey forward.

10. A direct comparison between the two Surveys is shown in table 2. It should be noted that the SAS form indicated, for the purposes of that Survey, that Stirling Council area should be regarded as part of East Central Scotland. However, the ONS Survey included Stirling in West Central Scotland. To enable direct comparisons between both Surveys, SAS therefore includes Stirling as part of West Central Scotland. However, there remains some discrepancies at regional level between the two Surveys and the level of non-responses in particular areas will be a significant limiting factor in drawing useful conclusions from the data. It must also be noted that the Survey relates to the position at 2005.

TABLE 2: COMPARISONS BETWEEN SAS AND ONS