Infrastructure Stakeholder Engagement Survey

Report on findings and recommendations 2023/24

The Background

As a stakeholder-led business, SSEN Transmission is always striving to improve our engagement practice in collaboration with the wide range of communities and statutory stakeholders on our Pathway to Net Zero in 2030. Both external feedback and internal review, allow us to build on years of effective engagement as the Transmission Operator in the North of Scotland.

The Infrastructure Stakeholder Engagement Survey has given SSEN Transmission an opportunity to have our engagement independently appraised by stakeholders affected by the development of new transmission infrastructure and use their experiences and feedback to positively contribute to our continuous improvement.

Under the RIIO-T2 price control, which runs from April 2021 to March 2026, the new Infrastructure Stakeholder Engagement Survey (ISES) for Transmission Operators (TOs) was introduced by Ofgem, who has set the requirement for TOs to continue to improve their stakeholder engagement, using a qualitative survey as a measurement on an annual basis. Ofgem’s intention for this survey is to encourage engagement with stakeholders that may have been impacted by recent infrastructure projects to understand their experience, and ultimately how this can be improved. This will ensure a transparent process for feedback between the TO and their stakeholders.

There is no financial incentive for SSEN Transmission to carry out this survey.

The Survey

Our survey aimed to gain an understanding of stakeholder’s experiences of engagement and how they have been impacted by infrastructure projects, both directly and indirectly. We set the following objectives:

• Understand stakeholders’ perceptions and attitudes towards infrastructure projects and our engagement and communication
• Identify challenges faced by stakeholders with regards to infrastructure projects, and engagement and communication
• Understand improvement that could be made and identify opportunities for stakeholders with regards to infrastructure projects, engagement and communication

Methodology

Impact MR, an independent market research company, conducted a two-stage approach to this research. Firstly, an online survey which asked quantitative and qualitative questions. This was followed by three 90-minute focus group sessions with stakeholders designed to go into more detail on their feedback, discuss recommendations for improvement that will feed into our commitments and key actions.

To gather participants, we circulated an invitation to all stakeholders identified as being impacted by infrastructure projects, including community residents, Community Council members and statutory stakeholders. Most of the respondents that agreed to take part in the survey had recent experience of engaging on recent large infrastructure projects, many of whom were already known to SSEN Transmission.

The full independent report is available to download below.