ADD2007 Air Quality Consultation – Survey and Analysis of Results

1.1 The Mayor has announced his intention to consult Londoners ‘within a matter of weeks’ on a major package of measures to tackle air pollution in London including extending the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), implementing an extra charge on the most polluting vehicles entering central London, introducing ULEZ standards for heavy vehicles London-wide from 2020 and establishing the feasibility of implementing a diesel scrappage scheme.

1.2 Stage 1 of the consultation will be carried out by the GLA’s Opinion Research team and aim to:

• Demonstrate the Mayor’s commitment to lead an engaged and accessible City Hall administration;
• Engage a broad population of Londoners with the consultation - including people in areas most affected;
• Provide insight that informs the development of effective and impactful policies, plans and interventions; and
• Ensure a public consultation on Air Quality (AQ) measures is launched prior to the summer holidays, and with time to ensure that certain measures could move to implementation in early 2017.

1.3 The consultation activities undertaken in Stage 1 will:

• Raise awareness of AQ challenges and gain public feedback on outline measures proposed to address the issue. We want to expose our plans and ideas and to allow individuals to comment and provide feedback and their own ideas - so that ongoing development of policy is informed by public opinion;
• Establish which measures / interventions Londoners prioritise and think will have the most impact on improving AQ in London. In broad terms, we will test demand for and impact of proposed measures;
• Find out what actions Londoners are prepared to take to address poor AQ in the long term, and to avoid or alleviate poor AQ conditions in the short term e.g. willingness to react to emergency measures; and
• To engage a large number of Londoners in this Stage 1 phase of consultation, including those in worse affected areas, so that we can re-contact them to take part in the later detailed consultation Stages.

1.3 Research Methodology:

1.4 Stage 2 and 3 consultation activities will demand feedback from Londoners on detailed, specific policy proposals. These detailed consultation phases will ensure the GLA and Transport for London (TfL) fulfil statutory and legal obligations to consult – thereby minimising the risk of legal challenge by judicial review.

Objectives:

2.1 From the TfL Market Research Framework, to commission TNS Research Ltd to deliver a quantitative online survey of a representative sample of 1000 Londoners, plus a boosted sample of 1,000 from respondents in areas most affected by poor air quality in London. The cost of this work is not expected to exceed £20,000.
2.2 To commission a market research agency to deliver qualitative analysis of open-ended questions from the Talk London Air Quality survey on air quality. The agency will be required to analyse responses between 8-50 words; three demographic questions for cross-tabulation; coding to include ‘over-codes’ and ‘sub-codes’ around the topics of interest. TfL advise that there is no suitable framework from which to call off a contract. A competitive procurement process will be followed in order to identify a suitable company with the requisite expertise in qualitative analysis. The cost of this work is not expected to exceed £25,000.

Outcomes:
2.3 Robust consultation and research is undertaken to inform policy and decision making:

• 2,000 responses to the TNS online survey of Londoners with results in crosstab form by 21 July 2016 (Analysis of the outcomes likely summarised in a report produced in house); and
• A code book of responses to the open-ended questions from the Talk London Air Quality survey, and tables with demographic cross-tabulations.

3.1 Giving due attention to the views of all Londoners has been identified as a key objective for the upcoming Air Quality consultation. In boosting the sample of responses to the TNS online survey, and in asking an agency to code the answers to open ended questions in the Talk London survey by gender, ethnicity and age, the ORS team will report significant differences in the views of these groups.

4.1 Key risks and issues are set out below:

4.2 The consultation will support the development of a suite of measures that is likely to bring forward compliance with EU limit values particularly for NOx. This is consistent delivery of the Mayor’s Air Quality Strategy.

5.1 Approval is being sought for expenditure of up to £45,000 in support of the (Stage 1 Air Quality measures) online survey and analysis of results. This is to be funded from Executive Director, Development, Enterprise and Environment (DE&E) 2016-17 Minor Programme budget and the work and report will be all delivered in 2016-17.

The LL Due Diligence will be tendered through an appropriate TfL consultancy framework.