Open Government - public participation strategy: advice

Recommendation 1

Implement existing resources and action plans

Clear guidelines on best practice and lessons learned have been set out by the National Standards for Community Engagement (NSfCE 2016); the Community Engagement ‘How To’ Guide; the Community Engagement Community Planning Toolkit; the Visioning Outcomes in Community Engagement (VOiCE) online platform; Education Scotland and Learning Connections Guide on Community Learning and Development activity with equalities groups (2010); Community Engagement: A Critical guide for Practitioners (2017) and the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act introduced in 2015; What Works Scotland (2017) report; Health Care Improvement Scotland's 'Engaging Differently' (2020).^[6] Oliver Escobar believes that unlocking the potential of all these resources would be ‘quite powerful’.

Efforts were made to achieve the National Standards in Scotland and examples can be seen through organisations and planned events such as the Health and Social Care Integration consultation; the Diversity and Equality Alliance; ‘Our Rights, Our Voices’ and many community-based projects.^[7] Yet there is a feeling that the Scottish Government invests a significant amount of money in developing the resources but do not use them internally (Fiona Garven). There was also a feeling amongst the experts that the advice has already been given to the Scottish Government and it was time to action it.

Further, there is a need to stay abreast of good practice elsewhere. Drawing international parallels, we can learn from good practice, share resources, evidence and fund further research into participatory governance.

Weighing up the benefits of different consultation or engagement processes can and should be undertaken by experts and expert advisory groups. Public servants and local authorities can be supported to identify this for themselves. There are myriad of tools and methods from which the public can be engaged, and an ambitious strategy would be to implement a diverse ‘menu’ of engagement processes.

Action:

• Implement the guidelines and utilise the resources that are already there.
• Work more closely with those that are doing the job and trust that they know what they are doing.
• Action what comes out of groups like the RSE’s Post Covid 19 Futures Commission group, Social Renewal Advisory Group.
• Recognise the service delivery and regeneration activity stemming from the work of anchor organisations operating out with the traditional third sector, for example, Development Trusts, Community-led Health initiatives, community-based Housing Associations, and resource those organisations to implement wider independent community development.
• Support public servants by providing them with access to the skills, tools and methods so they have capacity and confidence in all forms of engagement with stakeholders and the public.