Democracy Matters phase 2: analysis of responses

Executive Summary

Democracy Matters Phase 2 launched in August 2023. Over six months, communities across Scotland came together to consider what governance arrangements could look like where they live. A public consultation was open from 28 August 2023 to 28 February 2024, with participants invited to share their views through multiple channels.

In total, 166 unique responses were received. The vast majority (159) were submitted directly to the Citizen Space consultation hub or emailed to the Scottish Government. In addition, the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) and Development Trust Association Scotland (DTAS) coordinated and facilitated seven events across Scotland.

The Scottish Government commissioned this report to The Lines Between to ensure an independent analysis of the responses to the public consultation.

Key Findings

The main findings arising from the engagement event discussions and consultation responses were:

• Arrangements for community decision-making should be flexible and responsive to the needs of the community and place.
• Decision-making bodies should be a platform to influence decisions and shape services in a structured and meaningful way. They should be representative of their community, including groups with protected characteristics.
• Ensuring accountability and building trust was seen as critical and could be done through transparent and accessible communication and effective planning, priority setting and evaluation.
• Clear participative mechanisms should be in place to make decisions, with various approaches used to maximise accessibility and encourage participation.
• A decision-making body should have a sustainable budget that can be directed independently.
• Community capacity building and skills development will be important to enabling communities to deliver more.

Powers

There was a clear desire among participants for a greater say in community decision making and to have resources which can be directed independently without ringfencing. Some suggested that the powers devolved to communities should be limited initially and expanded as communities build their capacity to do more.

A wide range of services were mentioned as areas that could have greater community involvement. Transport and environmental services were frequently raised, with some suggesting the communities could run local transport initiatives, repair roads, and maintain green spaces. Levels of desired community involvement varied from more influence to full service delivery.

Some participants suggested that communities could pool resources to deliver services where economies of scale are desirable. Some expressed concerns that responsibilities currently held by other bodies could be passed to community decision-making bodies without providing sufficient resources to deliver services properly.

Representation

There was strong support among participants for community decision-making to be representative of the whole community and that there should be a concerted effort to include people with protected characteristics. Including young people from the community in decision-making was frequently suggested. There was also support for other community organisations to be represented on new decision-making bodies, such as Community Councils, faith groups and parent-teacher associations.

It was suggested that representatives could be chosen via sortition to avoid self-selection and partisanship, but there was no clear consensus about the best selection method.

The broad view of participants was that those serving their community should have responsibility for project delivery, have a visible presence in the community, and listen and respond to the views and needs of community members.

Participation

Seeing the impact of community governance and decisions leading to positive change was highlighted as a critical way to encourage participation in community decision-making. The importance of overcoming barriers to participation was also noted by many, with suggestions being made to mitigate issues around the location and timing of meetings, transport to meetings, arranging and paying for childcare, loss of work hours and inaccessible formats of meetings and documents. There was some support for attendees being renumerated in some way, either through cash payment, vouchers or paid childcare. Paid time off to volunteer was also suggested.

The importance of offering a flexible range of participation methods, varying from face to face outreach and holding citizens' assemblies to online engagement, was also noted. Participants suggested that meetings should be accessible and in a format that makes people want to attend. For example, suggestions that a community event or a sports event, including food, refreshments or childcare could help to encourage participation.

Boundaries

There was little consensus about the boundaries for any new local decision-making arrangements. Participants frequently highlighted that the definition of 'local' can vary considerably among those who identify most with a community of place and can have a different non-geographical meaning for those in a community of interest.

Accountability and Standards

Many participants suggested that community decision-making bodies could be held accountable by ensuring that communication with communities is clear and accessible and that they develop community action plans that feature SMART objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). These plans would allow the wider community to measure, audit and have progress reports against the plan. There was also support for frameworks covering clarity of purpose, accountability, regulatory and legal issues to ensure trust in institutions.

Participants supported the standards outlined in the Democracy Matters discussion document: democratic legitimacy, accessibility, human rights, creativity, and impact.

There was support for developing a community charter, which would be agreed upon by members of the public, community decision-making bodies, and other community groups. A charter could serve various functions, including clarifying the roles, responsibilities, duties, voting rights, communication expectations, and powers of different bodies. However, some were sceptical of how these standards could be upheld and noted that sufficient financial resources and expertise would be needed to design a charter and to monitor that it is being used effectively in practice.

Funding community decision-making

While there was support for community decision-making bodies to have direct funding from national and local government, participants expressed some scepticism about whether this was a realistic ask, given the current state of public finances. It was also noted that conditions are often placed upon community funding which limits it being spent effectively on local priorities. Participants also called for communities to have a funding model that allows them to take a long-term view and plan effectively. Conversely, some advocated for funding to remain with local authorities to prevent disagreement within communities over how money is spent.

Other ways of raising revenue were suggested, including community control over certain taxes, for instance tourist and land taxes. There was also support for generating funding via commercial streams similar to how development trusts currently generate turnover, such as through renewable energy, social enterprise projects and community land ownership.

There were varying views on how any budgetary powers could be used. Some supported participatory budgeting as a mechanism to make spending decisions, while others felt it could lead to division within a community if different groups were competing for funding.

Support to develop skills and knowledge

Participants highlighted a need for support and training to enable community decision making bodies to make important decisions, take on more responsibilities and deliver services effectively. A robust support framework was regarded as necessary, including appropriate training on issues such as communication, conflict resolution, fundraising, legal, anti-racism and equality, and safeguarding.

Participants also suggested bodies should be able to employ staff to take on responsibilities such as administration, financial management, and HR and legal work, as well as to employ other roles that enable community development, such as youth work. It was also felt that if communities take on more responsibility, it is essential that roles currently done by paid staff should not be transferred to volunteers. It was suggested that existing public bodies could play a role in helping to build this capacity, but the current disconnect means communities do not feel listened to by public bodies. There was also a call for more significant investment in community development professionals across Scotland as critical bridges between institutions and communities.

Implications for public bodies

There was recognition among participants that new community governance arrangements will change the role of public bodies and allow them to become more focused and streamlined as their responsibilities change. It was suggested that changes to governance arrangements would allow public bodies to take a more strategic approach to their work while also playing a more collaborative and facilitative role with communities. However, potential negative impacts arising from new community governance arrangements were also noted, such as increased bureaucracy and tensions between different levels of decision-making.

Some also noted that there needed to be a clearly thought-out role for Community Councils in any future governance arrangements.

Conclusion

Reflecting on the experience and perspectives of participants, this report provides a high level summary of the themes evident in responses to Democracy Matters Phase 2. For more details, readers are encouraged to look at individual responses where permission was given for publication.

Overall, the key message was that while there is support for greater community decision making in Scotland, participants also highlighted multiple considerations that need to be addressed to ensure a new layer of decision-making in Scotland works effectively.