Just Transition for the Grangemouth industrial cluster: discussion paper

Developing the Co-Design Process

Grangemouth has a long-standing legacy as one of Scotland’s foremost manufacturing hubs, situated closely to the town of Grangemouth and the wider Falkirk area. There is an intrinsic and complex link between the operations and activity of industrial cluster, industrial workers, and the surrounding communities who have been affected and stand to be further affected by change in the economic and social fabric of the area as it transitions to net zero.

As outlined in our National Just Planning Framework, the Scottish Government recognises a strong partnership between business, unions, workforce and local communities will be vital for the success of any Just Transition Plan. The active engagement and involvement of these groups is therefore essential to planning a Just Transition for Grangemouth.

As such, and in line with Scottish Government’s Just Transition policy, this work will seek to identify and involve a wide range of stakeholders who stand to be affected by the proposed developments in the decisions and actions that this plan will outline.

Definition of Co-design:

The overarching goal of just transition planning is to ensure that the transition to a net-zero economy promotes fairness and equity for Scotland. Our approach is designed to ensure that the costs, benefits and risks of moving to net zero are better understood, so that decisions and policy making can respond accordingly.

We will inform the process of achieving a fairer and more equitable net-zero economy by identifying and working with those who will be most impacted by large structural changes.

‘Co-design’ means working with those who have a lived experience of a specific topic and who will experienced impacts resulting from implementing change, providing those groups or individuals with a space to shape the decision-making process and taking into consideration a wider range of perspectives and aspirations for the future in a net-zero world. Working together, we will develop a Just Transition Plan.

Developing the Co-Design Process

Building the right conditions for co-design to succeed will take time – as the process involves a wider range of stakeholders, it follows that some parties will not be used to working together, whilst some may hold more knowledge than others on specific aspects of the process.

This will involve a series of steps including:

Building capacity – We are already working with a range of local stakeholders on the Grangemouth Just Transition process, as part of early engagement to promote the work and encourage involvement. This includes representatives across the Scottish public sector, industry, trade unions and the Grangemouth community.

We are also in the process of funding a Community Just Transition Participation Officer. The focus of that role will be to widen and co-ordinate community involvement in the plan, supporting a strengthening of the local social infrastructure and collaboration – and maximising Just Transition opportunities for the local community by assisting alignment of programmes, resources and partnership opportunities. As such a key

function of that posting should be to extend community participation through facilitated community engagement sessions and supporting us to work with harder to reach demographics.

Creating engagement channels – The development of our baseline, vision and action plan will be key points where co-design, and lived experience input becomes vital to informing this work. We have identified a workshop based approach to be the most effective format to maximise participation and shared decision making. During the process of this work, we will host a series of place-based engagements in Grangemouth, mixing in-person and online events covering a mix of topics and involving a wide range of stakeholders who have specific interests in the transition of the industrial cluster.

Assessing our approach – We will create review points to assess the experience of participants and whether are we reaching those we need to. There are review points and feedback loops built into the programme to ensure that the input we are receiving is used to shape our policies and strategies and further engagement. For example, to assess which voices are missing and how to tailor additional engagement to help refine the co-design approach.

Providing Feedback – We will share feedback with participants and publishing engagement reports. These will outline the activities undertaken, an overview of the input received and how this has been reflected in the plans as they develop.

Recognition – Following input into this detailed work, it is our ambition that all stakeholders can work towards agreement through a shared Memorandum of Understanding, underlining the ambition of our agreement to the future vision of the industrial cluster at 2045. This agreement should recognise the work of those inputting to the Just Transition Plan.

Co-Design Process

• Creating engagement channels
• Assessing our approach
• Providing feedback
• Recognition
• Building capacity