Engaging and empowering communities and stakeholders in rural land use and land management in Scotland

HERO

We believe that we are the only ones who can solve the problems - and need to rescue the environment for its own sake and for people

HOST

We know we can't do it alone. When we invite diverse people to come together and have focused conversations about real challenges, then we can create, manage and deliver solutions that will last. We are practicing and developing our hosting skills.

CONSULTATION

We need to work out what we think is possible, formally ask the public about it, adapt our views in light of this, then decide the way forward and implement it.

ENGAGEMENT and EMPOWERMENT

We deliver our responsibilities by working with communities and stakeholders to develop shared outcomes, projects and reporting mechanisms.

INTERVENTION

We need to intervene to fix the things that aren't working based on an 'expert knows best' or 'problem-solution' model.

COLLABORATION

We work together to increase interdependency between communities, stakeholders and the public sector. We recognise that behaviour change is more successfully when people have direct ownership and make use of their own and others' experience and resources as equals.

AD HOC MEETINGS AND WORKSHOPS

We have to involve others but don't think this is an important part of our work or as important as our expert view and science. We do what we have to as and when necessary.

WELL DESIGNED ENGAGEMENT PROCESSES

We learn from best practice and have cohesive well designed engagement processes that enable everyone to discuss, share information, explore options, plan action and collaborate and achieve the outcomes together.

CORPORATE CONSISTENCY

To be successful everyone needs to conform to the same basic bureaucratic patterns and behaviours.

APPRECIATING DIVERSITY

To be resilient we need a diverse, enthusiastic work force held together by a desire to learn and a commitment to the civil service (or other ethical) code.

SILO WORKING

We only input within our own area of responsibility within our own organisation - even if we are the only representative from the environmental public bodies in the room - other matters are for other people not for me.

COLLEGIATE RESPONSIBILITY

We each have responsibility to help achieve the bigger goal so when other expertise is needed we do our best to assist by finding the people who can help and/or being a conduit for communication and support.

PROBLEMS

Problems are solved by reducing them to their individual parts, creating specific agencies, teams and solutions to solve each one and tackling each separately.

PLACES & SOLUTIONS

We start by looking at the combined impacts of our actions in the real world; discover with others the links between the people, places and communities that are affected; share our knowledge and develop integrated approaches with others that attempt to solve multiple challenges.

SHORT TERM FIXES

Based on 'expert knows best' model we provide pick lists of services or interventions, aimed at fixing day-to-day symptoms with no flexibility to adapt to context, people, or place.

LONG TERM RELATIONSHIPS

To solve tough problems, we bring all the key interests together, recognising they have just as much to bring as ourselves and together we can work out and solve underlying causes. We need to commit to people to help discover and build on all our strengths and increase trust.

MEASURING

We need to work out what information and evidence we need for each individual project or policy and set up contracts to provide this by designing new research projects from scratch.

SENSING

We maximise use of existing information, including community and stakeholder data and knowledge, by collaboratively developing research questions, carrying out the research and applying findings to land use and land management.

EFFICIENCY

To achieve outcomes we need to make everything as big, simple and fast as possible, using the minimum possible resources; including human resources.

RESILIENCE

We are efficient with our use of physical resources through whole life-cycle design and engineering; reduce, reuse, recycle. For human and natural resources, we increase resilience i.e. our long-term ability to cope with change through continuous learning and sound relationships.

RISK MINIMISATION

We are risk averse and put our faith in carefully designed risk logs and detailed processes that protect us from criticism and help identify the cause after failures have occurred.

We need to plan and monitor in as much detail as possible, on paper or on a computer, to ensure that every aspect is tied down and completed on schedule.

RISK MANAGEMENT

We learn and increase our understanding of the substantial long term challenges now and in the future, and increasing our appetite for taking appropriately managed short term risks

We try new approaches, experimenting; measuring success, learning lessons and discovering more as we go

TRANSACTING

We need to bargain for the cheapest deal to get as much as we can for the smallest possible outlay.

GIFTING

We are generous with our time, effort and skills, while being clear about sustainable development principles such as the need for protection and enhancement of Scotland's assets (social, physical and environmental capital).

POWER

We need to work out what to do (in great detail), then secure funding and then tell/convince other people to do it.

PLAY

Leadership happens all over the place. We share evidence and work together to identify the best, coordinated way forward; creativity is the key.

SCALING UP

We need to create easily replicated models/projects and then reproduce them everywhere else.

INSPIRING ACROSS

We learn from real experiments on the ground and use these to inspire others to take similar, yet tailored, approaches elsewhere.