Informed decision-making, community engagement and participation workstream report

4. Evidence and best practice

4.1. There is a significant range of evidence and literature that sets out the main elements and considerations for consultation, engagement, deliberative approaches and democratic innovations across the globe. A high level literature review was undertaken to draw out the main considerations for police to embed in approaches to re-imagine and deepen the role of the public, communities and colleagues in designing changes to operational policing in Scotland.

4.2. Public engagement is a relatively new term, used little ahead of the nineties. It shares much in common with participatory democracy set out by, for example, John Stuart Mill^[4], G D H Cole^[5] and Jean-Jacque Rousseau^[6].

4.3. Public engagement and participatory democracy are often considered as complementary to representative democracy, by sharing some of the decision-making powers with the public and communities. Rousseau suggested that participatory approaches to democracy had the advantage of demonstrating 'no citizen is the master of another' and that 'all of us are equally dependent on our other fellow citizens'. Rousseau suggested that participation in decision-making increases the feeling among individual citizens that they belong in their community. A good example cited is often jury trials and the role of the public. Participatory approaches do not seek to replace representative democratic processes. Instead, they complement each other; democracy continually develops and people must have continuous opportunities to influence decision-making. Participatory approaches seek to do this by involving people in the wider democratic process outwith the standard election cycle to inform policy development, service delivery and ensure public's needs are addressed, alongside, in this example the police service's aspirations to respond to threat, risk and harm, throughout decision-making processes.

4.5. Policing is complex and additional consideration is critical to ensure the concept of policing legitimacy is factored in at all times. Policing by consent is recognised as crucial in a democratic society because the Police have powers to act in ways that could be considered illegal if enacted by any other members of the public, for example, using force or depriving people of their liberty.

4.6. Policing in the UK is grounded in the principle of 'policing by consent'^[7]. Derived from the nine principles of policing developed by the founder of the Metropolitan Police, Robert Peel. The notion of 'policing by consent' is rooted in the belief that for policing to be effective, there must be broad public support for a police service's actions. This is a key consideration in any proposal to use new technology or change policing services. Engagement is one area that supports policing to build trust and confidence but this must be considered alongside other key areas such as an effective legal system that ensures more broadly that policing is called to account for actions.

4.7. A common misconception is there is one particular methodology that has been devised and can be applied to facilitate all public engagement or participatory approaches. In reality, effective engagement and participation is best progressed on the basis that each different situation will require a bespoke design, using a combination of tools and expertise as part of an evolving cycle of action underpinned by clear principles within a well-articulated framework.^[8]

4.8. The evidence base sets out the significant journey^[9] of design, development and enhancement of approaches to engagement and consultation in the public sector over a lengthy period. In particular, a more deliberative system of decision-making is considered to have benefits that reach far beyond the decision-making process into understanding of individual and shared interests in our communities.^[10] Deliberative processes seek to explore complex issues and weigh up trade-offs with participants being selected via random stratified sampling (or lot) to be representative of the community they live in. Particular focus of the shift in approaches continues to be visible around how organisations can be designed, or design approaches, to both increase and deepen the participation of the public, communities and colleagues in the decision-making processes.^[11]

4.9. Deliberative processes have received support around the UK over recent years. In particular, the Citizens' Assembly on Democracy in the UK^[12] recommended that "Deliberative processes should be used to enhance local as well as national decision-making, so that decisions are made that are informed by what local people want".

4.10. The literature recognises the sheer range of participative and deliberative approaches with the first framework setting out three clear dimensions of participation; influence and communication; and decision mode.^[13]

4.11. The role of public engagement and participative approaches in policing is particularly critical as policing needs to have clarity on public expectations of policing and the issues that shape legitimacy, consent, public trust and confidence. Approaches need to be designed to align with, support and enable community policing. It is recognised that the approaches will be most successful if they reach into communities in an inclusive and representative way.^[14]

4.12. There is an ongoing wider societal dialogue considering the impact that genuine and meaningful participation could achieve across all public sector led services. For example, it is argued that the public sector is not effectively maximising the opportunities that digital affords^[15]. Digitisation can be considered to negatively impact on democratic governance in its current form^[16] and there is evidence to reflect that trust between the public and political institutions around the world is decreasing; with many reporting^[17] that they are frustrated that public organisations are slow to enable and enact change to keep pace with developments. In essence, our local democracy can be considered to be under pressure, to an extent, because the public are often not able to see, and feel, the value that living in a democracy provides. One of many ways to resolve this is through more, and better, public engagement that seeks to harness community voices.

4.13. A great deal of focus as participative and deliberative approaches have developed has been on 'inputs' and an increasing range of methods. Due to this it is also recognised that there are challenges in understanding impact which could partly also be due to a focus on exemplars where there is less opportunity to learn from the barriers to success. There is also limited evidence available about how feedback to communities and participants of engagement processes is executed, and what best practice looks like in this space. It is key for this to be explored in great detail, and with relevant stakeholders, when planning public engagement.