Informed decision-making, community engagement and participation workstream report

9. Assessing and building participative approaches

9.1 The following sets out an assessment of maturity of engagement and participation in Police Scotland.

9.2 A range of new innovative public engagement methods and tools are being developed based on research and evidence that has formed key elements of this review. These approaches will be introduced by Police Scotland as part of a holistic public and stakeholder engagement programme from April 2022.

9.3 Case study evidence, lessons learned and best practice will be captured and shared. Each approach will be tested and monitored to ensure the needs of the public, communities and key stakeholders are appropriately considered and embedded.

Green = G: mature or maturing use of this already within the organisation.

Amber = A: New for Police Scotland but method is well understood and adopted by other public bodies and organisations. A developing area for policing.

Blue = B: New for Police Scotland and breaking new ground in the public sector. An aspirational area for policing.

Method / tool

Brief description

G = Citizen Space / Police Scotland Engagement Hub

Continues to be the main public engagement hub platform. A ‘one stop shop’ for all of public engagement and will soon include a home for the public to engage with academic research projects of significant importance.  

Annual Your Police survey to understand factors affecting public confidence, local concerns and areas for improvement is hosted on this platform. Learning is captured and time is taken between January and March each year to reflect on the survey before it is then updated for the following year; this involves dialogue with local policing and executive officers to understand their needs. 

B = Dialogue

A new digital platform developed by the same creators behind the Engagement Hub (Citizen Space). Enables facilitated idea-generation and problem solving with public, communities and stakeholders in an online space. 

Dialogue is used in public sector and was the platform behind the
Scottish Government’s public engagement on the ‘COVID-19 Framework for Decision-Making’ process in 2020. 

A = Reputation Tracker (a trust and confidence pulse survey)  

A short public poll or ‘pulse survey’ delivered every three months to an audience to measure public sentiment towards Police Scotland. 

This will enhance through extra insight and data what the service already gather via the Your Police local policing survey on public confidence.  

G =Ethics Panels

Existing structure within Police Scotland co-ordinated by Professional Standards Department. It may be possible that Ethics Panels are able to review ethical dilemmas which are raised through public engagement activities in the future. 

B = Your Police Panel 

This is a ‘mini-public’ - a process whereby residents are recruited through random stratified sampling. Expert facilitation of participants and subject matter experts through a process of learning and deliberation seeks to build consensus around ‘wicked’ issues where trade-offs require exploring.

Resourcing required for recruitment, accessibility and inclusion costs for participants, with expert independent facilitation and design support. 

B = Citizens in Policing: Colleague mini-panels  

A similar approach as mini-public method for public deliberation. This time with our colleagues. Drawn from across the organisation with representation of geography, service area, rank and personal characteristics. 

A key aspect of this method will be to support conversations about legitimacy, trust and confidence by enabling people to bring themselves as police colleagues and as citizens. 

A = Commander Town Hall Forums 

A forum for community members to discuss issues of importance with Divisional Commanders and local leadership teams. Focus is on listening to each other through genuine dialogue. 
Discussion could focus on core themes each time, using data from Your Police and other public insights to inform discussions.  

A = Your Police: Community Conversations 

Taking a ‘do it yourself’ approach to community engagement. A toolkit and facilitator guide would be created to support communities to host their own conversations about local areas, safety and wellbeing. Resources would be shared around community planning partners and local community groups.  

Insights generated through self-facilitated conversation groups would be shared with Police Scotland to enhance evidence base. Resources would tie into the existing ‘Your Police’ branding and build-on approaches already taken to reach into communities where there is existing community organising taking place. 

A = Place-based focused local engagement

Taking a sensitive local approach, working with partners in a place. Continuing to develop and iterate how to do this in the future, and are testing this approach in three places: Caithness, East Lothian (Prestonpans and Dunbar) and Letham.  

This involves the professional insight and engagement team supporting local policing divisions to work alongside communities on shared ambition around local needs and priorities. In Caithness, we are trialling a small grants approach to working with communities to explore needs and opportunities, such as poverty, wellbeing, feelings of safety, confidence in policing etc.

B = Police Scotland’s Youth Co-design Group

A joint approach with the Partnership, Prevention and Community Wellbeing Children and Young People’s team and Insight and Engagement team.  

A diverse group of young people will be recruited and supported to co-design a permanent youth participation and engagement programme for Police Scotland. This will ensure the organisation continues to prioritise the views of children and young people in order to meet our duties under UNCRC legislation.  If this works well, a similar approach could be explored for working with other publics who are marginalised or have limited access to decision-making.