Open Government action plan 2021 to 2025 - commitment 5: participation

Progress to December 2023

Commitment 5: participation

Action 1:

Participation framework - developing knowledge and skills across SG (beginning autumn 2021).

Milestone:

Delivery of Participation Framework training sessions across Scottish Government (SG).

Progress and next steps

The Open Government team continue to refine and update training content to support staff to navigate the guidance – assisted by a civil society member on the subgroup who has expertise in this area.

This training will seek to completement and support training underdevelopment to support policy professionals across Scottish Government to inclusively and effectively engage with the public.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

Delivery of in-depth participation training to SG Social Researchers.

Progress and next steps

The delivery of in-depth participation and lived experience training to a cohort of SG Social Researchers is currently being planned in collaboration with Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC). It is hoped that this training will take place in the first half of 2024.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

Development of Scottish Government wide procurement framework for participation work.

Progress and next steps

A Procurement Framework for participation work continues to be progressed. A Prior Information Notice (PIN) has been drafted and is being finalised with SG Procurement staff.

The Open Government team will continue regular engagement with SG procurement to progress the wider Participation Procurement Framework. Next steps include pre-market engagement with interested providers and users, both internally and externally. Timelines to issue the invitation to tender for the framework agreement continues to be estimated at Spring 2024.

Status

In progress

Action 2:

Participation Framework - embedding equalities and an inclusive approach (beginning autumn 2021).

Milestone:

Development of processes and guidance for paying participant expenses and compensating for participant time

Progress and next steps

A draft guide to paying participant expenses and time has been developed.

The guidance has been informed by feedback and insight from the academic and third sectors, civil society and relevant stakeholders, including the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC.

Following a review period, we aim to publish the guidance by the end of the year. The guidance will be advisory in the first instance.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

Develop and embed ethics, equity and safeguarding principles, standards and guidance in the Participation Framework and further guidance.

Progress and next steps

A final report, issued by Deciding Matters, outlines a number of proposals following a series of public workshops designed and facilitated by the organisation.

This report will be published on the gov.scot website and Scottish Government will respond to the report’s findings. This will detail how the outputs from the workshops, which examined the coverage of equalities and inclusive practices in the Participation Framework, will be integrated into the next iteration of the guidance. 

Status

In progress

Action 3:

Institutionalising Participation and Deliberative Democracy working group - reporting and beginning processes of change to make participation routine and effective (autumn 2021 onwards).

Milestone:

Continue to progress initial milestones as outlined.

Progress and next steps

Findings from an internal audit to identify the skills, capacity and capabilities required to sustainably involve the public in the work of government continues to inform further activity underway to consider the organisation of a Participation Unit required within Scottish Government.

The Open Government team will look to continue to facilitate and instigate cross government discussions to progress this milestone.

Status

In progress

Action 4:

Embedding Open Government principles in the planning, conduct and outputs of annual Citizens’ Assemblies (from December 2021).

Progress and next steps

Budget and resource constraints continue to limit the scope of influence to progress this action. This has impacted high profile commitments to public participation, including the delivery of annual Citizens’ Assemblies. These are being delivered in a different form by relevant policy teams or have been postponed.

Open Government staff will continue to proactively support and advise colleagues to advance this work.

Status

In progress

Action 5:

Developing an active and inclusive Open Government Network for Participation (2022 onwards).

Milestone:

Ongoing diversification of the civil society network with SCDC.

Progress and next steps

As previously reported, a summary of the actions from a meeting held with digital communication colleagues at Scottish Government and SCDC will be shared by the Open Government team. This will outline areas of work that could be explored to improve the network and its function in the short and medium term.

Successfully progressing these actions will require involvement, collaboration and insight from civil society.

Status

In progress

Action 6:

Review of consultations - spend, approach, monitoring (autumn 2022).

Milestone:

Restructure Scottish Government internal guidance on consultation to embed it within a wider narrative around participation and engagement.

Progress and next steps

The following internal guidance has now been published on the SG and agencies intranet:

• basics of involving the public in policymaking
• planning participation and engagement activities
• analysing and reporting on data when policymaking
• evaluation and improvement of engagement activities
• procuring participation and engagement experts

We are now carrying out some light touch user research with the internal SG public engagement and participation staff network.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

Launch a new digital engagement service offer to support the delivery of different digital engagement activities by Scottish Government.

Progress and next steps

A new digital engagement service is currently in a trial period. Scottish Government’s digital engagement team are:

• assisting local government funding and council tax policy colleagues on a potential deliberative participation project
• assisting colleagues in the Marine Directorate to explore the use of a map based digital engagement activity/ consultation (a first of its kind for SG)
• assisting colleagues in the third sector unit to explore crowdsourcing for upcoming stakeholder and public engagement

Status

In progress

Milestone:

An analysis of evaluation data by external analysts to provide insight into the accessibility and effectiveness of consultations will be produced, and will inform the guidance and training provided, and form an evidence base to promote non-consultation options for engagement.

Progress and next steps

As reported in October 2023, analysis of consultation evaluation data has now been completed. The digital engagement team will be working on an action plan in Q3 to turn recommendations from analysis into actionable steps. It is anticipated that the team will deliver on the action plan in Q4 but we recognise some actions may be implemented over a longer term.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

Launch a new digital engagement hub on gov.scot for the public to find out about opportunities to engage in policy making in Scottish Government.

Progress and next steps

An integrated gov.scot hub will be a multi-year project. In the meantime, Scottish Government are currently scoping improvements to the consultation pages on gov.scot. The digital engagement team had planned to implement a short term ‘engagement hub’ on Citizen Space, however it is now recognised that due to challenges around resourcing it will be more beneficial for the team to focus its efforts on preparing for gov.scot integration.

Status

In progress

Action 7:

Monitoring the completion of local authorities delivery of 1% of budgets through participatory budgeting (from autumn 2021).

Milestone:

Continue to progress initial milestones as outlined.

Progress and next steps

As reported in October 2023, it was announced that local authorities had reached the milestone of the 1% mainstream PB target in July 2023. Since 2021, more than 110,000 people took part in participatory processes and directly decided on how £154 million worth of council budgets had been spent. This exceeded the 1% target, with a total spend across all councils reaching 1.4% of available budgets. 

Status

Completed but PB work continues at pace in local authorities.

Action 8:

Implementation of the National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group’s framework for the future of participatory budgeting and embedding open government principles (September 2021).

Milestone:

Continue to support the National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group as they provide the strategic direction for participatory budgeting (PB) across Scotland.

This includes work to raise awareness of the National PB Framework’s priorities and indicators for success, championing open government values and principles.

Progress and next steps

Open Government SG team shared a revised, draft remit with members of the National PB Strategic Group (NPBSG) in August 2023. The proposal to expand the remit of the group to have oversight of wider participatory initiatives undertaken by Scottish Government was discussed at a NPBSG meeting on 7 September 2023. Members were largely in agreement that an expanded remit would be welcomed, whilst retaining high level support for Participatory Budgeting (PB). Members shared comments and feedback with the Open Government and Community Empowerment team on the draft remit.

The Minister for Parliamentary Business and Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance met on 28 September to further discuss the opportunity for the NPBSG to extend its membership and role, and to consider reporting mechanisms. The overall opportunity to expand the remit of the NPBSG was acknowledged and supported by each Minister.

Open Government and Community Empowerment colleagues are progressing work to draft a revised proposal to bring to the NPBSG and relevant local government and COSLA officials. A proposal will set out initial priorities in relation to the group’s remit and areas of potential oversight.

The next meeting of the NPBSRG is Thursday 7 December where this will be discussed further.

Status

In progress

Action 9:

Explore the use of Participatory Budgeting in 2021‑22 as part of our wider support for community‑led climate action.

Milestone:

Embed Open Government principles in Green Participatory Budgeting. This includes:

• continuing to explore the use of PB as part of our wider support for community‑led climate action​
• identifying opportunities to support Green PB programmes across Scotland
• continuing to work with COSLA to support local authorities’ PB initiatives, including Green PB

Progress and next steps

Just Transition

Community Empowerment is working in partnership with Just Transition policy on the allocation of  £1.2 from the Just Transition Fund for the first time, which was allocated to local communities in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray in 2022/23. Over 10,000 people were involved in the voting process which led to 45 successful projects now being delivered across Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray. A further £1.8 million has been provided for 2023/24. Voting closed on 13 October with over 19,000 people involved in this round of voting, which led to 53 successful projects in the North East.

Green PB

As reported in October 2023, the Green PB Action Group was set up in March 2022 to contribute and oversee positive ongoing development and adoption of Green PB activities and processes across Scotland.  The group has co-design a number of Green PB tools and materials including the newly launched Green PB Seal and Badge which recognises and supports green PB initiatives.   

A number of local authorities have undertaken successful green PB initiatives. One example is in 2022, Dundee City Council launched the Dundee Climate Fund with a total of £750,000 over a four-year period through PB helping to raise awareness of climate change and support communities to identify and vote on local projects aimed at delivering on themes of energy, transport, waste, resilience and building capacity.

Status

In progress

Action 10:

Embedding Open Government principles in the Community Empowerment Act parliamentary review (2023).

Milestone:

Review of Section 10 of Community Empowerment Act. As part of the Scottish Government’s review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, the Open Government values, principles and approaches will be applied throughout the process.

Progress and next steps

As reported in October 2023, the review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 was launched by Tom Arthur, Minister for Public Finance, Planning, and Community Wealth at the Loch Ness Community Hub on 21 July 2022.

Work to review the Act will be undertaken between 2022 and 2024 with a report available in early 2024.

Status

In progress

Action 10:

Use best practice approaches to support high quality engagement and participation, while undertaking work to review the National Outcomes.

Milestone:

We will use desk based research and stakeholder meetings alongside our consultation and call for evidence to inform the Review of National Outcomes. Desk-based research will be ongoing and has involved reviewing our existing citizen engagement exercises, a review of community Action Plans, commissioning the Children’s Parliament to contribute, and will also include a thematic gender review. The stakeholder meetings will be carried out from March to June, and will bring together particular groups whose insights will be pertinent to the development of the National Outcomes.

Progress and next steps

As reported in October 2023, the review has included:

• wide ranging desk-based research. This has involved reviewing existing citizen engagement exercises (including Citizen’s Assembly of Scotland, Scotland’s Climate Assembly, Social Renewal Recovery Board, etc), community action plans; a gender review (as recommended by the First Minister’s National Advisory Council for Women and Girls); commissioned review of work by the Children’s Parliament. These represent, in total, the views of circa 50,000 people
• a written consultation via Scottish Government’s Consultation Hub. This consultation was designed to be accessible for members of the public and received 87 responses
• a call for evidence to organisations and experts to submit their responses via Scottish Government Consultation Hub, which received 129 responses
• expert stakeholder meetings. A series of 10 stakeholder workshops focusing on specific areas (e.g., homelessness, care, transport, environment, and business) with a total of 110 attendees

Status

In progress

Milestone:

We will analyse the outputs of these four strands (consultation, call for evidence, desk-based research, stakeholder meetings) over summer, with a view to getting a report to parliament by the end of 2023.

Progress and next steps

Analysis of the evidence gathered has been completed and a revised set of National Outcomes have been developed. We have shared these with stakeholders in the Scottish Government and with key external partners.

We are currently considering the feedback we have received on those initial proposals and preparing a revised set of proposed changes to the National Outcomes.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

We will develop an implementation plan and set of resources to support the use of the reviewed NPF.

Progress and next steps

We are currently developing the scope of the implementation plan.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

We have established an Expert Advisory Group made up of leaders from across Scotland to advise on the process for the Review of National Outcomes. This group will continue to meet throughout the Review to provide feedback and advice.

Some members of this group are joining with other stakeholders to test out and prototype a framework for wellbeing conversations. We will explore how this test phase can feed into the Review of National Outcomes.

Progress and next steps

We have shared initial proposals for changes to the current set of National Outcomes with the Expert Advisory Group and sought feedback.

Status

In progress

Action 11:

Embedding participation as a core skill in centre of expertise (new name TBC) (October 2021 to December 2021).

Milestone

Continue to progress initial milestones as outlined.

Progress and next steps

As reported in October 2023, this milestone is delayed and is currently still in the set up phase.

The Open Government team will continue to work with the relevant SG teams to progress. 

Status

Behind schedule

Action 12:

Improving children and young people’s participation in decision-making and policy design.

Milestone:

Support the delivery of the The UNCRC (Scotland) (Bill).

Progress and next steps

The 2023/24 Programme for Government stated that we would invite the Scottish Parliament to bring back the UNCRC Bill for reconsideration. I’m pleased to say that the commitment was fulfilled on 14 September, when Parliament passed the motion to reconsider the Bill.

The amendments to the Bill were formally lodged with Parliament on 18 September. Parliament will be invited to vote on the amended Bill on 7 December, which means that the Bill could be passed by the end of the year.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

Develop the Children and Young Persons Participation Framework to enable policy areas across Scottish Government and public bodies to identify, recruit and engage with organisations that have the skills and expertise required to design and deliver bespoke, high quality participation activities with children and young people.

Progress and next steps

The Children’s Rights Unit (CRU) is developing a new internal mechanism call the ‘Children and Young People’s (CYP) Participation Framework’.  An Invitation to Tender was issued in July 2023. This Framework Agreement aims to create an approach that ensures a broad range of children and young people are involved in the wider work of the Scottish Government especially those identified as being seldom heard, furthest from their rights or vulnerable because of factors related to their personal development, features of their family life, or because of wider influences that impact on them within their community.

The CYP Framework will launch in January 2024.

Status

On  schedule

Milestone:

Co-create a Young Persons Participation Toolkit with Young People to support policy teams looking to engage with young people in policy making.

Progress and next steps

The Right Way website was launched in April 2023.

The Children and Families Directorate is funding £61,157 across 2021/22 – 2022/23 to support this work and to aid UNCRC Implementation.

We continue to seek opportunities to promote and embed the toolkit in the work of policy teams. A post on Scottish Government’s participation blog documents how one policy team used the resource.

At the recent SG Executive Team meeting with Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) – all Director Generals attended the Right Way training after the meeting.

Status

Complete

Milestone:

Support the delivery of the Children and Young Peoples Takeovers.

Progress and next steps

The purpose of the annual Cabinet and Executive Team (ET) meetings with children and young people are to demonstrate at the highest level of government our commitment to meaningful and credible engagement with children and young people on issues that matter most to them. The meetings aim to improve the development and implementation of policy and legislation. 

The Children’s Right Unit is currently working with policy colleagues and stakeholders to reimagine the Takeover Model to ensure the voice of children and young people are being listened to and acted upon. 

The most recent ET meeting with SYP took place in November 2023. The focus of the meeting was to explore ‘how’ young people are participating with Director Generals and policy teams.

Status

In progress