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

Progress to October 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 SG.

Progress and next steps

Following a number of pilot training sessions with internal policy teams, training content was further presented and discussed with civil society representatives at a meeting in July.

Feedback and comments shared by members were generally positive. Views and ideas relating to the training session format and design were collated from civil society members by the Open Government team.

The Open Government team will refine and update training content to reflect civil society input and expertise in this area.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

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

Progress and next steps

The delivery of in-depth participation training to Scottish Government (SG) Social Researchers is currently being planned, and will look to incorporate facilitation skills alongside understanding of participation and lived experience theory and practice. 

The Open Government team will continue to contribute to the development of a training offer for Social Researchers.

Status

In progress

Milestone:

Development of Scottish Government wide procurement framework for participation work

Progress and next steps

Development of an SG wide procurement framework for participation work is underway. A draft specification agreement and Public Information Notice have been drafted and shared with SG Procurement staff.

This process will compliment the procurement framework agreement that is being developed to support staff to commission service providers to design, facilitate and deliver high quality and meaningful participation activity with Children and Young People. SG Open Government colleagues have been working closely with the Children and Young People’s Unit when developing the specification.

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. It is anticipated that the invitation to tender for the framework agreement will be issued in 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 guide to paying participant expenses and time has been developed. A draft of the guidance was shared with civil society representatives and a number of relevant colleagues and stakeholders.

The guidance will be initially advisory, but it will improve standards across the public sector when it comes to appropriately compensating for participant time, knowledge and experience.

Following the review period, the guidance will be published by the end of the year.

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 was shared with the Open Government team following a series of public workshops designed and facilitated by Deciding Matters earlier in the year to improve the coverage of equalities and inclusive practices in the Participation Framework.

The report is due to be published and Scottish Government will respond to the report’s findings. This will detail how the outputs from the workshops will be incorporated into the next iteration of the Participation Framework. 

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

An internal audit was carried out over summer 2023 to understand the skills, capacity and capability across Scottish Government required to deliver high quality participation.

Findings from the internal audit exercise will inform further work to consider the role and composition of a Participation Unit required within Scottish Government.  

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

The Open Government team have been advising and proactively engaging with teams to progress plans towards delivering innovative and deliberative engagements with the public. As previously reported, ongoing budget uncertainties continue to limit the scope of influence.

Resource constraints mean that some high profile commitments to public participation – in particular, Citizens’ Assemblies – have been postponed or are being delivered in a different form.

Open Government staff will continue to support colleagues where possible 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

Open Government staff hosted a meeting with SG Digital Engagement colleagues and SCDC staff to discuss the Open Government civil society network and areas of development and opportunity.

A summary of the actions from the meeting will be shared by the Open Government team. This will detail short and medium term actions that could be explored to improve the network and its function – such as conducting a user mapping exercise.

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 Saltire restructure is underway but further drafting is needed based on feedback from the Saltire team. Scottish Government are hopeful that this can be published on Saltire (Scottish Government’s internal website) by the end of October.

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 being piloted and involves assisting local government funding and council tax policy colleagues on a potential project.

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

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. A prototype has now been built for an engagement hub on consult.gov.scot. The digital engagement team plan to carry out testing in Q3 with a soft launch by the end of 2024.

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

In July 2023 it was announced that local authorities had reached the milestone of the 1% mainstream participatory budgeting (PB) target. 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

Scottish Government’s Open Government 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 teams on the draft remit.

The Minister for Parliamentary Business and Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance met 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.

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 and; continuing to work with COSLA to support local authorities’ PB initiatives, including Green PB

Progress and next steps

Just Transition

The Community Empowerment team are working in partnership with Just Transition policy on the allocation of  £1.2 million from the Just Transition Fund for the first time, which was allocated to local communities in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray in 2023/24. 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.

Green PB

The Green PB Action Group was set up in March 2022 to contribute to, and oversee positive ongoing development and adoption of Green PB activities and processes across Scotland. The group has co-designed 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

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

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. The National Performance Framework team are currently engaging on these proposals within the Scottish Government.

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

The National Performance Framework team have shared the proposals for changes to the current set of National Outcomes with the Expert Advisory Group and are seeking feedback. 

Additionally, the Expert Advisory Group has agreed to a revised remit that includes an advisory role in the development of the implementation plan.

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

This milestone is delayed and is currently still in the set up phase.

The Open Government team will continue to work with the relevant Scottish Government 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 states that we will invite the Scottish Parliament to bring back the UNCRC Bill for reconsideration. That 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 Monday 18 September. We remain absolutely committed to Scotland being the first UK nation to incorporate the UNCRC into domestic law, ensuring we are a country that respects, protects and fulfils children’s rights.

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 called 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. It is anticipated that the CYP Framework will launch in December 2023.

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.

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 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, with the aim of improving the development and implementation of policy and legislation.

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

Status

In progress