Open Government Action Plan commitment 2: participation framework

1.1 Develop and begin to roll out a Participation Framework

Status: 🔴 Delayed

Work on this milestone continues to be behind schedule due to the redistribution of resources to support the Citizens Assembly of Scotland.

Since the last update work has continued to produce methods briefings (including ‘when to’ and ‘when not to’ guidance) and good practice guidance for points of participation. Ongoing is work to develop a decision making flow-chart to support civil servants to make informed and effective choices about when and how to best deploy participatory resources throughout the development and delivery cycle. The plan is to test this resource with teams and with stakeholders in the early stages of planning for a new participatory process (or new stage of engagement) in February 2020.

1.2 Improve the formal consultation process

Status: 🙂 On track

Consultations guidance has been reviewed to create a new ‘Handbook’ for ‘traditional written consultation’. The ‘Handbook’ has now been published on Saltire in a series of useful, ‘bite –sized’ resources and use and comments are being monitored to ensure iterative improvement.

The government Consultation Working Group continues to work with Participation Framework Working Group in development of the Participation Framework. In addition, work is ongoing with Parliament and COSLA to develop a more coordinated and system wide approach to the involvement of people in the work of government.

1.3 Development of a strategic approach to participation specific to Children & Young People 

Status: 🙂 On track

An access working group has been established, meeting once in October 2019. The aim of the group is to consider how best to support and promote wider engagement from children and young people so they can participate in decision making. The group will also consider the methods children and young people can use, including digital media.

Members of the Access group include those from across stakeholder organisations in the third sector, public sector, academia, children and young people and Scottish Government officials.

Content for webpages is under development.

Status: ✔ Complete

Hosted two events and began growing community on this subject to explore openness. Events hosted in collaboration with civil society partners with government and non-governmental participants.
1) ‘Working in the open’ event as part of FireStarter Festival (Feb 2019)

Since the event, we have been building a community around the idea of working in the open. Has since linked up with gov/public sector/civil society across the UK to explore what ‘openness’ means in different contexts. Continues as virtual meet-ups organised on Twitter.

2) Exploring openness and participation in area of planning, design and architecture to reach new communities and an alternative approach to openness from different sectors, as part of Architecture Fringe Festival (April 2019)

Status: 🙂 On track

Scottish Government are collaborating with COSLA- led project exploring digital participation technology building on existing online participatory budgeting work across Scotland. Scottish Government is working with technology providers to scope feasibility and to pilot new approaches. These pilots may include but are not limited to the participation opportunities highlighted in recently published Programme for Government. Work to develop a consultation noticeboard or aggregator on the Scottish Government website is on hold.

Tests have taken place in a number of policy areas. The principle of these is Scotland’s first citizens assembly, consisting of 100+ randomly selected citizens deliberating on the future of the constitution over 6 weekends. This work will be subject to independent research and evaluation to ensure the learning from the assembly can feed into the continued development of the Participation Framework. 

Other explorations of methods which have taken place include:

• A review of citizen’s forums in attitudes to agriculture, environment and rural priorities, link to report below
• A citizen Jury on Patient involvement in health, reporting to Chief Medical Officer and being implemented
• Social Security’s use of Experience Panels to design their services

4.1 Participatory Budgeting

Status: 🙂 On track

Charter on PB has been coproduced and published – collaborative work between COSLA, Scottish Government and the PB network is actively driving improvement

4.2 Coproduction

Status: 🙂 On track

The Homelessness and Housing-Related Social Security Unit have continued to take a co-productive approach to policy development and implementation to end homelessness and rough sleeping.

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Status: 🙂 On track

The Digital Identity programme is on track and working actively with civil society and industry to deliver a trusted system.

Additionally, Doreen Grove of the Scottish OGP team is part of an international team working with Open Government Partnerships to provide guidance on improving the use of deliberative techniques and with OECD’ s Open Government team’s Democracy Innovation Network to share learning on the use of deliberative democracy

Status: 🙂 On track

Planning to deliver this commitment is ongoing.  We will hold an international workshop in May 2020 to examine current and future practice on gender sensitive policy making.  It will be developed with academics, feminist groups in Scotland, the feminist network around Open government Partnership, and in co-ordination with First Ministers Council of Women and Girls.