Open Government Partnership Steering Group minutes: June 2024

Attendees and apologies

Co-chairs

• Mr Hepburn, Minister for Parliamentary Business
• Juliet Swann, Transparency International UK

Civil society

• Annie Cook, Deciding Matters
• Jack Lord, Open Data Services Co-operative
• Lucy McTernan, OGP International Steering Group Committee

COSLA

• Councillor Steven Heddle, Vice President, COSLA
• Simon Cameron, Chief Officer - Employers' Team, COSLA

Government

• Jennie Barugh, Director of Fiscal Sustainability and Exchequer Development (apologies, Niall Davidson, Change and Stakeholder Engagement Lead, deputising)
• Andy Bruce, Director of Communications and Ministerial Support (apologies)
• Doreen Grove, Head of Open Government
• Calum Irving, Deputy Director Strategic Third Sector and Public Service Leader
• Eilidh McLaughlin, Deputy Director, Digital Ethics, Inclusion & Assurance
• Shona Nichol, Data Standards team leader
• Richard McCallum, Director of Health and Social Care Finance and Governance (apologies, Rachel Dowle, Head of Strategic Design, deputising)
• Catriona Laing, Deputy Director, Climate Change (apologies, Dan Young and Stuart Matheson, senior policy officers, deputising)
• Amy Watson, Principal Research Officer, Open Government

Observers

• David Hamilton, Scottish Information Commissioner
• Martin Macfie, Head of Open Data, Scottish Government
• Andy McDevitt, Scotland’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)
• Louise Meikleham, Senior data policy officer, Scottish Government
• Shona Nicol, Team Leader - Data Standards, Scottish Government
• Pamela Rennie, OGP Point of Contact, Glasgow City Council
• Innes Morgan, Act With Purpose

Steering group secretariat

• Abbie Wilson, Scottish government

Items and actions

Welcome from chair

Mr Hepburn welcomed everyone to the Open Government Steering Group, and apologies were noted.

Mr Hepburn outlined that open government work remains a priority following a change of Minister and that he looks forward to working with everyone in the group. He noted that we have faced some challenges, but that through challenge we can improve.

Action plan commitment progress update and revised milestones – exception reporting

Mr Hepburn opened the discussion, welcoming Fiscal Transparency leads to provide an update on this commitment.

Fiscal transparency commitment

Niall Davidson opened, noting that since the last meeting there is now a full set of milestones until the end of the plan period. The commitment has 3 aims:

Aim 1 update - benchmarking work continues collaboratively. Civil society partners have been running a piece of research to benchmark the Scottish budget against the open budget survey. This will be published in July 2024.

To note, since this meeting this report has now been published.

Aim 2 update - the focus regarding data accessibility has been on the information published alongside the budget. This has been to help people’s understanding of the process. A key pillar of the commitment, and the four year action plan, is the development of the transparency portal. It was noted that the commitment had just reached a milestone on an internal private meter, and that the commitment’s civil society group had seen a demonstration of this.

Aim 3 update - the commitment has an upcoming opportunity to improve engagement and participation when the tax strategy consultation is launched. It was noted colleagues in tax are beginning to reach out to think about connecting with groups Scottish Government do not normally hear from.

It was noted that all milestones are ongoing, with milestones from 2023 having been largely met. Milestones have now been agreed with partners to the end of the action plan period.

Lucy McTernan, civil society representative for the fiscal transparency commitment, noted that from a civil society perspective she is happy with how work is progressing. Lucy closed by outlining she recognised the challenges with participation as part of the commitment, but that the commitment was most likely not alone in this.

Health and social care commitment

Rachel Dowle provided an update on the health and social care commitment. The focus of the commitment had been about improving and increasing service users and staff involvement and participation in the design and development of Health and Social Care services in Scotland. It was noted this is the first open government commitment on Health and Social Care, and that this has focused on two areas - improving the quality of co-design approaches for the National Care Service programme and the pathfinders programme.

The pathfinders work is at the end of its current phase. An impact report will be shared at the end of June, and an evaluation and lessons learned report at the end of July.

Data and digital commitment

Shona Nicol provided an update on data and digital, one of the action plan’s enabling commitments. Shona outlined that the commitment’s focus has been on building the foundations for better data, so that data can be found, used and re-used to support decisions and improve government openness and transparency. It was noted the commitment is continuing to make good progress across each of the different activities. New milestones are also now in place which will take the commitment to the end of the current action plan.

It was acknowledged that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) register is continuing to progress. At the Scottish AI summit in March, Mr Lockhead announced that the Scottish AI register would be mandated to be used in the public sector on a non-statuary basis. Work is now underway to incorporate around 60 use cases that the team are aware of and include these on the register to promote its use. Shona noted that the register is about providing accessible information on AI, how it’s being used and it’s development by the public sector.

Another focus for the commitment is data maturity. It was noted that since the last update in December, the data maturity programme has delivered another cohort with 8 organisations from the public sector. It was acknowledged that 33 organisations over the past 3 years have gone through the programme. As part of the programme, organisations take part in an in-depth data maturity assessment, access expert advice and training, alongside tools and resources to help them put a plan in place to improve the way they think about and use data.

Earlier in the year, the commitment also delivered 14 events to promote international Open Data day. These events included speakers from Audit Scotland on open data, and the Open Data Institute on how crucial open data is for organisations.

The update concluded by outlining the final area of focus for the commitment, which is the improvement of the official statistics open data site. For 6 months, the open data team have been working alongside Jack Lord at Open Data Services, and civil society lead for the commitment, to develop and write an independent report on open data. It was confirmed that this report will be published after the general election.

Mr Hepburn noted he has an interest in the subject of AI and that he was looking forward to seeing this work progress.

David Hamilton raised a query around the definition of AI and working across the UK and further afield. Open data staff confirmed they would follow up with Mr Hamilton with a response.

To note, since this meeting Scottish government’s AI policy team have confirmed that the Scottish AI Alliance has recently elected to use the OECD definition for artificial intelligence going forward. It says, “An AI system is a machine-based system that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it receives, how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments. Different AI systems vary in their levels of autonomy and adaptiveness after deployment.”

This definition is internationally recognised, is very much in line with the EU AI Act, and offers additional clarity to that given by the current UK definition. The OECD definition is being used very widely now, and also covers some of the nuances around the level of control or input which the AI might receive.

The UK Government is also developing a tool called the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard, which is similar in nature to the Scottish AI Register, however the approach here is far more technical in nature and the descriptors and information provided are not necessarily accessible to the public, which is the main driver behind the Scottish Register.

Climate change commitment

Stuart Matheson provided an update on this commitment, which focuses on establishing a stakeholder network to deliver on engagement and participation requirements across key climate policy milestones. The network was launched earlier this year as the Climate Policy Engagement Network (CPEN) and now has over 130 members. Members have been presented with opportunities to engage with Just Transition plans and consultations. It was noted that the first members meeting was held this year, which saw members discuss how they would like to be involved in CPEN, as well as to update milestones and CPEN’s terms of reference. It was noted that the first engagement session for CPEN members was to help inform impact assessments for the upcoming Scottish Adaptation Plan. This was well received by members and the climate adaptation policy team found it to be a useful exercise. A working group with civil society representatives is also currently being formed.

It was also acknowledged that a large programme of internal engagement is nearing completion, which has involved promoting CPEN to colleagues across the Net Zero directorate. CPEN was publicised via email and awareness was raised amongst senior staff. This has resulted in new contacts with several policy teams and these will be reflected in CPEN activities in due course.

Participation commitment

Amy Watson noted the commitment is wide-ranging, aspects of which have had to be reprioritised due to lack of resource. This has been agreed with civil society counterparts and the commitment will be transparent on what it is and isn’t able to do.

The main area of progress for the commitment is the development of internal resources (e.g. the Participation Handbook) and the establishment of a participation procurement framework. The commitment has been working collaboratively to enable areas of government to undertake high-quality participation.

It was outlined an area where there has been less progress than hoped is the democracy space. Commitment leads had recently met with COSLA and civil society groups to talk about how to make more of this area of work.

Simon Cameron discussed Participatory Budgeting (PB). He noted Scotland has been recognised internationally and good progress has been made regarding the 1% commitment originally set in 2017. Due to the pandemic, activity was slow but COSLA are now seeing a strong uptake across the 26 different council areas. It was acknowledged that other council areas are also engaging in PB, however it was noted that the issue of resource and capacity remains a key challenge.

Steering group members were also made aware that in the past 2 years, the 1% commitment to PB has been exceeded. This is seeing increased participation rates at a local level from communities in decisions that matter most to them. It was noted COSLA are keen to work with colleagues in civil society and Scottish Government to look at how COSLA can continue this work with the required support for what can be a resource intensive area.

Councillor Steven Heddle provided a further update on COSLA’s work.

Councillor Heddle reaffirmed COSLA’s commitment to working with wider public and third sector partners and Scottish Government colleagues as part of the Verity House Agreement to enhance participative democracy. He identified that this is key to the essential transformation and one through the Open Government Partnership we want to see delivered. Councillor Heddle also noted COSLA were keen to see the development of the presentation portal Scottish Government are developing and are keen to see how that can streamline processes.

Councillor Heddle noted that in terms of the Verity House Agreement and European Charter of Local Self Government, COSLA remain committed to work with wider partners across sectors to strengthen local democracy and public service reform.

Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) draft mid-term report – overview and summary of reflections

Andy McDevitt provided an introduction to his role as the independent reporter for Scotland’s Open Government work. It was noted that he is currently reviewing the implementation of the Action Plan and that he is preparing a progress report based on information published online and conversations with members of the group.

The main purpose of the report is to look at what has been learned so far. The key difference between the current action plan and previous plans is the 4-year rather than 2-year cycle. This has given scope for more ambitious and longer-term perspectives under the commitments and has been seen as positive. However he noted there is risk of drift over the four years, and updating the milestones on a yearly basis is a good approach and the process is improving over time.

It was acknowledged that resources for both government and civil society remain an issue. Looking forward, it was outlined that it will be important to consider how to be creative in pooling resource across both government and civil society. Civil society engagement is an area that has been a challenge since 2017. The technical nature of open government can be a big issue – and this is something to consider looking forward into the next plan.

Andy concluded by noting buy-in from senior staff and a strong promotion of open government work internally has been helpful. He encouraged the group to reflect on work needed to get the processes in place for co-creating the next action plan.

Nordic + group Scotland event 2024

Lucy McTernan observed that it has taken work over many years to move this agenda forward to produce a fiscal transparency portal that can be showcased to colleagues from all over northern Europe. It was recognised that this was a significant milestone.

It was noted that looking forward, Scotland are already continuing to work with individuals from the Nordic+ group. However it was acknowledged that this was more than a Scotland effort, as there is a need to stimulate work globally on financial transparency.

It was noted that it is good to continue to work with others and take advantage of the learning as it helps accelerate progress.

Any other closing business (AOCB)

The next meeting will be held 2pm Thursday 26 September, most likely in a hybrid format. Juliet Swann will chair the next meeting.

Next steps

Any non-members wishing to attend a meeting as observers should contact the secretariat (Neisha.Kirk@gov.scot).

Actions

• Rachel Dowle to share an impact report due at the end of June, and an evaluation report due at the end of July
• Shona Nicol to share the independent open data report. This is due to be published after the general election
• The Open Government team to publish new milestones between now and the end of the plan
• Comments and feedback are welcomed from members on the draft IRM report

Update history: date of next meeting updated to 26 September 2024.