Open Government Partnership Steering Group minutes: September 2024

Attendees and apologies

Co-Chairs

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

Civil society

• Annie Cook, Deciding Matters 
• Jack Lord, Open Data Services Co-operative (apologies)
• Lucy McTernan, OGP International Steering Group Committee 
• Alex Stobart, Mydex CIC 

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, Matt Elsby, Deputy Director of Fiscal Policy and Constitution)
• Andy Bruce, Director of Communications and Ministerial Support
• Doreen Grove, Head of Open Government 
• Calum Irving, Deputy Director Strategic Third Sector and Public Service Leader 
• Martin Macfie, Head of Open Data, Scottish Government 
• Eilidh McLaughlin, Deputy Director, Digital Ethics, Inclusion & Assurance (apologies, Shona Nicol, Team Leader - Data Standards deputising)
• Christine McLaughlin, Director of Population Health (apologies, Rachel Dowle, Head of Strategic Design deputising)
• Louise Meikleham, Senior data policy officer
•  Catriona Laing, Deputy Director, Climate Change (apologies, Helen Rule, Team Leader - Public Engagement, Domestic Climate Change)

Observers

•  Oleksandra Bezverkhnia, Policy and Information team, Scottish Information Commissioner
• Finlay McCartney, Scottish Government
• Innes Morgan, Act With Purpose  Steering group

Secretariat

• Abbie Wilson, Scottish government

Items and actions

Welcome

Mr Hepburn welcomed everyone to the first in person Open Government Steering Group meeting in 2024 and thanked everyone for making it in person.

Objectives and processes

Mr Hepburn welcomed Juliet Swann and noted she was going to outline objectives and processes for the group to consider during the meeting.

It was acknowledged it was good for the group to start looking at how we can maximise the commitments within the open government (OG) action plan. Mr Hepburn also noted that there is declining trust in politics and politicians, and as a government we need to consider how we demonstrate we are trustworthy.

The topic of the meeting was to discuss how Scotland can achieve an overarching open government framework that applies to a wider range of policy areas across government.

The objectives for the meeting were to:

• understand the power of open government to improve trust and deliver a vision and ways of working across government
• understand the potential areas of implementation
• reflect on how open government tools are being utilised
• identify existing opportunities where open government might add value

Presentation – where we are now and where can we go?

Juliet took attendees through a presentation. It highlighted that the Open Government Steering Group provides a proactive way for civil society to feel heard and respected, but that participation from civil society could be improved. Today was a chance to think about where there might be existing government and civil society interactions that might benefit from an open government approach. This would bring benefits to both open government and the civil society participants in existing working groups.

It was outlined that the four principles of the group are Accountability, Transparency, Participation and Integrity. The co-chairs want the group to look at where these principles are being delivered in all aspects of public service in Scotland where they will bring positive change and improve outcomes.

The OGP Steering Group want open government to be embedded in our culture and to reinforce good practice. A collaborative approach is at the heart of open government, its commitments and milestones are how we illustrate progress.

However Juliet acknowledged that this isn’t easy to embed.

Juliet outlined the form of the workshop and the next steps to creating an overarching open government strategy which reflects the views of the OG network, stakeholders and the public, as well as aligning with Programme for Government and the National Performance Framework and the SDGs.

International benefits and ways of working inside government

Doreen Grove outlined that peer learning is a strong part of what Open Government is and how it is able to grow and develop. The benefit of the Open Government Steering Group is that it is a learning network, and a lot of what has been done by the group has been achieved by drawing from international work. This includes both with other members of OGP, such as the Nordic+ work, and with organisations such as OECD.

Dr Lucy McTernan was thanked for representing civil society and Scotland on the OGP International Steering Group committee. Dr McTernan stood down from the committee this year to support the recruitment of new members.

Doreen reminded the group of the value of the Independent Reporting Mechanism’s midterm assessment. It was noted that we are actively using it to improve our practise, in particular how we ensure there is leadership and governance to support each commitment, as well as having a clear way of working with civil society. This was in addition to having strong leadership and ministerial support, which makes a difference in how Scotland will continue to make progress.

It was acknowledged that some challenges have been faced in terms of visibility, maintaining momentum, commitments being under resourced, and budget constraints. Doreen outlined as a group we need to take a step back and look at how we ensure that delivery is a core part of governments approach. This will include setting out how an OG strategy meets the vision of this steering group, as well as making progress on the OGP challenge. Attendees were reminded that in order to achieve this, Scotland will need to share learning with other OGP members.

Reflections from local government

Councillor Steven Heddle reaffirmed COSLA’s commitment to OGP and to improving relationships which would support the Verity House Agreement, including the role and value of community planning partnerships.

Councillor Heddle further reflected that:

• there needs to be a commitment to working with wider third sector partners
• there is value in Open Government and its priorities but we need to reflect on how to embed more shared priorities
• we need to ensure communities are at the heart of what we do

Simon Cameron provided further reflections from COSLA, and noted that local government would like to embed Open Government more widely in the work they are doing.

The group heard that work on Participatory Budgeting (PB) continues, but that COSLA would like to bring public bodies into decision making, actively engage in communities for decisions and change the way they interact with colleagues.

It was also hoped that a National PB strategy group could help to understand how PB can be one part of improving democratic practise in Scotland.

Simon closed by noting that he hoped the meeting could help put ideas together and a plan could be developed to take these forward.

Exercise and discussion

This exercise was to identify opportunities for extending the reach of open government and thinking about access points for policy teams and civil society. Groups were instructed to write down their ideas on paper.

The attendees shared some possible groups to engage with in future Open Government work. These will be collated and an approach to next steps agreed in due course.

Reflections from attendee discussions included:

• interest and inspiration in relation to the example shared by Juliet on the Canadian approach to trust and transparency. Creating objectives like those guiding the Canadian approach allowed for a shared understanding of what ‘good’ looks like and provided an overarching ambition for its users
• existing professional networks could be used to access experience
• identifying the upcoming Local Governance Review as an opportunity to consider how to do this in a way that involves communities. It was noted that there is a need to think about the people who are doing engagement and find what an open approach could look like
• identifying an opportunity as part of Scottish Government’s Public Service Reform agenda, and how to bring open government to life by demonstrating trustworthiness vs saying ‘trust me’
• publishing more data and roundtables all have a cost. The group needs to think about how we support OG and their objectives
• trust between different levels of government is a challenge that OG could work to address – the Verity House Agreement was referenced and consideration could be given to how OG might support work in this area
• Democracy Matters was another area where the group could reflect upon how OG could be flexed into those processes

Any other closing business (AOCB)

The next meeting date will be Thursday 12 December (13:00 – 14:00).

Next steps

Attendees were encouraged to think about how the group may want to build on this discussion into next year, and to share any further thoughts from the meeting with Juliet Swann and Doreen Grove.

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

Actions

• Doreen and Juliet to gather material and ideas shared during the meeting and revert back to the group with outcomes and any further actions
• attendees to contact any groups identified in the meeting as potential access points to extend the reach of open government