Public participation in policymaking: exploring and understanding impact

Conclusion and next steps

This study has highlighted the complicated nature of understanding and exploring impact in the context of public participation. Academic and stakeholder accounts clearly demonstrate that impact must be considered as multifaceted and complicated. Understanding how public participation processes interact with and influence political decision-making was considered crucial for expert stakeholders, as was adequately understanding the impacts experienced by citizen participants. Underpinning this, was a strong desire for robust evaluation of existing participatory practice.

Whilst the challenge of charting, investigating and better understanding the ways that public participation processes impact on policy decision-making is not to be underestimated, stakeholder reflections and academic literature also clearly detail the risks associated with not resourcing this work. Public participation processes which are poorly designed and lacking in real pathways to impact, particularly at a policy level, were considered to contribute towards further erosion of trust in public administrations and their political representatives as well as weakening the relationships between institutions and the citizens they serve.

This is indeed a big risk. Participatory theorists have long been sounding the alarm of what they term a growing, international 'crisis of satisfaction with politics and institutional trust' (Bächtiger & Dryzek, 2024, p.1), something which requires a rethink of how decisions are made, and crucially, the spectrum of perspectives incorporated into that decision-making (Bächtiger & Dryzek, 2024). Indeed, as one interviewee detailed, the current global and domestic context presents significant challenges for both institutions and citizens, and one which requires a strengthening of governance systems to better include citizen voices (OECD, 2024):

The pandemic and the clear bite of austerity … the ongoing hangover of the financial crisis and the ripple effects of increasing inequalities, desperation in large sections of the population, [dis]satisfaction with public services, plummeting living standards, cost of living crisis, poverty

… The problem is when people are failing to see the connections between our system, our existing governance systems and how they need to be changed. Int 16

As Bachtiger & Dryzek argue: 'while it may be true that democratic politics has always had to worry about demagogues, lies and extremist media, the contemporary hyper-connected communicative environment enables these actors and forces to flourish in novel and challenging ways' (2024, p.4). This deeply challenging context requires the same participatory innovation and creativity to counter the risk of loss of trust and satisfaction with democratic institutions, such as Scottish Government.

Indeed, Scottish Government already has a history of and current practice in participatory governance. Whilst there are some blockers, notably via the current, perceived lack of senior leadership support, there are also a lot of facilitating factors which could support better incorporation and embedding of public participation within the decision-making of the organisation. In addition, there are numerous typologies of impact and evaluation frameworks which could provide a wealth of knowledge and information about how to design public participation processes which operate in sync with existing policy cycles, and with the necessary political licence to enable they are taken seriously by the institution and its 'power holders'. Linked to this is the clear appetite of 'activist officials' (Escobar, 2022) across the organisation combined with an existing network of experts in participation who are well placed to develop and contribute to further thinking on impact in the context of participation.

Suggested next steps

• 1. Convene a working group of civil servants, including senior officials, to consider the findings from this report, and how to better secure 'political licence'.
• 2. Continue conversations, via internal and external workshops, around developing an evaluation framework for understanding impact of public participation processes.
• 3. Use this knowledge to conduct an impact assessment of the Scottish Climate Assembly.