Scotland's Climate Assembly - process, impact and assembly member experience: research report

2. Organising the Assembly

This chapter presents findings relating to the organisation of the Assembly, focussing on governance, the process to determine the remit and framing of the Assembly, the Assembly design, and the evidence presented to members. The implications of key findings are discussed in Chapter 6 Conclusions.

2.1 Governance and roles

This section does not provide an in-depth evaluation of governance arrangements^[28] but highlights key points emerging from interviews with Organising members^[29].

Key findings

• The Assembly was successfully organised, in challenging circumstances.
• There was some uncertainty and lack of clarity regarding roles and decision making authority between the different groups involved in the organisation, especially at the start.
• There was a reliance on Evidence Group members voluntarily contributing more time than contracted or agreed, which not all were able to do.
• There were high workloads for the Secretariat at times, due to staffing levels.

The Assembly was organised successfully online in very trying circumstances during the Covid-19 pandemic. Members of the organising groups were committed and worked hard to ensure its success. Comments included:

“[Secretariat] did a really good job managing Evidence and Stewarding Groups and getting them to make decisions and move forward where there was disagreement.” (Organising member)

“I believe a huge amount of credit should be given to the rest of the Secretariat for managing to organise and deliver such a broad Assembly, whilst working in challenging circumstances and with limited staff. The Secretariat team was made up of extremely hard working individuals, all willing to put in a significant amount of time into making the Assembly the best it could be. Without their commitment I do not think the Assembly would have been as successful.” (Organising member)

“I knew it would be delivered to a good standard. Now the question is, could it be delivered better? I think it could. Of course it can always. And I think there are a number of things we need to learn. But given that this was the first digital assembly, it was quite impressive. And I think [the Secretariat] focused a lot on getting the basics right.” (Organising member)

However, some Interviewees reported some uncertainty and lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities, how the organising groups should work together and who made final decisions, which affected efficiency. A few reported that the expectations and arrangements became clearer after the first few weekends, whilst for others, issues remained throughout.

Comments included:

“I would like to … be more clear on the role of the Stewarding Group and others in co-design of the process.” (Organising member)

“Unsure about who made the final decisions - was it secretariat or design team? Both have different expertise, but final decision makers could have been clearer.” (Organising member)

Uncertainty and lack of clarity also extended to the relationship between the Assembly and the Scottish Government. For example:

“there are the official lines of accountability that go from the Secretariat, although it’s set up as an arms’ length entity but it’s not really clear.” (Organising member)

“I would recommend a different relationship or at least one that was agreed from the outset with the [Scottish Government] sponsorship team [and the Secretariat], with greater clarity on the [Secretariat’s] decision making power. We often spent time establishing where responsibility lay which at times held up the work of the Assembly.” (Organising member)

One interviewee recommended keeping the Secretariat’s location separate to that of Scottish Government staff. Another mistakenly thought the Secretariat was actually part of the Scottish Government, and that the Government should not have been leading it. When corrected in interview, they responded:

“I definitely got the impression they were representing the Government. I think that's a really difficult line for them to tread to be honest.” (Organising member)

The pros and cons of a Secretariat staffed largely by seconded civil servants was outlined by one interviewee:

“The model of having a Secretariat that is populated by mostly civil servants but seconded … For some people that’s a good thing because it has a direct channel to policy spaces and to potential impact. But for others it’s not too good because there are risks of co-option and there are always risks of manipulation. We always need to keep an eye on how these things are organised. So for me the key message on this is there is more work to be done on the governance of these institutions ... the governance of this Assembly I think overall was quite good.” (Organising member)

One interviewee described an initially “very chaotic” process for producing evidence, but which improved over time:

“But basically, I didn’t know at the outset what they would ask for evidence in. Whether it would be, sort of, general or in a specific area, or how many weekends I would be asked to be involved, or what form that would take. So, really, I didn’t know very much about it at the beginning. But that sort of evolved over the first few meetings, which were initially very chaotic. But then it settled down and we got a shared vision of where we were going.” (Organising member)

Another interviewee described how their role in the Evidence Group was different than they had expected:

“So I think when I was first asked to be part of the Evidence Group in my mind it was an advisory role. I had kind of expected that the structure and the content would be largely already done. And that we would come in and provide some advice and maybe provide some resources and materials. So I was a bit surprised when in the first meeting the conversation was like how are we going to do this? That took me back a little bit. I had honestly thought that some of that stuff would have already been prepared. But that's okay. I mean it meant that we were a bit more hands-on in terms of what went into the structure of it and the materials.” (Organising member)

Whilst their higher-than-expected levels of input into designing the structure were welcomed, the interviewee noted that such involvement reduced their time for evidence provision, and meant they were unavailable later in the Assembly process:

“So after about four or five meetings we [the interviewee and another Evidence Group member] had to say to the Scottish Government's Secretariat you're using up your time with us and we haven't even produced anything for you. So we had to push them and say you need to be a bit wiser about you're using our time, because if you use up all our time now we can't help in the later weekends.” (Organising member)

There were different arrangements in place across the Evidence Group. Whilst some Evidence Group members volunteered their time to participate, others were contracted for a set number of days through their academic institutions. Some members were able to devote more time than agreed or expected, others were not able, or less able, to do so. Comments included:

“I think there was a big reliance on people's passion and volunteering. I think that could've gone horribly wrong. If something had gone wrong and people had dropped out of the process, I think it would've been really tough for the Secretariat … if you do want to do more, and I really would love to see more of these kinds of things happening, it has to be professionalised in terms of how Evidence Group members engage and how Informants engage. Because that goodwill will run out. People can't continuously give time to these kinds of things. So I think it was a strength and a weakness.” (Organising member)

“I would say that everybody gave us much more time than they had initially said they could give us … the commitment from the Evidence Group was huge, but I would have liked more, certainly.” (Organising member)

“One of the difficulties of working with the Evidence Group was that some people had more time to give than others. And so even though the Evidence Group was quite balanced, that could mean a bit of imbalance in terms of the amount of time that people had available” (Organising member)

A few interviewees thought the Secretariat was insufficiently staffed, particularly at a senior level, which impacted on workload. Comments included:

“Lack of sufficient senior staff meaning that all tasks needed to be cleared by a single individual who was left with a significant workload.” (Organising member)

“there was not enough staff resource in the Secretariat, which meant individuals had to be extremely flexible and willing to work beyond their agreed hours on a regular basis. It also slightly limited the scope of what could be delivered, although I think we managed very well considering the circumstances.” (Organising member)

One interviewee reflected on the role of the convenors during the Assembly:

“I would re-design the role of the Convener(s) or not have them at all. I think ours did a great job, but we often had to create things for them to say and do and they had no authority in the process.” (Organising member)

2.2 Remit and framing

This section considers the process to determine the remit and framing of the Assembly, and how to operationalise the Assembly question.

Key findings

• The use of deliberative process for developing the Assembly question worked well.
• There were differences in views about the framing and remit of the Assembly and how to operationalise the Assembly question, which were not fully resolved. These differences mainly related to: how closely the Assembly should align with policy needs with respect to the Climate Change Act and its targets, the extent to which the Assembly should explore the reasons why climate change is deemed an emergency, how strategic, and how radical an approach it should take.
• There were also differences in views about the extent to which the Assembly dealt effectively with the systemic nature of climate change.

2.2.1 Assembly question

The Stewarding Group worked on the remit of the Assembly in a half-day deliberative process facilitated by DemSoc^[30], which was reported by interviewees to go well.

The Arrangements for the Administration and Operation of Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland: Scotland’s Climate Assembly^[31] states that although the Stewarding Group agreed the question, within the remit of the legislation, and expert support, members of the Assembly would be able to shape the Assembly’s agenda. It is not clear from the data what this meant in practice and whether Assembly members were given a genuine opportunity to shape the remit.

Although most of the discussion about the framing of the Assembly occurred in the months before the Assembly started, decisions regarding selection of evidence that related to issues of framing were ongoing throughout the Assembly.

In the Deltapoll population survey, people were asked whether the Assembly question, ‘How should Scotland change to tackle the climate emergency in an effective and fair way?’, was the right overarching question for the Assembly to address, with 65% agreeing (see 4.1 Support for outputs for more on public support).

The Assembly question presupposes that climate change is real and an emergency, that change is necessary and should be fair and effective. Some interviewees were happy with the framing of the question, for example:

“Once you arrive at a way of phrasing that question that pleases all these different interests and sectors then you know that that’s going to be a relevant way of framing it. And from that, a lot was built.” (Organising member)

However, there was a concern expressed about how leading the question was for the Assembly:

“My concern, about having too value-laden a question, was that when the recommendations came out, that you could say, well, of course, if you ask a question like that, that’s the sort of answer you’ll get.” (Organising member)

A small number of Assembly members expressed similar concerns in the surveys. For example, one respondent, who considered climate change an ‘immediate and urgent problem’, commented:

“The whole process has been manipulated throughout. I feel that the comments that will be taken forward are those of the organisers and not of the assembly members” (Assembly member, WE6)

Another Assembly member thought the Assembly remit should have included critiquing current Government policy^[32]:

“I feel that we could have used the assembly as a way to make recommendations on how to deal with the climate crisis, but also to comment and critique the Governments current proposals for dealing with the emergency and whether we as a representative example of the population felt that the proposals were meeting our expectations.” (Assembly member, WE4)

This issue is discussed further in 5.1 Impact on government policy.

Most Organising member interviewees discussed differences in views within, and between, the Evidence and the Stewarding Groups and the Secretariat about how to frame the Assembly and operationalise the Assembly question. Specifically, how closely the Assembly should work to the Climate Change Act and its targets and be aligned to policy needs, the extent to which the Assembly should explore the reasons why it is deemed a climate “emergency”, how strategic and how “radical” an approach it should take.

One interviewee noted that these differences in views was healthy:

“There were plenty of disagreements. And that’s a good sign, for me, that’s a sign of deliberative work, taking things seriously and exploring the options and disagreeing and offering reasons.” (Organising member)

However, another interviewee suggested that tensions within the Evidence Group were exacerbated by the lack of opportunity to meet in person and to build relationships over a longer period of time. One interviewee reflected that due to a “difficult start”, some Stewarding Group members consequently became less engaged. One interviewee praised the diplomatic, negotiation and mediation skills of the Secretariat in managing the tensions over the Assembly remit. Another observed that that once some trust in the process had been created, there was greater willingness to try different approaches and include different content. However, strong differences in views remained throughout (see also 2.4.1 Selection of evidence).

Comments relating to the differences in views with regards to framing and operationalising the Assembly question, included:

“Their [Secretariat] main worry was how is it going to work, it was a fear of failure that drove the initial parts, let’s make this safe. So … pushing out into slightly dangerous territory, like for example opening up a whole discussion of what do we mean by emergency, it was a big part of our early debates. I [thought] let’s just get this thing on wheels and on the way rather than trying to do something too radical too early.” (Organising member)

“This Assembly comes [together] to complement the work that Parliament has already done. To build on it and in my view to take it further because otherwise what’s the point?” (Organising member)

“otherwise if you don't align with the policy needs then the decision makers could easily dismiss any outcome from the report. Because it doesn't actually fit with the regulations that they've got to implement” (Organising member)

“There was a bit of tension there at the beginning between those two viewpoints, those two worldviews. And I think it took a couple of meetings to shake that out. You know, sort of, like, what is our remit here? Is our remit to challenge what the Government is already doing, which it is partly? Or is it to just completely rip everything up and say that we need radical overhaul of society?” (Organising member)

“established views of climate change, which are often … we all agree with the science and we must do things, as long as it’s not too disruptive. And we’ve also got to make sure that it aligns with our commitments that we’ve made, so like Paris for instance. The problem is that you can’t align our commitments with Paris that aren’t disruptive. So, I think the establishment continually tries to hold an impossible line … They’re [the Secretariat] is trying to do their job, which I still think is quite heavily influenced by what they think government want, what’s acceptable to government and that sort of language was used quite repeatedly: the output has got to be things that government is going to take seriously. Well, I think the output has got to be the correct output to the question as deemed appropriate by the people you’re asking the question to. Whether the government deems that appropriate or not is almost an irrelevant issue.” (Organising member)

A perception of “closing down” and limiting the evidence and deliberation space to the Climate Change Act targets and policy needs rather than supporting a more open exploration was one of the reported reasons for the withdrawal of Extinction Rebellion members from the Stewarding Group prior to the start of the Assembly^[33]. However, their influence was noted by a few interviewees. For example:

“I think they were highly influential. And all of the best parts of the Assembly can be connected to all of the things that XR did in the Stewarding Group in the early stages” (Organising member)

However, it should be noted that Extinction Rebellion’s departure from the Stewarding Group pre-dates any decisions regarding the contents of the Assembly’s evidence base.

One Organising member interviewee maintained that the absence of evidence that would have allowed members to have a solid understanding of the meaning of the term ‘climate emergency’ had an adverse impact on the nature of the recommendations with regards to strategic vision and transformational change:

“one of the problems (with not exploring why it is a climate emergency) is you end up with an ad hoc piecemeal set of policy suggestions, which is exactly what happened.… If it’s a stronger strategic vision it’s much, much harder for the policymakers to say we disagree with that … You divide the challenge into numerous little pieces and then you can deal with each one individually. It’s not questioning the fundamentals, it’s not evoking new paradigms or asking more world view questions. It’s just saying, what can we do in the current framing that allows us to incrementally adjust to reduce our emissions” (Organising member)

A similar point about strategic vision was made by another interviewee (see also 2.3.3 Topic stream structure):

“Actually the Assembly could have been structured in quite a different way to look at the big picture around the climate emergency and where priorities are and things like this, rather than down to very specific policy options for how do we get people to change their diet or, you know, how we use land or insulate our houses. I would have liked to do a much more, kind of, big picture strategic focussed, really dig in to, well what are the biggest challenges, and let the people start identifying what are the biggest challenges and barriers to change rather than that being pre-identified.” (Organising member)

2.2.2 Systemic approach

The Assembly organisers took measures to incorporate a systemic approach into the design and framing, to help members understand the different drivers of climate change and the process by which change might happen to tackle climate change, and to help members explore the potential synergies and trade-offs between fair and effective climate action. As one interviewee explained:

“And so trying to bring in a systems change approach is really… helping people to ask more fundamental questions about why the climate emergency is how it is and what are the systems which are affecting that outcome… (it) wasn't bringing new evidence, it was very much bringing a framework or a framing of how the evidence might be structured, and also questioning how the process of the Assembly happened" (Organising member)

Forum for the Future^[34] were commissioned to provide this input, which included:

• video presentation in Weekend 1 on how change happens^[35].
• video presentation in Weekend 3 on how effective change happens^[36].
• four scenarios of the future depicting different routes that could be taken to achieve net zero and showing how change can happen at different levels and paces. The scenarios represented a range of worldviews and assumptions including the role of profit (low or high) and type of decision making (centralised or decentralised). A fictional story for each of these scenarios was created, illustrating what a day in the life of an ordinary Scottish citizen might look like at some point in the future up to 2040. The scenarios were: Techno optimism, Climate mobilisation, Community collaboration, and Civic provision and regulation^[37]. The scenarios were presented to and discussed by members in Weekend 3, with guidance provided to facilitators. See Appendix 2 for the scenario framework. This framework was used to guide the selection of speakers and evidence (see 2.4.1 Selection of evidence).
• a diagram mapping different levels where action can be taken: Society, norms, values, beliefs; Public policy, regulation, taxes, incentives; Organisations, businesses, public services; Households, communities, neighbourhoods; Individual. The diagrams were used in the facilitated small group sessions to structure ideas and discussion. See Appendix 2 for the diagram.
• the Assembly’s goals were developed into a scenario that was presented to members in Weekend 7, and again in Weekend 8 as part of the recap on their work.

There were differences in views expressed in interview about the extent to which the Assembly dealt effectively with the systemic nature of climate change, and how members were supported in grasping the vast interconnectedness of it all (see also 2.3.3 Topic stream structure).

An interviewee who thought that this was done well commented:

“the rainbow thing that we had, so what is my role in this, what’s the organisation’s, what’s government, I think that really helped in bringing that interconnectedness. … the fact that they got it was amazing … I think that was really, really cleverly done, now looking back.” (Organising member)

One considered how it could have been done better:

“it’s more what we didn’t discuss that I have questions around, or didn’t give space for discussion. So, for example, digging a bit deeper into some of the systems stuff. I think it was a conscious choice not to go any further with some of that even though I think some people would have liked to” (Organising member)

Others reflected that there had not been enough time to embed a holistic understanding:

"well the process, or the way in which it was designed, had already been set and actually when you bring systems change to a process it starts questioning not just what evidence you might put into the Assembly but also the way you might structure an Assembly, or structure how the evidence comes together, and that was one of the biggest challenges (that the design had already been set)" (Organising member)

“So, we tried to have our cake and eat it … we tried to set up the idea everything being interconnected deep down, there were these roots that were all entangled, and that change is complex and happens at different levels. I think that’s a big thought for most people. …But the idea was that underpinned by that notion they would then be able to go in and look at the individual streams and be thinking, oh what’s happened in that stream and things like that. But the reality was that I think the process just didn’t give us enough time to really embed that.” (Organising member)

Another thought that the Assembly question was too broad to do the systemic dimensions of climate change justice in the time available:

“I would introduce more interactive methods of learning so members could understand the systemic nature of climate change better. I would also try and reduce the scope of the assembly or split it into multiple assemblies. Issues could then be explored in greater detail and understanding of the systemic nature of climate change could be explored more thoroughly” (Organising member)

One interviewee reflected that the systemic approach could have been improved by having more time in advance to design the scenario framework into the whole process, and by building the capacity of the facilitators to understand the framework and use it as model to support the members.

2.2.3 Assembly recommendations and systems change

The extent to which members considered systems change in their recommendations was discussed by some interviewees. There were a mix of views about the recommendations that members developed. For example, one interviewee noted that while some recommendations included transformational changes, as a whole they lacked strategic vision. Another interviewee was surprised at the “really quite radical” nature of the recommendations and the level of support for these measures by members. One interviewee considered some of the recommendations as very difficult to implement “on the ground” as they were considered to require significant systems change and behaviour change.

In the Assembly report, the Statement of Ambition contains language indicating the need for transformational change with references to “eradicating” the use of fossil fuels, “radical shifts” by business and government, and “drawing on the science and evidence to drive rapid and fundamental behaviour change across society”^[38]. Around a quarter of the recommendations were analysed as involving transformational change^[39].

For example: Extended Producer Responsibility Legislation (Goal 1 Recommendation 5), Passivhaus standard for new build homes (Goal 2 Recommendation 1), and Business and government to adopt a measurement framework for success that incorporates sustainability, wellbeing and happiness alongside profit (Goal 16 Recommendation 1). Just under a quarter of recommendations have the potential to be transformational depending on how they are implemented including the scale and speed of change. These include recommendations relating to taxation, circular economy and education. The remaining half of the recommendations were coded as involving incremental change^[40].

2.3 Design

This section covers findings related to the design of the Assembly including planning, structuring and programming, facilitation, and support given to Assembly members by the Design Team. The online nature of the Assembly is also considered.

2.3.1 Planning the Assembly

Key findings

• Early relational work between the Secretariat and the Stewarding Group was helpful in building a good relationship, with the Stewarding Group providing a useful steer for the Secretariat.
• There was a positive relationship between the Secretariat and the Design Team, although there were differences in views about extent to which the Assembly had been co-designed.
• A tight Assembly schedule generated momentum but also created pressures for all aspects of planning and delivery, which were experienced as challenging or stressful by some.
• Late design decisions enabled responsiveness to emerging issues but also impacted on ability of others to adequately plan and deliver and also limited opportunities for oversight and feedback.
• A majority of respondents to the Assembly member survey reported being satisfied with the organisation, communication and support received, and understood what they were expected to do. Process and tasks were mostly well explained to Assembly members.
• Assembly members were asked to spend time between weekends doing ‘homework’. Whilst this can help members with their learning, it could also create or exacerbate inequalities between members due to variation in the amount of opportunities and skills to engage with material on their own.

A few interviewees commented on the early work that was done to build a good relationship between the Secretariat and the Stewarding Group, the good communication from the Secretariat, and the Stewarding Group providing a useful steer.

There were some differences in views about the extent to which the Assembly had been co-designed^[41] between the Secretariat and the Design Team. One interviewee highlighted the collaborative, trusting and collegial relationship with a commitment to co-design. However, another noted the absence of a dedicated session on a co-design approach with reliance instead upon a conversation that “didn’t feel as full as it could have been”, which had impeded developing a shared understanding of how things would progress. They further reflected:

“I think the Design Team probably could have done a better job at times of explaining some of the decisions and the choices that we were making at an earlier stage” (Organising member)

Another reflected that a lack of time, especially during the Assembly weekends affected the collaborative relationship:

“I would say that the co-design wasn’t quite as good as I would have liked it to be … It was partly driven by circumstance of not being physically together, and partly it was driven by the time … it would have been good to have had more input. Perhaps not so much in the preparation phases, where I think it’s quite good, but there’s quite a lot of work is done behind the scenes over the weekend where outputs from the discussion groups were taken and pulled together and that sort of thing … I think some of the decisions that were made had impacts and it would have been good to have had a bit more of a discussion about: if we do this this this way, it will have this impact.” (Organising member)

A few Organising member interviewees mentioned challenges in the collaboration, including poor communication. One interviewee reflected that the Secretariat was not always aware of information provided to members by the Design Team, and it was also noted that there were delays in delivery of the Design Team’s work.

With regards to the relationship between design and evidence, one interviewee reflected that the Design Team and Evidence Group generally worked in isolation. Another interviewee noted that they may have “missed bits and connections” as they were not able to attend all the meetings with the Evidence Group due to not having enough time within their contract.

The original requirements of the Climate Change Act^[42] and the Scottish Parliamentary pre-election period^[43] created a pressure to compress the Assembly into a short time period with some weekends only two weeks apart. Whilst this generated momentum, it adversely affected preparation and had implications for all aspects of the Assembly including organisation, design, production and delivery, and also communications with members. The time pressures contributed to a high workload, which some interviewees found challenging or stressful.

A recurring theme in interview and observational data is late design decisions and last minute changes to the Assembly schedule. Whilst this enabled responsiveness to emerging issues, it was also seen by a few interviewees to limit opportunities for oversight by the Stewarding Group, as well as increasing pressures on production and delivery.

The short time for producing evidence presentations, and for feedback and revision, was regarded as demanding, or stressful, by most of the Evidence Group interviewees.

One interviewee reflected:

“I thought they overall did a brilliant job of that [taking the Assembly online]. And so very quickly people’s presentations had to be developed. And I think given more time it could have been made a bit easier for the members to glean the information that was necessary and perhaps we could have more peer review of what was going to go out as well.” (Organising member)

Other interviewees highlighted there was insufficient time for the Secretariat to edit and produce the evidence videos, which resulted in some staff working very long hours.

The compressed Assembly schedule also had consequences for members in digesting large volumes of evidence, in short periods, between weekends. The programming of the weekends did not allow much time for members to “digest” the information. Comments in the member survey included:

“There is a lot of information presented and whilst I do not have a problem understanding the majority of the information I do feel I am being asked to make decisions without the time for digesting the information fully and I feel that this then may lead to decisions being made that are not necessarily the best ones.” (Assembly member, WE3)

“If there is any information it would be good to have it in more time, I appreciate there was only the two weeks this time but with the time I had and work commitments I was only able to read through and not digest properly.” (Assembly member, WE4)

“I was overwhelmed with all the information I had to take in” (Assembly member, WE7)

The survey and observational data suggests that members had a strong sense of responsibility and wanted to perform their task well. The quotes regarding “digesting” the information indicate a need to feel competent^[44] and some members reported re-watching evidence presentations or reading transcripts and summaries in their own time. However, not all members were able to do so due to other commitments such as work or family. In addition to information relating to evidence, members were also sent documents that collated and consolidated their outputs from particular weekends. Again, not all members would have had time to fully read and check these^[45]. Members were also asked on occasion to vote on particular aspects in between Assembly weekends. The email sent to all confirmed participants in the month before the first weekend states: “We will also ask you to spend a little of your own time between meetings on things such as watching videos we send you.” Assembly ‘homework’ was then either explicitly requested or implicitly encouraged (by virtue of sending materials to members and making them available on the members online portal). Even if members were also made aware that engaging with information and other materials outwith the weekends was not compulsory, it is possible that many felt a need to do so for their own sense of competency.

Assembly members were asked for their views on the organisation of the Assembly. As shown in Figure 2.1, across the seven weekends almost all respondents were satisfied with the organisation and support provided by the Design Team, communication about the arrangements in the lead-up to the weekend, and organisation of the weekend. For all of these aspects, the proportion of respondents rating their experience as ‘very satisfied’ was highest in Weekend 1.

Across the weekends, most respondents agreed that the purpose of the weekend was well explained (90% average across weekends). The proportion of respondents who ‘strongly agreed’ was lowest after Weekend 6 (43% strongly agreed, 46% tended to agree), compared to Weekend 1 (64% strongly agree, 23% tend to agree). In Weekend 6, members joined mixed stream topic groups to discuss the recommendations proposed by each topic stream, the purpose of which may not have been as clear to the Assembly members as activities in the other weekends. Reflecting back on their experience of the Assembly as a whole after Weekend 7, 91% agreed that they understood what they were expected to do over the following Assembly weekends.

However, one interviewee identified issues with the provision of materials to members:

“Provision of materials to members - formal deadlines for this would have pushed decision-making backwards to more in advance of the weekend. A routine for the provision of materials wasn't developed early on - it would have useful to help guide members through the process, and make it clear at each stage where they were in the process and the aims of their activities. I think they should have been provided physically - online resources, given not everyone equally at ease with this, had limited reach.” (Organising member)

Observational data shows that members were provided with an explanation of various groups involved in the Assembly in Weekend 1 and reminded in Weekend 2. However, in Weekend 3 the distinction between informants and advocates was not explained^[46]. This was addressed the following weekend.

An extra (seventh) weekend was scheduled for the end of the Assembly. This was offered to members and they voted for it in Weekend 4, as they recognised more time was needed for deliberation and developing supporting information and prioritising their proposed recommendations.

2.3.2 Online format

Key findings

• The organisers were well prepared for online delivery with good technical support for members in advance and during the Assembly.
• Advantages of online format included: accessibility for some members and availability of experts; video presentations allowed for review and editing, and for re-watching by members.
• Disadvantages in comparison to in-person assemblies included: shorter sessions, harder to facilitate, harder to foster sense of community between members, more difficult to cater for range of learning styles and provide more interactive ways of engaging with evidence. Connectivity issues impacted on some members’ ability to participate.
• There were differences in views about whether more could have been done to create a stronger sense of community, and whether such activities would have been effective.

Scotland’s Climate Assembly was conducted entirely online (on Zoom) due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the first time an entire national assembly had been held in this way. The decision to hold the Assembly online (with the option for in-person meetings retained) was made over a period of time, with discussions starting in May 2020.

The online format meant members could participate from home. Experts who might otherwise have not been available for an in-person event could also participate.

The online format impacted on the design choices of the Assembly, with shorter sessions scheduled than if the Assembly had been in person to account for ‘Zoom fatigue’, as digital engagement is considered to be more demanding than in-person participation. This had implications for facilitation, presentation of evidence, deliberation, and for creating a sense of community amongst the Assembly members.

On the whole, the online format worked very well, due in large part to careful planning, with learning shared with the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland which started in-person but moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Improvements were also made while the Assembly was in process. One interviewee commented:

“we felt really prepared for the online delivery and quite confident I think going into it that it was workable and it would work in a way that we thought it would” (Organising member)

Observational and interview data suggests that facilitation was more difficult online than in-person. For example, some interviewees, and in facilitator debriefs with the Design and Facilitation Team, it was noted that it was harder for facilitators to read body language, to reach out to members to check how they are doing, to include disengaged or struggling members, and also to appear neutral because of needing to use different techniques such as nodding, to demonstrate they are listening to members.

With regards to presentation of evidence, the online format meant that Assembly members could re-watch the videos as desired and the videos could be easily shared online with a larger audience. It also meant the organisers could review the videos the expert presenters had recorded and provide feedback on accessibility of the information being presented and the style it was presented in. However, one interviewee explained that the online format also constrained what was feasible. For example, not being able to include more interactive and engaging formats, such as a debate, where the complexity of issues could also have been explored further as different positions can be compared side-by-side^[47].

Technical support was provided to Assembly members and, where needed Evidence Group members, between and during the weekends. Members without suitable devices were loaned a Chromebook. Other devices provided included headsets, webcams, keyboards and mice, as well as pre-paid and back-up dongles for internet connection. Around eight in ten survey respondents used a computer or laptop with video camera each weekend, with the remainder mostly using a tablet or iPad. Using Zoom on a tablet and typing at the same time proved difficult. One interviewee noted that the situation of lockdown also meant that some members were not able to get technical support from family or friends in other households that they may otherwise have received.

Before the Assembly started, members were split into learner groups depending on their self-assessed IT competency: those with high confidence, those requiring some support, and those who had never used or rarely used the internet. The first two learner groups were invited to a Zoom meeting, whilst those from the latter group had a one-on-one phone call before getting them to use Zoom. These meetings were designed to introduce members to the concept of a group call, explore the functions of Zoom, as well as introduce them to other platforms they would use, such as Mentimeter^[48]. The meetings also allowed the Design Team to see if members had under-reported, or over-reported their technical competency.

One interviewee stated that there was a logistical challenge in running three Zoom meetings for the different topic streams at the same time. Facilitators and Assembly members were observed at times to have technical issues over the course of the Assembly, including connection problems, microphones left on during evidence presentations creating background noise, and for facilitators specifically, problems with screen sharing. Online tools such as Jamboard^[49] appeared to be generally accessible to most members most of the time, although their levels of confidence and ability to use this online tool differed widely, affecting the nature of their contribution.

Across the weekends, 8% - 16% of member survey respondents reported that connection issues had reduced their ability to participate. One respondent commented:

“The device I was using is an old device which works fine with zoom but it doesn’t have the capabilities to download software such as the jam board. My participation was limited during the time we were using them because I couldn’t follow with the document we were working on” (Assembly Member, WE6)

Members were provided with an online hub which was a repository for the learning resources, namely the evidence video and written documents arranged by weekend, and a discussion board. Across the Assembly, most respondents to the member survey were satisfied with using the online members’ hub (average of 83% across the weekends), although one interviewee estimates that the hub was used by only around a third of members.

According to one interviewee, for a few members the Assembly was the only social activity they participated in during lockdown. However, a sense of community was regarded by interviewees as more difficult to create in comparison to in-person processes. One interviewee explained why sense of community is important:

“[it] holds a diverse community together despite their differences. And that makes deliberation a little bit more likely to happen because people will give other people the benefit of the doubt, they will see the full human dimension of others in the room and not just the deliberative position or the position they are trying to put forward… social space in the deliberative process is not an add-on, it’s a fundamental part of ensuring good deliberative quality in my view” (Organising member)

Research also suggests that social bonds are conductive to good deliberation^[50]. Members could talk to each other in their Zoom break-out rooms in the breaks between sessions. In the member survey, there is evidence that some sense of community developed between members:

“the process was quite draining, but towards the end there was a feeling of togetherness and accomplishment that was emotionally positive.” (Assembly member, WE7)

“I'm also quite proud of what we've achieved (yes, I think of the Assembly as a 'we' now :-))” (Assembly member, WE7)

There were differences in views amongst interviewees about the extent to which more could have been done to help members form connection and whether additional activities would have been effective.

2.3.3 Topic stream structure

Key findings

• Separating into topic streams was generally considered a necessary approach to address the broad Assembly question.
• Advantages of topic stream structure: allows for more in-depth exploration of a wider range of topics.
• Disadvantages of topic stream structure: interconnections between topics more difficult to understand, members do not all engage with the same evidence.
• Mixed stream sessions in the final two weekends helped members understand the work of the other streams, although not to the same extent as the recommendations from their own stream. There was an element of having to trust that others had followed a good process to arrive at their recommendations.
• There were differences in how comfortable members felt at using trust as the basis for voting for recommendations made by other topic streams.

Members were divided into three topic streams for Weekends 3, 4 and 5. The topics were reported by interviewees as chosen to reflect the sectors that make the largest climate change contributions. One interviewee noted that the topics were consciously chosen as areas that Assembly members could relate to: most would have strong personal experiences of, for example, working, travelling, living in a home and in a community.

Not all interviewees were involved in decisions about dividing the members into topic streams but most agreed it was a good, or necessary, approach to addressing the Assembly question. There was a view that the streams allowed for more in-depth evidence and deliberation, and enabled members to develop meaningful recommendations. One commented:

“I think it was essential because there was otherwise just too much material for members to be expected to engage with” (Organising member)

However, interviewees also noted that this structure necessarily meant members could not take part in other topic stream deliberations, with a few reflecting that it might have made it more difficult for members to explore and understand the interconnected nature of the issues. For example:

“[the topic stream structure] separated them out which I (think) it’s important to do that because it’s more helpful, but it’s also a problem separating things out, you don’t see them as a combined thing, so you end up breaking things down into more and more piecemeal ad-hoc responses.” (Organising member)

“I think that decision set the course for a whole lot of other stuff. So by doing that, it almost certainly influenced hugely that it was going to be an Assembly that produced lots of quite small recommendations that weren’t necessarily all attached to a big picture” (Organising member)

One interviewee thought there was insufficient time to embed the notion of interconnectedness in the streams. See also 2.2.2 Systemic approach, for more on this issue.

Respondents to the member surveys also expressed a mix of views. For example:

“I did think splitting into three streams was a good way to cover the different topics. There was still a range of opinions but otherwise there would have been too much material to take on board in the time available. It was quite an accomplishment to consolidate everything at the end.” (Assembly Member, WE7)

“I would really have preferred to be in another workstream. There's been a lot of discussions around technology for Homes both new builds and retrofit, and sometimes I feel pretty helpless and am cautious about making the wrong recommendations due to the several conflicting evidences we have heard from different experts. My expertise and experience as a person would have been of much better value in the work & travel stream.” (Assembly Member, WE5)

Following a briefing to the Stewarding Group on emerging research findings from Climate Assembly UK^[51] regarding negative perceptions of policy-makers to recommendations produced by only a small proportion of Assembly members, the issue of ownership of topic stream outputs became an important consideration in the design of the final two weekends. One interviewee explained:

“I think this was a learning…from research from Climate Assembly UK, that the credibility of the recommendations in large part depends on the whole Assembly having agreed them. And so the process of the stream coming back and reporting to their fellow Assembly members about the recommendation in draft form, I thought it was important. And then engaging in small groups with that recommendation and further refining it and seeing where there were overlaps, I think was really important and I think gives it a lot of strength. And so, we have the depth, but we also have that cross-Assembly approval, which I think is really important.” (Organising Member)

Consequently, in a Weekend 6 plenary session, topic stream groups presented their proposed goals and recommendations together with a rationale. Members then met in mixed-stream groups to discuss and reflect on a number of recommendations, to identify points of tension and commonality, and to propose redrafts and mergers.

However, one interviewee questioned the extent to which there was sufficient time for members to deeply understand the content coming from other topic streams, and highlighted the possibility that members misrepresented their own topic stream to other members:

“But then one thing I was quite conscious of is the possible misrepresentation maybe of some members in some groups about the reasons behind particular recommendations and why they’ve come out. Because when we came back together in a situation where you had your groups and maybe two, three people in that group were from one of the work streams and then there was a bit of a burden on them to explain what things were.” (Organising member)

Member survey results indicate that the mixed stream structure in Weekends 6 and 7 helped members gain an understanding about the content from other topic streams, although not to the same extent as the recommendations from their own stream. As shown in Figure 2.2, almost all respondents (93%) in the Weekend 7 (WE7) survey agreed that they understood the recommendations proposed in their topic stream and why they were proposed. A lower, but still high, proportion (79%) agreed that they understood the recommendations proposed in other topic streams and why they were proposed.

Further analysis was conducted on the profile of the 21% who did not agree that they understood the recommendations proposed in other topic streams and why they were proposed (15% neither agreed nor disagreed, 6% disagreed). There was a fairly even mix of those who agreed their views had been reflected in the finalised goals and recommendations and those who disagreed or selected neither agree nor disagree. Most of this group supported all, or most, of the recommendations (apparently despite not fully understanding them) and almost all thought climate change was an ‘immediate and urgent’ problem.

The survey did not ask members whether they trusted the outputs from other streams, but comments show that some were more comfortable with this than others. For example:

“I feel confident that the members in the other groups from myself have made an informed decision with all the information provided to them . Like our group I trust they have discussed this in length before setting their recommendations so I am satisfied that they have chosen well.” (Assembly Member, WE6)

“To be able to vote for the other streams goals/recommendations either we trust our common sense and the work done by the members of these stream, or we have to spend time going through all the evidences … I wish we would have had more time to discuss the recommendations with members of the different streams in work group and maybe ask some questions to the evidence team when a point is unclear. I would have preferred to spend the whole weekend on that and not just one day.” (Assembly Member, WE6)

“I am starting to find it quite confusing now as being asked to vote on recommendations from other streams when we haven't had the benefit of hearing all the evidence presented to those streams.” (Assembly Member, WE6)

One respondent described feeling discomfort at voting against recommendations made by other streams:

“When discussing the gaps we also had 2 of the contributors in the same team so it was rather uncomfortable voting against them and then having them trying to explain their points, kinda putting us in the spot.” (Assembly member, WE7)

One interviewee wondered how “discriminating” members had been when casting their votes:

“I think the solidarity that had been built up meant that people were actually not very critical about this and just accepted what had come from the group. And so you get these really high figures of people like 70, 75 per cent of people^[52], because they had been tossed around by the group, they had come to this decision, they said to everyone else, everyone else went, well that sounds fine, I don’t have anything to go against that, I don’t have any knowledge. So, I think it’s probably overinflated the percentages of acceptance at the end … I think it wasn’t very discriminating” (Organising member)

This reference to the effect of ‘solidarity’ can be interpreted through the lens of social identity theory^[53], which predicts that people tend to show favouritism towards those they perceive as being part of their in-group, and that there are pressures to conform to in-group norms.

Members’ sense of ownership over the process and outputs is explored further in other sections of this report (see 3.1.3 Influencing the process and 3.1.4 Developing the outputs).

2.3.4 Programming the sessions

Key findings

• There were challenges in balancing time for evidence with time for deliberation and completing small group tasks, and in completing small group tasks within session time. Work was often rushed and at times overran into breaks.
• Many members did not feel there was enough time to develop and finalise the recommendations.
• Most members found the small group, mixed stream and plenary sessions helpful for their learning, and were satisfied with the balance of open discussions to task-based discussions.

Observational and interview data shows that there were issues most weekends with regards to having sufficient time for the work. Sessions were often observed to over-run with members rushing to complete tasks.

Difficulties were observed in balancing time between evidence provision, deliberation and completion of tasks. One interviewee noted:

“I would have given less evidence …I think I would have slightly changed the balance between evidence and deliberation and given a bit more time to deliberation” (Organising Member)

A few other interviewees also thought that perhaps too much time had been given to presenting evidence, and one interviewee reflected that members had been given insufficient time to consider policy options.

One interviewee reflected on the necessity of the extra weekend (Weekend 7):

"I was absolutely delighted to see that extra weekend because my fear – and it still felt a bit rushed at the end – is that it would have felt really really rushed. I mean, we needed it. So glad the members decided to vote for it. But the reason I think we needed it was because when people were coming towards the end of their groups they were taking more time than we had expected I think to develop some of the supporting information around those statements and to grapple with what was really important to them.” (Organising member)

Assembly members did not always feel that they had enough time to develop and finalise the recommendations. Only around four in ten respondents (average 42%) to Weekends 4 and 5 member surveys agreed that there had been enough time in their small group to develop recommendations. The following quotes illustrate the range of views:

“I think it's probably an unavoidable consequence of having to carry out the assembly online, but everything feels very rushed. We are being presented with a lot of information and then being asked to comment on it with very little time to digest it - and then running short of time to discuss and get our recommendations down on paper while in groups.” (Assembly Member, WE4)

“The time allocated to review the goals/recommendations from the previous week wasn't enough and we had to rush which was frustrating and I don't think it serves its purpose.” (Assembly Member, WE4)

“A few members in our group were complaining about lack of information to make recommendations. I am happy enough - the level of information needed to properly enact our recommendations is several degrees and PhDs worth, I think we are getting enough to point us in a direction without becoming overwhelmed with information.” (Assembly member, WE4)

In the Weekend 6 and 7 members’ surveys, a higher proportion of respondents felt there had been enough time in their mixed stream small groups to discuss recommendations (59% WE6), and to satisfactorily finalise the statements of ambition (55% WE7) and the recommendations (57% WE7). Despite this perceived lack of time, as shown in Chapter 4, a large majority still thought the final recommendations reflected their views.

Assembly members were also asked for their views on particular elements of the programme, in terms of their satisfaction, or how helpful they were for learning about climate change and how to tackle it. Reflecting on their experience of the Assembly after Weekends 6 and 7, most respondents reported finding the small group discussions (87%) and the mixed stream discussions (86%) helpful, with 75% finding the plenary sessions with all Assembly members helpful. 79% of respondents were satisfied with the balance between task-based discussions and open discussions in their small groups across the Assembly weekends as a whole.

In Weekend 7, representatives from political parties gave short speeches to the Assembly. 59% of respondents to the member survey agreed that it was good to hear from members of political parties.

2.3.5 Facilitation

Key findings

• Overall there were good elements to the facilitation, particularly given the considerable challenges of facilitating online and working with multiple tools and documents.
• Members largely felt included and respected, with ample opportunity to express their views.
• There was ongoing issue with one or more members dominating their small group, affecting other members’ participation.
• There were instances when facilitators inaccurately recorded members’ contributions, which were not always picked up.
• There were differences in the extent to which members were facilitated to fulfil tasks for themselves.
• Performance monitoring and management of facilitators more difficult online.

On the whole, the quality of facilitation was observed to be good, with a friendly and supportive approach including encouraging members to be respectful and supportive of each other.

Members mostly had different small group facilitators for the Saturday and Sunday of each weekend, and occasionally for different sessions in the day. Across all sessions and weekends, almost all respondents felt included (average 92%) and respected by their facilitator (average 93%). Most respondents (average 85%) agreed that their facilitator considered opposing arguments and agreed that they had ample opportunity in the small group discussions to express their views (average 85%). The members who disagreed varied across the weekends, but there were some members who gave this response for more than one weekend.

The following quotes illustrate the range of positive and negative views:

“They included every member within the group making sure everyone had their say and ensured all comments/opinions were noted. No one was made [to] feel that their opinion didn't matter and encouraged quieter members to voice opinions, it was very enjoyable” (Assembly Member, WE2)

“I thought our facilitator for this weekend was excellent and it made me realise how important that role is in achieving enjoyable and useful discussions.” (Assembly member, WE4)

“I felt that some of my comments weren't being considered [s/he] wasn't even typing when I spoke and was pretty disappointed that [s/he] constantly disregarded some of my comments in place of more active speakers' feedback … this weekend had really dampened my mood to participate further” (Assembly member, WE4)

“I was very frustrated by the difficulties caused by the narrow broadband width available to me. However, the facilitator took enormous efforts to include me in the process.” (Assembly Member, WE3)

There was a view that managing the performance of facilitators in online breakout rooms is more challenging than in in-person assemblies, as joining groups could have been perceived as “spying” as well as influencing how the facilitator behaved when watched. One Organising member interviewee reflected on this problem:

“For me it was absolutely not being able to go in and observe the facilitators as they were working to be able to pick up on any issues or things that needed to be addressed … I do feel a bit uncomfortable that I couldn’t keep an eye on things in the same way as I might be able to in a room.” (Organising member)

Lead facilitators mainly relied upon briefing and debriefing sessions, that all facilitators participated in, for facilitation quality control. Information about performance was also gained from the nature and content of session outputs, and from the data briefings produced by the research team based on member survey and non-participant observational data.

In general, facilitators were observed to do well in managing the facilitation alongside juggling multiple complicated documents and templates, screen sharing and note-taking. In light of these challenges, facilitators later were offered additional technical support and a note taker, which were at times taken up.

As noted in 2.3.2 Online format, facilitating online was considered to be more challenging than facilitating in-person. Some facilitators were observed to have stronger skills than others with regards to involving all members, and directly encouraged quieter members to contribute, or intervening to bring the discussion back on topic.

However, the observational data shows instances when facilitators allowed dominant speakers too much time. This is reflected in the member survey data. Figure 2.3 shows how experiences varied across the weekends. In the Weekend 4 survey, respondents agreeing that others in their group tended to dominate the discussions were spread across thirteen of the fifteen small groups, illustrating that this was a common problem. The drop in Weekends 5 and 6 is likely a consequence of intervention by the Design Team following the Weekend 4 data briefing by the research team. Members’ comments included:

“Our facilitator did try various ways to stop this happening so I don’t think [s/he] could have done anymore, sometimes no matter how many times you tell people they don’t listen. I felt this the most uninteresting weekend so far because of this reason. I actually felt like I wanted to stop sooner - sorry I’m just being honest. It was distracting.” (Assembly Member, WE3)

“Dominant participant in the team and facilitator relied a lot on them to get input. Quite a bit of time spent with just the two of them discussing. Fair enough because [name deleted] is an expert in the field we are discussing, but because the rest of us aren't, the discussions then become circled around information coming from [name deleted] and their viewpoints.” (Assembly member, WE4)

“My group this weekend had 2 individuals who seemed to control the conversation and at times I felt it pointless trying to speak.” (Assembly Member, WE3)

There were a small number of instances of unhelpful behaviour observed, for example when a facilitator appeared to dismiss a member’s comments. Acronyms and jargon were not always fully explained either.

Facilitators were mostly impartial but on a small number of occasions were observed to have introduced their own ideas to the group. This is reflected in member survey data, where up to 16% agreed that their facilitator ‘sometimes tried to influence the group with their own ideas’. Analysis of the survey data shows that those agreeing with the statement were not all in the same breakout group. One respondent commented:

“[Facilitator] seemed to have a poor understanding of some of the tasks [s/he] was leading us through, and sometimes was eager to add [her/his] own suggestions to our discussions, only to get half way through them before holding [herself/himself] back and resuming [her/his] role as a facilitator (rather than a contributing assembly member).” (Assembly Member, WE4)

Observational data shows that facilitators did not always challenge members about the rationale or evidence for their claims. One interviewee explained the important role of the facilitator in supporting deliberation:

“So the deliberative work is to be done by the group and the facilitator needs to help the group to develop those skills, to do deliberative work. It’s not the role of the facilitator to necessarily pick up on misinformation, it’s the role of fellow deliberators to effectively monitor and make claims as transparent as they can be. And ask people to justify what they are saying.” (Organising member)

There were some instances observed of inaccurate recording by facilitators of members’ contributions (not always noticed or challenged by members) and in one case inaccurate recording of votes (which members did correct).

A few members commented on this in the surveys. For example:

“Facilitator was also seemingly struggling to understand some of the feedback that other members were speaking about and alot of time spent trying to "paraphrase" what had been said.” (Assembly member, WE4)

“The facilitators in general, across the whole Assembly, have struggled to capture and record the views of the groups adequately. Things which have been said and apparently noted have failed to appear in draft goals and recommendations.” (Assembly member, WE6)

Differences in approach were observed such as whether the facilitator asked experts questions on behalf of members or invited members to ask the questions themselves. In a few instances, members were observed to take control of asking the questions from facilitators. A few members commented about this issue of their agency:

“I would suggest that if tools like Jamboard are being used that the members are always allowed to contribute themselves - our facilitator wrote our answers for us but I feel that it may have saved a lot of time and encouraged more engagement (especially from those who wanted to keep quiet) if we were allowed to write our own answers.” (Assembly member, WE3)

“It was good to have a facilitator that actually wrote what we said and gave us access to jamboard so we could use our own words unlike previous facilitators” (Assembly member, WE4)

Whilst over-running of sessions was mostly due to workload, there were some instances observed where it was due to ineffective time management by the facilitator. Some members commented on this in the surveys. For example:

“The facilitators nearly always allowed tasks to overrun into the 10-minute "comfort breaks" that were supposed to be time to let assembly members turn off their cameras and stretch their legs” (Assembly member, WE6)

2.3.6 Assembly member support

Key findings

• Good pastoral support provided to members, although more staff resource would have been helpful due to the emotional labour involved.
• Resources to support members' learning could have been better planned, structured and delivered, to ensure different learning styles were accommodated, and that materials provided by post arrived in time.

Members were supported by a member of the Design team with dedicated responsibility for this task^[54]. Most of the support provided was technical (see 2.3.2 Online format). Other support given related to providing reassurance to members that appeared to lack self-confidence, that they were capable of contributing and that their opinion was valuable. There was a view that it would have been helpful to have two support staff to share the “exhausting” workload. The interviewee elaborated:

“I mean there was certainly a lot of emotional labour^[55] that goes into it. I mean my colleagues have had people, you know, saying their dog just died, and it’s you become part of someone’s life for the period of the process and they trust you with information” (Organising member)

Members were also offered support from the two conveners who had a pastoral role. It was not recorded how many members took advantage of this service. Interviewees mention one instance when a convenor provided support to a member by telephone after they became upset in a session.

In Weekend 2 there was a presentation on climate anxiety, which 46% of respondents found helpful. Following this, the member surveys included questions about how members were feeling (see 3.2 on members’ emotional experience) and the findings informed the development of a wellbeing resource for members, produced by the research team.

With regards to supporting members with their learning, some interviewees thought that more could have been done to take into account different learning styles, to explain what evidence is and where it comes from, or to coach members in how to take notes. One interviewee suggested that a resource pack could have been posted to members for each weekend. They thought this type of support was constrained by budget and time.

Some members were provided with printed materials, but these did not always arrive in time. A difficulty was reported in providing printed materials to members during lockdown, which was exacerbated by materials being finalised only a short time in advance of the weekends. As noted earlier (see 2.3.1 Planning the Assembly) Assembly members had differing levels of capacity to engage with materials outside of the Assembly weekends.

As described earlier (see 2.3.1 Planning the Assembly), most respondents to the member survey were satisfied with the support and assistance they received.

2.4 Evidence

This section presents findings relating to the process of selecting evidence including issues of balance and diversity, the quality of evidence presented and communication of evidence. Interactions between the Evidence Group and the Assembly members, and members’ engagement with the evidence, are also covered.

Key findings

• There was a challenging start to the decision making process in the Evidence Group, with not much time to build relationships and trust before the start of the Assembly. The process improved over time as relationships developed. Not all Evidence Group members were involved in decision making as much as they would have liked.
• The evidence provided was generally good quality (content, style) although peer review processes could have been better and more consistent.
• Different views on the extent to which balance and diversity of evidence was achieved.
• The severity of the climate emergency may not have been sufficiently conveyed to Assembly members, particularly at the outset.
• Climate impacts, adaptation and resilience were under-represented in the evidence relative to mitigation, with this imbalance reflected in the Assembly Report recommendations.
• Although limited, the interactions between experts and Assembly members were useful.
• Assembly members understood and engaged well with the evidence, although there could have been better use of resources, and some felt overwhelmed by the volume of information.
• In the cross-weekend sample of small group discussions analysed, only 16% of contributions by members involved demands about what should be done. Of these, most were accompanied with a justification. However, only a third of these justifications were qualified (explicit links between demand and reason). Two thirds of justifications were in service of the general interest or common good.

2.4.1 Selection of evidence

Evidence Groups members, informants and advocates created video presentations of evidence that were shown to the members^[56].

The amount of evidence that could be presented each weekend was largely determined by the schedule produced by the Design Team, who informed the Evidence Group of the length of the timeslots. Consideration was given to people’s attention span online, and time needed for deliberation. The time allocated for evidence influenced the content and the degree of complexity and nuance in the presentations.

A framework was created by the Secretariat and some members of the Evidence Group based on the three topic streams and the scenario framework developed by Forum for the Future (see 2.2.2 Systemic approach, and Appendix 2). One interviewee reflected that whilst the framework generally worked, it was challenging to identify speakers who neatly fit the scenarios.

The Secretariat played a key role in deciding on the evidence, which had advantages and disadvantages. As one said:

“quite a few of the decisions as to what evidence the Assembly members should hear was taken by the Secretariat … I completely understand why the Secretariat had to adopt that model because otherwise … everybody would have got incredibly frustrated because no decisions would ever have been made. There was an efficient decision-making process. I think it was then a little bit frustrating for me as an evidence lead because … I wanted to make that decision … and it was actually made by others” (Organising Member)

Most Evidence Group interviewees agreed that the first few weeks of working together were the most challenging. A few found it “frustrating” and “tense” as they sought to reconcile different perspectives, although it was noted that discussions remained respectful. One commented:

“And I think what was really useful from both sides is they would make the point and then leave it, step back, and they might make it again in a slightly different way later on but no one banged the table, no one stormed out. There were people that made it absolutely clear that they didn’t think this was the right way … the actual discussions we had were really quite honest and – what’s the phrase that politicians use? Robust” (Organising Member)

Another reflected that rationales for views were not always provided:

“I expect people to respond in an academic fashion, detailed point by point so that we can come to a final understanding of our differences or we can come to an agreement because we frame things differently. But that wasn’t how it was … you’d get some slight dismissal back, I just don’t agree. That’s nothing - that’s not a statement of anything. Why don’t you agree? And when people say that what they mean is I don’t like. And that’s irrelevant to academics whether you like it or not; it’s whether people agree or not and why you disagree and why you agree” (Organising Member)

One interviewee reflected on the lack of time to build relationships and trust between the people involved in deciding the evidence, particularly in relation to fears about how ‘academic’ the evidence presentations would be:

“some of the meetings got a little bit tense. And I think the problem was that maybe under normal circumstances, when you've got a bit more time to unpack some of these concerns and frustrations, that's fine. But these concerns and frustrations were being raised the week before the weekends.” (Organising Member)

As relationships and trust developed over the course of the Assembly, this interviewee, and others, noted that the nature of their discussions improved and differences became less marked.

Evidence leads in the topic streams played a key role in selecting evidence for their topic stream, but the wider Evidence Group were not always involved in the decision making process. One interviewee reflected that the group who made decisions about the evidence became smaller over time due to illness, end of contracted or agreed time of Evidence Group members, and possibly because of disengagement by some members. The interviewee reflected that this group had worked well together. It is possible that the decrease in size of this group contributed to a “narrowness of perspectives” described by this interviewee (see below on Balance and diversity).

As noted earlier (see 2.2 Remit and framing) the question that the Assembly was asked to address presupposes that climate change is real and an emergency.

Some interviewees wondered whether the evidence, particularly in the first two weekends, had sufficiently conveyed the severity and ‘emergency’ of climate change. Comments included:

“did it come across how urgent and pressing the climate emergency was and, you know, would that have changed some of the recommendation? Should we’ve gone deeper into certain things?” (Organising Member)

“you get some sort of feel of how rapidly things have got to change if you’re going to avoid whatever it is you may define as climate emergency … And I think that was a problem … because no attendees [experts] really described what does a climate emergency mean, what are the severe impacts of climate change … I felt there was no flavour of this is an existential threat to many, many communities around the world and to ecosystems as well.” (Organising Member)

Whilst others highlighted the severe impacts already being experienced:

“The Assembly as a whole had this feeling of this thing that was coming down the line and how would Scotland react to it; whereas another narrative was, this is something that is already here for a large part of the population of the planet, and giving that impetus for real urgency” (Organising Member)

“I think maybe a bit more time on the impacts and consequences would've been useful. But with the caveat that this was all very difficult to do anyway … I think it would've reiterated that element of urgency … to talk a bit more about the impacts also on Scotland a bit more. Because otherwise they're going into the next phase, without that understanding. And therefore it is possible that that is also why they [the members] didn't come back to flood risk management or drought management or any of those really important aspects. Because they didn't really fully understand, the consequences are still a bit nebulous maybe for them” (Organising Member)

“we didn’t do a lot of talking to people elsewhere in the world that were impacted by climate change and saying what a significant impact it was. We didn’t do that kind of emotive thing very much. And I think that was okay, but there were some members of the Stewarding Group who would have liked to have done more of that.” (Organising Member)

The interviewees reflected on how this had influenced the members’ deliberations and recommendations. One suggested that there was a desire to “give an optimistic story to the members”.

There were also some differences in views within the Evidence Group about including topics that related to wider societal issues or systems change, such as 4-day working week and universal basic income. One interviewee explained:

“my preferences or my biases would have meant that we should have focused on other areas which I feel can be more closely linked into issues around climate change … other members of the evidence group had very strong views and very well argued views that actually it was really important that we used this process to allow these bigger societal issues to also be addressed and that they perceived it as being a really important part of the overall way in which Scotland should think about the climate crisis.” (Organising member)

One interviewee thought that some difficult trade-offs, such as the complexities of investment in rail and taxation issues, were not explored in the presentations, due to insufficient time. Where evidence was more nuanced in considering advantages and disadvantages of different options, another interviewee reflected that this nuance may not have been picked up by members as they developed their recommendations due to time pressures. However, there were instances when members were observed to discuss trade-offs in their small group sessions (see also 2.4.5 Quality of deliberation).

It was also suggested by one interviewee that members had not been given sufficiently coordinated evidence to work from.

Balance and diversity

As noted above, the scenario framework was used to help ensure balance between different perspectives.

Organising member interviewees held different views about the degree of balance and diversity achieved in the evidence presented to members. There did not appear to have been discussions or consensus about what constitutes balance or biased views. A few Evidence Group interviewees referred to their own “reflexive practice” in selecting evidence to help counteract their biases and preferences.

One interviewee suggested that the use of existing networks in the selection of evidence resulted in a “narrowness of perspectives”. The risk of a lack of diversity in the evidence was explained by this interviewee:

“I think the danger in some of the cases was, and someone actually said this, it sounds like you actually just want us to endorse what these people have said because you’ve not really given us anything else” (Organising Member)

Most Assembly members (75%) in the Weekend 7 survey agreed that the information they received during the Assembly weekends has been fair and balanced between different viewpoints. A similar proportion agreed that overall they were happy with the choice of speakers (81%), and that overall they trusted the information that was presented by the speakers (82%). A few members expressed concerns in their comments in the survey. For example:

“It feels a bit like we are being steered to support a certain action/agenda which raises questions about the integrity of the assembly” (Assembly member, WE4)

“the subject is so vast that the topic was only covered very superficially. There should have been a more balanced expert panel with differing views” (Assembly member, WE7)

One interviewee also thought a panel with different views on a climate change topic would have been helpful for members. Weekend 3 included a 15-minute expert panel which offered members different perspectives on how effective change can happen.

The distinction between informants and advocates was not well explained to members in Weekend 3. As advocates were encouraged to explicitly take a position and propose specific changes that Scotland should make, they held a different role to informants who were asked to present a more ‘objective’ perspective. Advocates were observed to respond to members’ questions about evidence. It is possible that members did not understand the different basis from which the advocates answered, although no data was collected on this point.

The balance of mitigation to adaptation is widely recognised by all interviewees as an issue, with relatively little evidence on impacts, adaptation and resilience after Weekends 1 and 2. Of the 63 Evidence presentations analysed as part of this research, 19% were coded as having content relating to adaptation. This imbalance is reflected in the Assembly report where, according to our analysis, only eighteen of the recommendations (10%) relate (or could relate depending on how they are implemented) to adaptation. 71% of respondents in the Weekend 7 member survey agreed that the goals and recommendations covered both mitigation and adaptation, but there was a sense from a few interviewees that adaptation seemed to resonate less with members. For example, one interviewee observed that the fact that Scotland currently experiences relatively little effects of climate change may have made it more difficult for members to engage with evidence on adaptation. Other comments included:

“that imbalance reflects the imbalance that is everywhere on climate change, particularly everywhere amongst the high emitting countries. We never deal with adaptation” (Organising Member)

“I think maybe on reflection that [climate impacts on communities] could have been visited in a deeper way, and it wasn’t, and I think you can see by looking at the outcomes of the assembly and the recommendations that were made that that lack of reinforcement perhaps led to there being barely any recommendations around adaptation.” (Organising Member)

Interviewees identified a range of other topics that were under-covered, whilst also appreciating that limited time necessitated prioritisation. These included:

• barriers for marginalised groups
• inequalities in production of carbon emissions, high emitters
• demand-side dimensions
• regulations and standards
• security dimensions
• marine environment
• industrial renaissance for retrofit
• viability of carbon capture and storage
• sea travel, rail and electric vehicles
• role of Scotland’s oil and gas industry

There were also questions about the balance between evidence relating to Scotland and local communities, and evidence relating to other countries across the world.

One Evidence Group interviewee reflected that there had been too much focus on aviation and cycling given most travel emissions in Scotland come from mid-length journeys. There was a further reflection that the focus on aviation for island communities was misplaced and indicated insufficient consideration of equity as this mode of travel is primarily used by the wealthy, whereas the majority of the community use ferries.

2.4.2 Quality, communication and presentation

The quality of the evidence was considered by interviewees on the whole to be high, with one stating:

“I wouldn’t doubt the accuracy of what was being presented by the experts at all.” (Organising Member)

However, some noted there were poorer quality presentations. For example, one presentation was highlighted by a few interviewees for its lack of substance and engagement with the complexities with the topic. Assembly members were also observed complaining that this particular presentation felt like “marketing”.

There was no structured peer review process, and according to one Evidence Group interviewee, the Evidence Group did not evaluate their process during the Assembly. The provision of evidence was described by one Evidence Group interviewee as “trust based”, explaining that:

“We were trusting people to be professional and bring their expertise” (Organising Member)

Although some Evidence Group interviewees reported receiving feedback from other Evidence Group members, one noted they had not received any response to feedback they had given and that the issue they raised had not been addressed.

The Secretariat produced content guidelines to assist with the style of presentations and ensure accessibility. Speakers were asked to provide the Secretariat with a presentation outline, slides and any material which was checked by Secretariat members to avoid excessive overlap between presentations and ensure that presentations were visually appealing and used accessible language. The Secretariat reviewed and edited presentations, and added images, video and captions. Where needed, statistics were sourced to back up the information. Consideration was given to diversity of people represented in images and videos. However, it was noted that materials were sometimes provided too late for substantial changes to be made.

According to observational data and interviewees, the evidence presentations had generally high production values, were well edited and easy to follow. At times, some issues were observed with poor audio, captions obscuring text on slides, too much text on slides, or slides moving too fast. There were a few instances where some members remarked that certain evidence was not well presented, or was presented too fast. In the latter case, it was observed that some members latched onto only some of the ideas as a result. Presentation issues appeared to improve as the Assembly progressed, and the Secretariat also started to produce transcripts and summaries for members, and added captions to the videos.

Pre-recording the videos meant they could be played if speakers were not available on the day or if there were connectivity issues. There were some concerns that the video presentations may not have been as engaging for members as ‘live’ presentations. This was counteracted by speakers attending the session and being available to answer questions in the small groups after their presentation.

The evidence presentations were well received by most members. Reflecting on their experience of the Assembly as a whole, 88% of respondents to the Weekend 7 member survey reported finding the evidence presentations helpful in learning about climate change and how to tackle it. 87% found the visual graphics of evidence helpful, and 70% found the written summaries and transcripts helpful.

However, around one in five members felt overwhelmed by the information presented to them, and some commented about this in the survey (see 3.2 Emotional experience). For example:

“There was also so much information that I worried about getting the facts wrong when finalising the recommendations. This made me quite anxious for the last few meetings” (Assembly member, WE7)

The schedule for the weekends included 5 minutes after the evidence presentations for members to digest the information and make notes. Just over half of respondents reported finding this reflection time to be helpful (average of 54% across Weekend 3 & 4 surveys).

2.4.3 Interaction between experts and Assembly members

The speakers (Evidence Group, informants and advocates) had some direct interaction with members by visiting small groups after their pre-recorded presentations were played, and answering questions.

In a session in Weekend 1 on climate science, members posted questions which were answered live by the Evidence Group lead, and questions not covered in the session were subsequently answered in the online members’ hub.

There were also two live Q&A session in Weekend 5, one held in full plenary with Committee on Climate Change, and one in the topic stream groups following a recorded presentation on the Climate Change Plan.

Also in Weekend 5, there were two carousel sessions covering from topics from Weekends 3 and 4. In the carousel, four or five speakers rotated round the small groups in their topics streams, spending 10 minutes in each to answer questions or provide clarifications.

The Evidence Group also provided answers to questions that members posted in the online members’ hub. 83% of respondents to the member survey reported finding time with speakers in small groups helpful. Evidence Group members also provided some feedback on draft recommendations (the Weekend 3 and 4 outputs by topic stream, and the consolidated goals and recommendations for use in Weekend 7). However, one interviewee suggested with more time, this could have been done more.

Observational data shows that members were reminded throughout that they could call experts into their small groups. Several facilitators referred to the value of expert input and one noted that cynical members were less sceptical when talking directly to an expert. There were instances when experts were observed to bring energy to groups that were otherwise a bit flat. However, some small groups either did not have enough time to invite experts in to their sessions, or did not want to interrupt the flow of discussion. In some cases, the experts were in use by other groups, were no longer present in the Assembly, or joined a group before the members had discussed evidence relating to that expert.

A few interviewees noted a relative lack of interaction between experts and Assembly members. One interviewee commented:

“I had anticipated that there would be more opportunity to engage directly with the Assembly members and that that would allow me, of course in conjunction with others, to contribute more fully to discussions about where the evidence should go next or what the next piece of evidence should be” (Organising Member)

Another interviewee reflected that the evidence provision was “more like knowledge transfer than knowledge exchange”, meaning that the relationship was more one-way rather than interactive, which they thought was due to using pre-recorded video presentations.

A few interviewees mentioned they would have liked to provide members with additional resources such as factsheets or advance reading (see 2.3.1 Planning the Assembly for more on ‘homework’).

In Weekend 5, a live Q&A session with all members was held. Although enjoyed by Evidence Group members, one interviewee explained that given the amount of time that live Q&A sessions take up, it was decided not to hold more of them. Another explained that they were not repeated as in their view members did not seem keen to have more. However, in the Weekend 7 survey when members were asked about their experience of the Assembly as a whole, 80% reported finding live Q&A sessions helpful for their learning.

The information carousel in Weekend 5 was also mentioned by one Evidence Group interviewee as particularly positive:

“I always found engaging with the members was really good when you are beamed in – and actually I must say I loved the virtual approach, I really enjoyed the virtual side of it – beamed into a session and they ask you these questions and you do your best to answer them and then you’re pulled out of it until another one. I loved it. And I liked the idea that you couldn’t dominate, because sometimes I probably end up dominating, like typical white men, and the nice thing is that you were then kicked back out again by someone. I loved that, I thought it was brilliant. You’ve said your bit.” (Organising Member)

Observational data shows that the carousel time appeared to be too short, with experts often pulled out of groups mid-sentence. One interviewee felt that the Q&A sessions were too short for members to engage with the evidence in-depth. An Assembly member commented:

“I felt that the availability of experts was too limited in the group discussions. I felt that I was being pushed to make it quick when speaking to them as they were required elsewhere. I have not felt that the facilitators were very well-equipped to focus the discussions or collate our views afterwards.” (Assembly member, WE4)

A few Evidence Group interviewees expressed frustration at the time they spent “waiting around” in the plenary room during an Assembly weekend when the members were in their small groups. Although members could request for an Evidence Group member who was present to join their group to answer questions, this did not always happen. The frustration reported may relate to whether the Evidence Group member was giving their time voluntarily or if the “waiting around” was perceived as a waste of the limited time they were able to contribute (see 2.1 Governance and roles).

2.4.4 Assembly members’ engagement with evidence

Assembly members engaged with evidence via the presentations. From Weekend 4, in response to a research data briefing, members were also provided with summaries of key points. However, it was observed that facilitators tended not to remind members about the summaries during the small group sessions, when they might have helped the members remember what had been presented and address factual inaccuracies, which were at times observed by researchers. Many members did appear to make use of note taking templates.

Interviewees noted that members appeared to actively engage with the evidence, asked probing questions, and that their understanding appeared to increase over the course of the Assembly. Members were observed by researchers and Evidence Group members to consider trade-offs as they developed their recommendations. For example, one interviewee noted:

“They were trying to consider the downsides of any proto-recommendations that they were making. You know, well, we think it would be good to support local farming, but what impact will this have on dietary choices and things like that. There was quite a nuance, sort of, discussion about how all those things fitted together.” (Organising Member)

Almost all survey respondents reported understanding everything that was said by all or most of the speakers (WE2-5 average 95%), and most thought they had learnt something knew from all or most of the speakers WE2-5 average 76%).

Additionally, around eight in ten respondents agreed that the input from experts in their small group helped them to refine the recommendations (WE5 81%) and that recommendations drafted in their small group was informed by evidence heard during the Assembly (WE6 79%). A similar proportion (WE6 80%) were satisfied with the way in which members’ questions had been handled or answered over the Assembly weekends as a whole.

In Weekend 3, the four scenarios of possible futures were presented to members (see 2.2.2 Systemic approach and Appendix 2). The scenarios were observed to provoke strong emotional reactions in some members. Some members worked well with the material (61% reported finding the scenarios helpful). One survey respondent commented:

“as before I really enjoyed this weekend, the topics were totally unexpected and I did not particularly like 3 of the dystopian scenarios for the future, there was one however, that with a few tweaks was quite promising. This assembly has had a profound effect on the way I look at things” (Assembly Member, WE3)

However, observational data shows that other members appeared to find it hard to move beyond their emotional reactions and engage in the task.

Whilst many Assembly members thought there was a lot of information and not enough time to digest it (see 2.3.4 Programming the sessions), at the same time member survey data suggests some members would also have welcomed more evidence. For example:

“I've been reflecting a lot on the pace at which the assembly has been going and whilst on some levels I'd say it was right, I'm a bit concerned that we're having to come up with recommendations based on fairly scant amounts of evidence. Short 4/5 min video clips covering very complex areas I don't think is sufficient information for us to make any meaningful recommendations” (Assembly member, WE3)

One Organising Member interviewee made a similar point:

“So I think even once we’d split into the groups, into those three subsections, it still sometimes felt like we were only able to scratch the surface of some of the issues which were involved.” (Organising Member)

A few respondents commented that they were at times discussing policy recommendations that were already being considered. For example:

“I feel there is a conflict between what we are doing in the assembly and what is currently happening to deal with the climate problem already. We are discussing potential recommendations for instance 20 min neighbourhoods, fuel poverty, planning reform. When you look online you find that these things are already being considered or implemented by the Government in policy …The fact these are being implemented has not been mentioned by the speakers.” (Assembly member, WE4)

“The speakers this weekend were amazing and very interesting ..However compared to the previous weekends the group discussions felt muddled, chaotic and with not enough information given on some of the topics. Also, it often feels like we are discussing things that are already being considered or implemented as we speak, so feels a bit pointless at times.” (Assembly member, WE4)

2.4.5 Quality of deliberation

A central element of good deliberation in citizens’ assemblies is the provision of reasons, aimed at the common good, to justify demands about what should be done.

Transcripts from a sample of nine small group discussion sessions (across Weekends 1 to 7) were analysed to assess the extent to which Assembly members made demands, whether demands were pertinent to the topic of discussion and were justified, and at which level of interest justifications were made. The sessions were also analysed for instances when members asked others for justifications, and for instances when facilitators asked members for justifications. A total of 1490 speech acts were identified.

As shown in Table 2.1, almost all the contributions by Assembly members (speech acts) in this sample were pertinent to the session topic and Assembly remit. Those that were not, often related to what was happening in the member’s home at that time, which is likely a feature of participating in the Assembly online from home.

Despite the relevance of member conversations, less than a sixth (16%) of their speech acts contained demands. This is similar to findings from Climate Assembly UK research (20%) but considerably lower than the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland research findings (78%). The difference could be due to the nature of climate change as an Assembly topic, which requires engaging with and understanding complex information. Differences in facilitation technique and design of small group sessions between the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland and this Scotland’s Climate Assembly could also be a factor in Scotland’s Climate Assembly, the analysis indicates that overall, sessions involved dialogue more than deliberation. Dialogue is more exploratory and aims at understanding, whereas deliberation requires members to make demands in order to reach collective decisions. Fostering these different types of communication requires different facilitation techniques^[57]. As could be expected, Weekends 1 and 7 involved fewer demands. Weekend 1 introduced the topic of climate change, and Weekend 7 focussed on finalising the phrasing of the outputs.

Although demands were not often made in the sample analysed, most (four out of five) were accompanied with some level of justification. Previous research finds that justification is an aspect of deliberation that assembly members tend to find particularly difficult^[58]. Indeed, only a third of the justifications were ‘qualified’, which is where an explicit link is made between the demand and the reason. For example:

“So I would want to propose a recommendation. I want to say deforestation should be avoided at all costs. Because I know it's one of the causes of climate, global warming. For example, like the Amazon, or what happened in Australia last year, the whole bushfire. I think, if there's a way we can avoid that, too, I would recommend that.” (Assembly member, WE3 small group discussion)

The remainder were ‘inferior’ justifications where no such link was made. For example:

“What there needs to be. For example, when consultations, you know, there needs to be…I think what we were talking about is, getting communities involved in things, not just leaving it up to councils to decide. Allowing communities to be involved in what happens, decisions that are made in the area they are resident in.” (Assembly member, WE4 small group discussion)

Across the sample, facilitators asked members to provide justifications in only 8% of their interventions. This suggests that facilitation technique contributed to low levels of qualified justifications, which could have been exacerbated by the online format.

Nevertheless, there was a higher proportion of demands with qualified justification (25%) in the sample from this Assembly compared to Climate Assembly UK (18%) and the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland (6%) samples. This is despite the Citizens’ Assembly, as noted earlier, having a much higher level of demands.

Justifications made (inferior and qualified) were primarily orientated to the common good or general interest (83%), with no instances of personal interest justifications in the sample. The Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland research found a much smaller proportion of justifications were related to general interest (31%).

There were some small gender differences in deliberative styles of Assembly members in the sample analysed, as shown in Table 2.1. A slightly higher proportion of men offered a qualified justifcation. and gave reasons relating to general interest. A slightly higher proportion of women made speech acts without demands, gave no justifications, and gave reasons relating to the interest of a particular group.

Table 2.1 Levels of demand and justification in small group discussions

Criterion	% of total speech acts - all members	% of total speech acts - women	% of total speech acts - men
Speech acts
- speech acts without demands	84%	87%	82%
- speech acts with demands	16%	13%	18%
Pertinence of all speech acts
- speech acts not relevant	6%	5%	7%
- speech acts relevant	94%	95%	93%
Level of justification in speech acts with demands
- no justification	21%	24%	19%
- inferior justification[59]	54%	55%	53%
- qualified justification[60]	25%	20%	29%
Level of generality in justification in speech acts with justifications
- justification relates to personal interest	0%	-	-
- justification relates to a group interest	15%	18%	13%
- justification relates to marginalised group	3%	4%	2%
- justification relates to general interest	83%	78%	85%