End of Commitment Report – Powering Participation in Scotland

Name of Evaluator

Andy McDevitt

Email

[email protected]

Member Name

Scotland, United Kingdom

Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... Title

Action plan – Scotland, United Kingdom, 2021 – 2025

Commitment

Powering Participation in Scotland

Title

Powering Participation in Scotland

Action

This commitment will deliver actions around three interlinked themes: Improve PF to be better used and more focused on inclusion and equality. Link policy, practice, and decision making to build access to tools, advice, skills, and confidence, better connecting participation resources to community practice. Provide advice and support to ensure participation focuses on equality of access. SG is focusing on mainstreaming Human Rights and Equalities, and the rights of children and young people. It is key that participation is designed and conducted with those ‘furthest away’ from government in mind – to help everyone engage. The actions will seek to overcome barriers of: lack of understanding, skills, transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, and accountability.  This means recognising and systemically addressing issues around methods used, inclusive design, and feedback to participants. Innovative forms of democracy, such as participatory budgeting or Citizens’ Assemblies, the use of digital platforms, and focused deliberation with particular groups, will be further strengthened. The PF will provide guidance so that these are institutionalised, with more systematic application to avoid creating unmet expectations that can lead to further exclusion.

Problem

Scottish Government [SG] is committed to human rights, equality, inclusion, and participatory democracy, and will deliver Covid Recovery in a person-centred way. However, it is recognised that participation in decision-making currently lacks diversity, an intersectional approach is rarely taken, and participation methods used may not help address these inequalities. There is a lack of diverse representation within civil society and too few opportunities for these vital organisations to see themselves as important voices in creating a culture of inclusive participation. There remains an appetite for increased participation, but too often the purpose and outcomes are unclear and participants cannot see how their input has influenced decision making. There is insufficient understanding of the benefits of participation in public service. Levels of collaboration in policy making between the government, stakeholders, and the public are uneven. Too often this is accompanied by a lack of: skills, confidence and resources to commission or deliver effective participation, using the method most suited to the task accountability and transparency, with little monitoring and evaluation of participation alignment of participation with equalities and human rights understanding of how participation supports the delivery of other goals and prioritiesThis has created uncertainty and risks undermining work to improve democracy, trust in government and participation in decision making.

1.1 What was the overall level of progress in the commitment implementation at the time of this assessment?

Limited

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The government shifted from a Framework Agreement to a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) for participation. Training and intersectional analysis were delayed due to capacity limits. The Participation Handbook was updated in March 2024, and participant expenses guidance was published. Progress on IPDD recommendations and Citizens’ Assemblies stalled due to budget constraints. Local authorities met the 1% Participatory Budgeting target, reaching 1.5% in 2023/24. YouthRecognizing that investing in youth means investing in a better future, OGP participating governments are creating meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in government processes. Technical ... More PB in the Northeast saw over 18,000 people vote to distribute £1 million in 2024/25. The National Performance Framework reform began in 2025 via a collaborative approach. Children and young people engaged with Scottish Government leadership through the ET Takeover model, with Cabinet meetings held annually. Several workstreams — including a digital engagement hub, evaluation publication, and embedding participation expertise — faced delays due to capacity constraints. (See Final Report for further details and references)

1.2 Describe the main external or internal factors that impacted implementation of this commitment and how they were addressed (or not).

According to one civil society stakeholder, while the government acknowledges that Scotland is facing serious democratic challenges, there is limited support to address this in practice. The open government team within government is continuing to work very hard, but without the requisite strategic support. Open government, and particularly participation, remains easy for the government to put on the back burner when budgets are tight. The core message that up-front investment in participation infrastructure reduces the cost of failure later on has been a consistent message from civil society over the years, but, according to one civil society stakeholder, that argument doesn’t seem to have ever really landed. (See Final Report for further details and references)
While acknowledging that pushing for an ambitious commitment on participation without the dedicated resources to act was a risk, the open government team had hoped that the IPPD report would demonstrate the expectation on the part of stakeholders to advance a more ambitious participation agenda and that senior government decision makers would be more responsive to this pressure. In the event, this strategy did not prove fruitful. For this reason, the open government team is now working to shift the conversation through communications by focusing on open government as an enabler of democratic resilience going forward.

1.3 Was the commitment implemented as originally planned?

A few of the commitment milestones were implemented as planned

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

3 milestones were fully completed, 1 was substantially completed, 7 saw limited completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... More, and 2 were not started.

2.1.1. – Did the government disclose more information; improve the quality of the information (new or existing); improve the value of the information; improve the channels to disclose or request information or improve accessibility to information?

Not Applicable

2.1.2. – Did the government create new opportunities to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation inform or influence decisions; improve existing channels or spaces to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation/ inform or influence decisions; create or improve capabilities in the government or the public aimed to improve how the government seeks feedback from citizens/enables participation/ or allows for the public to inform or influence decisions?

Yes

Degree of result:

Marginal

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

The participation commitment was amongst the widest ranging and most ambitious under Scotland’s third action plan. However, despite progress in some areas, it was ultimately unable to meet that ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... during the action plan period.
At the heart of the initial ambition of the commitment was the work of the Institutionalising Participation and Deliberative Democracy (IPDD) working group, which proposed a set of recommendations that would begin to make participation in government routine and effective. However, while the government accepted most of the recommendations in principle, in practice, much of the work that needs to be done to deliver these remains unfunded and, as a result, has not progressed. Future activities associated with this work were still undefined by the end of the action plan.
As noted in the mid-term review, limited progress on taking forward the recommendations of the IPDD report has had a cascading effect on many of the other milestones, as the IPDD recommendations would have provided a solid foundation and political backing to support the implementation of a range of participatory processes envisaged in the commitment. Civil society stakeholders noted their disappointment with this outcome, with expectations for more investment in building participation infrastructure unmet.
Given this context, the open government team responsible for this commitment pivoted to other priorities, in particular the development of a procurement framework for participation, using resources which might have been used to work on a broader participation strategy. The government revised its initial approach on the proposed use of a framework agreement for participation, instead introducing a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS), with the Invitation to Tender (ITT) for the DPS expected to be launched in early 2026. While the open government team believes the DPS will make a notable difference to how participation is coordinated within the government, they also recognize that it represents a moderation of its initial ambition. The introduction of the DPS has also meant that the proposed training on the Participation Handbook was not delivered as planned. Although a new iteration of the Participation Handbook was published in March 2024, work on aligning participation and human rights approaches more broadly did not take place. Instead, the government plans to design training around the DPS once it is in place. In the meantime, the government worked on developing an internal network of trained staff across different teams who will be trusted signposters on participation, providing guidance to colleagues. This will be plugged into the procurement framework. Civil society stakeholders valued the way the team opened up the process of developing the DPS to feedback and input, but remained cautious about how the quality of participation would be ensured.
There was also limited progress in other areas. The government was not able to significantly strengthen or diversify the open government network, focusing instead on external communications and promotion work, including the launch of a ‘Trust and transparency in Scotland’ community bulletin aimed at a wide range of leaders, academics, practitioners, and officials. A review of Participation in Public Decision Making in the Community Empowerment Act and in the National Performance Framework (NPF) suffered delays and has not been completed. Citizens’ Assemblies were also postponed, while work to embed participation as a core skill in a centre of expertise has been delayed indefinitely. Support to the National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group (NPBSG) was also paused.
On the other hand, areas with stronger results included achieving (and indeed surpassing) the 1% local government participatory budgeting target for two consecutive years, and support to the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 and the implementation of the Children and Young Persons participation framework. There was also good progress on updating internal consultation guidance, while the government launched a CivTech Challenge to explore the development of a new digital engagement tool for government. However, with regard to the latter, civil society stakeholders expressed concern that the process of developing the platform took participation out of the hands of participation practitioners and into the space of open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... and collective intelligence, with little thought for how the two are working together.

2.1.3 Did the government create or improve channels, opportunities or capabilities to hold officials answerable to their actions?

Not Applicable

2.1.4 Other Results

Not Applicable

2.2 Did the commitment address the public policy problem that it intended to address as described in the action plan?

Unclear

3. Provide at least one lesson or reflection relating to the implementation of this commitment. It can be the identification of key barriers to implementation, an unexpected help/hindrance, recommendations for future commitments, or if the commitment should be taken forward to the next action plan.

As noted in the mid-term review, the team responsible for this commitment could consider how to adopt a more strategic approach to its participation work as part of a broader open government strategy. This has been taken up as an intention for the next action plan. This approach could include, for example, prioritising those areas where open government principles can most effectively be taken on by other parts of government (e.g., Fiscal Transparency) and applying the Participation Handbook and training to those priority areas under a collaborative project with other government departments.
Additional work could also be considered to better understand the current barriers to civil society involvement in OGP and to scope the range of existing participatory practices to ensure better alignment between government and civil society interests in this area. This could include a stock-take of the latest thinking in participation (as this is a rapidly evolving area) as well as a more specific review of how the government’s Participation Handbook has been used to date and what impact it has had.
Beyond that, stakeholders were in agreement that this strand of work requires greater investment on the civil society side and a clearer role for civil society partners in the next action plan. It was suggested, for example, that more investment in skills and capacities outside of government (in the form of e.g. a summer school, or participation academy) could be a useful long-term investment, with start-up funding potentially coming from government, but with a view to eventually becoming independent.