Keeping the government accountable with effective Calls for Views
The challenge
The Scottish Parliament was established in 1999 and has 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). MSPs consider and vote on legislation, debate matters of importance to the people of Scotland, and hold the Scottish Government to account. While the UK Parliament in Westminster retains ultimate power, the Scottish Parliament can introduce legislation on many issues of national importance, including housing, health, agriculture, transport, the environment, and law and order.
The approach
The Scottish Parliament has a particular approach to policy-making, putting people and organisations at its heart and engaging those who live there in decision-making.
The Scottish Parliament adopted Citizen Space in October 2019, since which time it has published 34 Calls for Views using the technology; on average that’s one every two weeks. Its first outing was a Call for Views on an update to the 2006 Animals and Wildlife Act. Just under 50 responders allowed their views to be published, and the updated law has toughened penalties for animal welfare and wildlife crimes.
Almost half of the Scottish Parliament’s Calls for Views have been to address various impacts of COVID-19. In September 2020 the Social Security Committee launched an inquiry to find out how social security can help aid the social and economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and included discussion on the introduction of a universal basic income.
The results
The Scottish Parliament has a committee-based legislature. These committees take evidence from witnesses, scrutinise legislation and conduct inquiries, then make recommendations to Parliament. As part of this work committees run calls for evidence, known as Calls for Views. These help ensure the committees have evidence from the people who wish to have input. It’s a system that aims to encourage power-sharing, be closer to the Scottish people, and be in tune with Scottish needs.
Undertaking Calls for Views and other public engagement exercises in a clear and transparent way is part of the DNA of the Scottish Parliament and its committees. Citizen Space is key to this engagement and the subsequent collecting, analysing and reporting on submitted views. Submissions to Citizen Space can be in any language, enabling the Scottish Parliament to welcome written views in Gaelic and Scots in addition to other UK languages.
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Delib is a govtech leader specialising in consultation and engagement, trusted by over 600 government organisations worldwide, including major planning projects. Since 2004, we've been building secure, accessible digital platforms to make participation simpler, fairer, and more inclusive. Our flagship product, Citizen Space, was built in collaboration with the UK government and has supported more than 11 million responses across over 110,000 democratic activities.