Facilitation ratios in Scotland’s Climate Assembly: EIR release

Information requested

Information regarding the design and operation of Scotland's Climate Assembly, specifically:

• How many facilitators were involved during the assembly sessions; and
• The approximate ratio of facilitators to assembly members during discussions.

Response

The answers to your questions are as follows:

1. The design and facilitation of Scotland’s Climate Assembly was undertaken, under contract, by ‘Involve’ and ‘The Democratic Society’, independently of the Assembly secretariat and the Scottish Government. As such, the Scottish Government does not hold all of the relevant information. From searches of held records, we are able to give a partial response based on the approach adopted during one of the weekend sessions held with Assembly members.

2. An internal briefing prepared for the Assembly production team for the second weekend of Assembly sessions indicated that there were 15 virtual breakout groups, each with a facilitator, in addition to two lead facilitators (17 facilitators in total). Similar arrangements are believed to have been made for other Assembly sessions.

3. The Assembly Research Report on process and impact (1) notes that there were 106 Assembly members (105 members were initially recruited. 11 withdrew in the early stages and 12 were added).

4. The ratio of facilitators to Assembly members during the second weekend of discussions was, therefore, approximately 1:6 (including the lead facilitators), or 1:7 (excluding lead facilitators). This arrangement is thought to have been replicated across the eight weekends that the Assembly members met online between November 2020 and March 2021 although the ratio of facilitators to members may have slightly varied.

For further information on the Assembly, you may wish to access the NRS archive (2). Recordings of the sessions are available through the Assembly YouTube channel (3).

(1) www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2022/03/scotlands-climate-assembly-research-report-process-impact-assembly-member-experience/documents/scotlands-climate-assembly-research-report-process-impact-assembly-member-experience/scotlands-climate-assembly-research-report-process-impact-assembly-member-experience/govscot%3Adocument/scotlands-climate-assembly-research-report-process-impact-assembly-member-experience.pdf
(2) https://webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/public/20220321133037/https://www.climateassembly.scot/
(3) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEfXylgC1hgmMT6UTItl4Pw

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