Open Government action plan 2021 to 2025 - commitment 5: participation

Progress to September 2025

Commitment 5: participation

Objective

Developing knowledge and skills across Scottish Government (SG).

Milestone

Delivery of Participation Handbook training sessions across SG.

Progress

As we previously reported, planning is underway for how this training can be incorporated into a programme of work to establish an internal network of staff trained as community representatives for public participation. This is currently a pilot initiative seeking to upskill civil servants across directorates on participation practice, and to embed the use and understanding of resources to deliver high quality participation.

The Open Government and Digital Engagement teams at Scottish Government undertook a ‘train the trainer’ programme between April and May.

Staff from both teams have been jointly progressing this initiative, drawing on the learning from this training earlier in the year. A curriculum of work and learning resources are in development.

Two engagement events took place in August and September to start this process of gathering feedback and advice on the draft curriculum and learning materials developed.

Next steps

Next steps involve further testing and engagement with internal staff to better understand their support needs to be an active participation community representative.

Status

In progress, behind schedule.

Objective

Developing knowledge and skills across SG.

Milestone

Delivery of in-depth participation training to SG Social Researchers.

Progress

No further update from June 2025. This milestone is now complete.

Training for SG Social Researchers was delivered in early 2025, in collaboration with SCDC, on co-production and community-led action research.

Community-led action research (CLAR) is a process where a community decides on an issue, designs and carries out the research, and makes use of the results.

Social Researchers were provided with:

• an understanding of community-led action research and its links to co-production
• an opportunity to consider how CLAR approaches can be applied/developed in a social research context
• links to useful information and resources which can be used in the future

As part of the sessions around co-production, Social Researchers explored:

• what co-production is and its core principles
• where co-production is positioned within engagement practice and what appropriate methods can be adopted
• possible opportunities to apply a co-production approach and embed co-production activities to ongoing work and practices
• key resources and approaches to support co-production and practice development, including the newly launched SCDC Co-Production Guide

Status

Complete.

Objective

Developing knowledge and skills across SG.

Milestone

Monitoring and evaluation of participation work.

Progress

A SGSSS research intern has been recruited and began their placement in August 2025. Their project is focusing on the topic of trust in government. The research project will be an analysis of evidence on levels of trust in government, and potential contributing factors across different areas, demographics and protected characteristics in Scotland.

Next steps

It is intended that the project will result in a publishable report that provides a literature review of existing evidence on trust and sets out new analysis resulting from the project.

If possible, this work will build on the previous SGSSS research project to help SG to understand the impact of participation on levels of trust.

Status

In progress, some aspects on schedule.

Objective

Developing knowledge and skills across SG.

Milestone

Development of an SG wide procurement framework for participation work.

Progress

As previously reported, following external engagement with stakeholders over summer 2024, the Scottish Government revised its approach and adopted a new route to market to address feedback raised from external and internal stakeholders on the proposed use of a Framework Agreement.

For more information on this approach, please refer to our June 2025 progress report.

The decision making process around this new approach means that we have not been able to follow our original timescales. We had anticipated that we would be able to issue an Invitation to Tender (ITT) in early 2025, however we have had to revise our timescales to October 2025. This extension was required to allow the team to ensure agreement across all relevant teams regarding the details included in the specification, and the equality impact assessment for this project.

This agreement has now been achieved, and an Equality Impact Assessment for this initiative was published on 22 August 2025.

Next steps

• working closely with SG procurement to complete and issue the tender
• continued engagement with external stakeholders to support sign up to the DPS. This includes sharing any further information on the DPS’s tendering timescales to support planning
• continued engagement with the internal point of contact group set up to support this work going forward. The group will provide advice and expertise to inform the DPS’s and post award work development.
• issue Invitation to Tender (ITT)
• evaluation of bids submitted
• post-award work (such as the creation of a buyer guide)
• establishment of DPS

Status

In progress, on schedule.

Objective

Developing a Participation Handbook.

Milestone

Embedding equalities and an inclusive approach.

Progress

No further update from December 2024. This milestone is complete.

A new iteration of the Participation Handbook was published in March 2024.

This iteration seeks to better reflect practical guidance around equalities and inclusive approaches.

Status

Complete.

Objective

Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy.

Milestone

Beginning processes of change to make participation routine and effective.

Progress

No further update from December 2024.

Work to date has involved addressing a foundational recommendation advised by the working group – to establish a central team at Scottish Government with responsibility for participation.

This work is ongoing and milestones to measure progress against further, early recommendations will be outlined following the outcome of this work. Its outcome is dependent on the availability of additional resources.

Status

In progress, behind schedule.

Objective

Developing an active and inclusive Open Government Network for Participation.

Milestone

Diversify and increase capacity of the Open Government Civil Society Network.

Progress

External communications and engagement with civil society is continuing to focus on research, review, and reach in order to build a resilient civil society network.

Open Government and Civil Society representatives continue to meet monthly with a call out for any notes of interest for further civil society actors wanting to participate.

The ‘Trust and transparency in Scotland’ community bulletin continues to grow its audience with a wide range of leaders, academics, practitioners, and officials throughout third sector, academia, government, and the public.

A key focus currently is relationship building among members of civil society with shared goals and interests in the work of Open Government.

In collaboration with civil society, we are continuing to publish content that demonstrates the value of the partnership, centres people, and reflects on impact.

Next steps

• provide clarity and promote clear and transparent routes for people to progressively become more involved in the work of Open Government. This is beginning with a review of governance and accountability mechanisms that support the relationship between government and civil society
• development of a clear Open Government narrative in Scotland that uses open and accessible language
• civil society to draft a communications and engagement plan that will sit alongside that set out by the Open Government team
• training so that the Open Government team can provide more accessible content in the form of Easy Read

Status

In progress, on schedule.

Objective

Review of consultations - spend, approach, monitoring.

Milestone

Maintenance and iterative development of internal guidance. Regular review and evaluation of content.

Progress

The internal consultation guidance is reviewed iteratively on a regular basis. The latest iteration has updated content. Future aims are for content to be more easily navigable and more comprehensive.

Status

Complete.

Objective

Review of consultations - spend, approach, monitoring

Milestone

Development of digital engagement service offer:

• reviewing the digital engagement team strategy and offer
• be responsive to the developments of the CivTech project and other organisational developments

Progress

The aim for this milestone was to refocus the support available to Scottish Government staff from primarily consultation support towards a broader digital engagement offer.

Guidance materials are now fit for purpose so that colleagues needing consultation support are able to access this without needing one-to-one support.

A new place-based consultation format was launched in 2024.

A CivTech Challenge is underway to explore the development of a new digital engagement tool for government.

The digital engagement team will continue to be responsive to developing digital engagement tools and the needs of colleagues for alternatives to consultation. The nature and extent of the service offered by the team will be continually reviewed to align with Scottish Government’s organisational goals, new developments internally, and the capacity of the team.

Status

Complete.

Objective

Review of consultations - spend, approach, monitoring.

Milestone

Analysis of evaluation data:

• an improvement action plan was developed based on 15 recommendations identified during the evaluation process. We are currently implementing this action plan
• publication and promotion of the report are being explored

Progress

Evaluation data collected alongside each consultation was to be analysed by external analysts to provide insight into the accessibility and effectiveness of consultations. 

It was planned that these insights would inform guidance and training provided on consultations and to form an evidence base to promote non-consultation options for engagement. Analysis of evaluation data was completed in late summer 2023. 

Next steps

Action on the report’s recommendations are taking place. Once reviewed the report will be published and reported

Status

In progress, behind schedule.

Objective

Review of consultations - spend, approach, monitoring.

Milestone

Explore external communications tools to promote digital engagement.

Progress

Challenges were identified in the discovery phase of the engagement hub project.

Longer term work on website development and on organisational culture and processes has had to be undertaken before it would be feasible to offer an engagement hub.

As a complimentary approach, an external communications plan to raise awareness of consultations and other digital engagement activities has been developed and implemented.

Improvements to the Scottish Government website have launched which allow visitors to the website to see when a consultation is closing, more easily access a link to the online consultation hub, and will link the consultation paper and analysis paper when launched.

Communications work to promote consultations is continuing including closer liaison with the social content hub in digital communications and audience analysis of current communication channels.

Status

Complete.

Objective

Supporting PB to take an Open Government approach.

Milestone

Monitoring the completion of local authorities delivery of 1% of budgets through participatory budgeting and supporting local authorities to develop new ways to measure the success of PB.

Progress

We continue to work with COSLA to support all Local Authorities to reach the 1% milestone. Since 2021, more than 110,000 people have taken part in participatory processes and directly decided on how £154 million worth of Local Authority budgets have been spent. During the most recent reporting year, 2023/24, local authorities once again met the 1% target with 1.5% of local authority budgets spent on participatory processes.

Next steps

As previously reported, we are also working with COSLA to further develop the 1% target to take into account other forms of success in PB, such as best practice. The timeline to develop a paper to outline options available has been postponed due to resource and capacity issues.

Status

In progress, behind schedule.

Objective

Supporting PB to take an Open Government approach.

Milestone

Support the National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group (NPBSG) as they provide the strategic direction for participatory budgeting (PB) across Scotland.

This includes work to raise awareness of the National PB Framework’s priorities and indicators for success, championing open government values and principles.

Progress

The group’s annual report was published on 17 June 2024.

There are currently no further meetings scheduled for the group.

While this remains an aim there is not the appropriate resource in place to support the strategic group.

Status

Paused.

Objective

Supporting PB to take an Open Government approach.

Milestone

Support the expansion of the NPBSG remit and function, in collaboration with SG’s Open Government team.

Progress

No further update from previous progress report in June 2025.

Status

Paused.

Objective

Supporting PB to take an Open Government approach.

Milestone

Embed Open Government principles in Green Participatory Budgeting:

• continue to explore the use of PB as part of our wider support for community led climate action
• identify opportunities to support Green PB programmes across Scotland
• continue to work with COSLA to support local authorities’ PB initiatives, including Green PB

Progress

Just Transition PB Fund in the North East of Scotland concluded for year 3. In 2024/25 over 18,000 people voted to distribute £1 million capital funding to 47 successful projects. 

Next steps

A further £1 million capital and £207,436 resource has been secured for year 4.

Year 4 launched on 4 August 2025.

Status

In progress, on schedule.

Objective

Embedding Open Government principles in the Community Empowerment Act parliamentary review.

Milestone

Review of Section 10 of Community Empowerment Act.

As part of the Scottish Government’s review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, the Open Government values, principles and approaches will be applied throughout the process.

Progress

A review of parts of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 (the Act) has concluded in three reports:

• Findings Report: Review of Participation Requests - Part 3 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015
• Findings Report: Review of Asset Transfer - Part 5 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015
• The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015: Update and Findings Report

These were published on the 31 March 2025.

An update on all the other parts of the Act, including Section 10, are included in the findings report.

Status

Complete.

Objectives

Embedding Open Government principles in the National Performance Framework refresh.

Using best practice approaches to support high quality engagement and participation, while undertaking work to review the National Outcomes

Milestone

Analyse outputs from research and engagement undertaken (consultation, call for evidence, desk-based research, stakeholder meetings) and submit a statutory report to the Scottish Parliament by Spring 2024.

Progress

A report was laid in Scottish Parliament on 1 May 2024 and published on the NPF website.

The report describes the process followed to review the National Outcomes and summarises the evidence analysed. 

The Finance and Public Administration Committee launched an inquiry into the report on 13 May. Parliamentary scrutiny concluded with the debate on 8th January 2025 and the Scottish Government’s response to the Committee report (14 January 2025).

Status

Complete.

Objective

Embedding Open Government principles in the National Performance Framework refresh.

Using best practice approaches to support high quality engagement and participation, while undertaking work to review the National Outcomes.

Milestone

Publish a suite of Impact Assessments undertaken as part of the NPF Review and a thematic gender review.

Progress

The Impact assessments were published on the NPF website on 10th July 2024.

The Thematic Gender Review was published on 31st October 2024 .

Status

Complete.

Objective

Embedding Open Government principles in the National Performance Framework refresh.

Using best practice approaches to support high quality engagement and participation, while undertaking work to review the National Outcomes.

Milestone

Develop an implementation plan and set of resources to support the use of the reviewed NPF.

Progress

The Parliamentary Review of National Outcomes has completed. The inquiry report was published on 15 November, with the SG written response to the report published on 14 January 2025.

Next steps

In the response, the Deputy First Minister publicly committed Scottish Government to a period of reform of the NPF. 

This reform will enable us to learn from UK and international good practice to develop a stronger framework that is embedded in decision making and sets a vision and measurable outcomes that are relevant to Scotland’s context, circumstances and challenges.

Status

In progress, on schedule.

Objective

Embedding Open Government principles in the National Performance Framework refresh.

Using best practice approaches to support high quality engagement and participation, while undertaking work to review the National Outcomes.

Milestone

The NPF Expert Advisory Group to continue to advise on the Review and on the development of the implementation plan.

Progress

The NPF Reform Advisory Group (RAG) was reconvened in 2025 to support NPF Reform, and met in February and July 2025.

Next steps

Regular meetings have been set up going forward. Discussions with RAG members who volunteered additional support across the workstreams are taking place through August and September. These will help shape the development of outcomes and indicators and the implementation plan.

Status

In progress, on schedule.

Objective

Improving children and young people’s participation in decision-making and policy design.

Milestone

Support the implementation of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024.

Progress

The UNCRC Act commenced on 16th July 2024.  Work continues to support Public Authorities, including the Scottish Government. 

A number of resources are available to support decision makers to engage with children and young people. These include an introduction to children’s rights e-learning and guidance to embed children’s rights across Scottish Government and Executive Agencies.

Status

Complete.

Objective

Improving children and young people’s participation in decision-making and policy design.

Milestone

Raise awareness and support policy teams within SG to use the Children and Young Persons Participation Framework and build capacity. 

Progress

No further update from June 2024.

Status

Complete.

Objective

Improving children and young people’s participation in decision-making and policy design.

Milestone

Grow the evidence bank of examples of how Children and Young People have engaged in decision making process within policy design.

Progress

We continue to grow the Evidence bank to ensure policy teams have access to historical and current examples of CYP participation in policy making. The bank will be linked to SG’s internal Public Participation group to ensure wider access. 

Status

Complete.

Objective

Improving children and young people’s participation in decision-making and policy design.

Milestone

Support the Children and Young Peoples annual meetings with the Cabinet and the Executive Team.

Progress

The 2025 ET Takeover was held on 10th June. 

You can learn more about the takeovers from the Children’s Parliament and the Youth Parliament online.

The annual Cabinet meeting with children and young people will be held on Tue 18th November 2025. 

Status

In progress, on schedule