Open Government Partnership Steering Group minutes: June 2025

Attendees and apologies

Co-chairs

• Jamie Hepburn, Minister for Parliamentary Business (Chair for this meeting)
• Juliet Swann, Transparency International UK

COSLA

• Councillor Steven Heddle, COSLA Vice Chair
• Simon Cameron, Chief Officer - Workforce and Corporate Policy Team

Civil society

• Annie Cook, Deciding Matters (apologies)
• Pauline Gordon, GCVS
• Dr Lucy McTernan, OGP Civil Society Steering Committee
• Innes Morgan, Act with Purpose
• Susan Paxton, Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC)
• Alex Stobart, Mydex CIC (apologies)

Scottish Government

• Jennie Barugh, Director of Performance and Strategic Outcomes (Niall Davidson, deputising)
• Andy Bruce, Director of Communications and Ministerial Support (apologies)
• Lorna Gibb, Deputy Director, Improving Public Engagement Division (apologies)
• Doreen Grove, Head of Open Government
• Richard Foggo, Director of Health and Social Care Finance and Governance (Rachel Dowle, Head of Strategic Design deputising, deputising)
• Eilidh McLaughlin, Deputy Director for Digital, Ethics, Inclusion and Assurance
• Catriona Laing, Deputy Director Climate Change
• Shona Nicol, Team Leader - Data Standards

Scottish Information Commissioner

• David Hamilton, Scottish Information Commissioner (apologies)

Secretariat

• Finlay McCartney, Open Government, Scottish Government

• Neisha Kirk, Open Government, Scottish Government

Observers

• Ewan Carmichael, Quarriers
• Martin Macfie, Head of Open Data, Scottish Government
• Sam Jordan, SCDC
• Louise Meikleham, Senior Data Policy Officer, Scottish Government
• Alice Telfer, ICAS

Items and actions

Welcome and apologies

Mr Hepburn welcomed all attendees to the meeting. He first noted his apologise for not being able to attend the previous meeting due to the passing of his colleague Christina McKelvie MSP, and thanked attendees for their understanding and kind words.

The meeting began with the Minister stating that there had been recent Parliamentary interest in this area of work – in particular embedding participation across democratic, public serving institutions. Attendees were informed that earlier in June a debate had taken place into how the Scottish Parliament was engaging and implementing this approach. It was noted that the work the Open Government Steering group is taking forward was shared by the Minister at the debate.

The Minister then proceeded to set out the agenda for the meeting. This would involve commitment leads providing:

1. an update on where each area are in terms of progression
2. a summary of activity still to be completed by November. It was highlighted to attendees that Scotland will complete the current plan in November
3. initial ideas into areas of activity that they could bring forward into the next plan. However it was acknowledged that any activity as part of the next plan will be dependant on findings and outputs from the co-creation process. This process intends to run during autumn and winter 2025 and into early 2026

Finally, the group would hear from local government perspectives and have a wider discussion on what had been raised.

The Minister closed by summarising some key actions that had been taken forward since the group had last met (27 March 2025). He made reference to:

• the establishment of the National Advisory Care Board. This was noted to have a specific participation work stream. Those with lived experience of the health and social care system will have the opportunity to get involved in decisions that affect them
• the annual Executive Takeover (ET) took place again in June. This initiative seeks to make sure young people have their views heard in government and at the highest level
• the review into the Community Empowerment Act. The review has concluded and the report is now available to view online
• a community bulletin dedicated to the issues of trust and transparency was launched in May by the Scottish Government’s Open Government team. The Minister encouraged those interested to sign up to the bulletin to receive updates and information

Commitment updates and future look

Fiscal transparency

Dr Lucy McTernan, civil society co-chair for the commitment, noted apologies from government staff. It was explained that the team were unavailable as they were finalising and publishing budget related information for the government website.  

It was confirmed that the civil society working group had met the previous week and had undertaken a through review of progress. It was concluded that they were very pleased with progress overall, and engagement with government had proven that the Open Government Partnership (OGP) model had worked well. Those on the civil society working group had shown that they could bring new and fresh perspectives to influence how government worked. An example provide was the incorporation of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) code, which Dr McTernan maintained would not have happened without the OGP process.

The fiscal transparency portal was considered by the working group to have shown great progress in it’s prototyping to enable access to Scottish Government budget data. Attendees were informed that the portal is not ready to be fully operationalised due to work required as part of the back end development. For this portal, this means ensuring the data required for the portal is available across government. This was noted to be a common issue with these sorts of developments. Dr McTernan recalled the OGP Nordic+ group meeting on fiscal transparency in 2024, where it was highlighted by members that the ambition for opening up transparency data online needs to line up with the data availability internally to make the process seamless.

The civil society working group are interested to publish information on the portal’s development to support learning across other governments and the OGP, but concluded the commitment is set up well to take further steps going forward. Participation in finance areas, such as tax and infrastructure, were noted to have also benefited from OGP Nordic+ countries learning.

A conversation by the civil society working group on what is next for the commitment will conclude after the summer. There is an appetite to build on, to do more and embed more fiscal transparency across government, as the group consider the ‘follow the money’ approach as instrumental to improving wider levels of government trust.

It was noted that the working group did not expect to see any further advances in progress in the last few months of the plan, and intend to have one more meeting as a group before November.

Simon Cameron thanked Dr McTernan for the update, and queried how local government could get involved and access the system. He also asked when the data is being routinely published for people to access, if they have any plans for when they will start to track and monitor this data and its use.

Dr McTernan noted she agreed that local government needs to be involved, as the flows of government money will require local government finance information to be able to offer the full picture. It was mentioned that other countries have incorporated local government data into similar projects, and so there are models Scotland can learn from. However it was confirmed the commitment will only know the impact of the portal once it is available for public use. It was suggested that this could be in terms of ideas of how money should be spent, and what happens when data on money is open and understood. The steering group was also mentioned as key to continue to drive the work forward.

Niall Davidson, government commitment coordinator, joined the meeting and apologised for arriving late. He summarised that the portal’s systems and it’s functionality was further away than government would like to be. The interoperability of different systems is a technical journey, and the working group and government are thinking of ways this information could be shared outwith a portal.

The OGP Nordic + group was also noted to have provided evidence to the commitment leads that portals are only one solution. Instead, there is a need for different products for different groups. It was confirmed information shared alongside the Scottish Government budget is looking at this and user needs. To conclude, it was reflected that aside from technical solutions, the Scottish Government could do more to improve fiscal data for a wider user group before the portal comes into operation.

Councillor Heddle noted his encouragement and enthusiasm for this work. It was queried whether a connection could be made with the platform hosting the local government benchmarking framework. Councillor Heddle also suggested bringing the platform to the OGP Steering Group for a future demonstration.

It was agreed that efforts would be made to increase join up on the future of data strategy for Scotland.

Climate

Catriona Laing shared that a large area of work for the commitment would be the Climate Change Plan. It was confirmed that the focus would be on using the Climate Participation and Engagement Network (CPEN) to make sure information was shared with key stakeholders.

The Scottish Government’s Climate Engagement Strategy will continue to carry out participation to shape Scotland’s Just Transition plans. Attendees were reminded that engagement had focused so far around discussion papers, and had been involving people from diverse backgrounds and from across the country.

Wider engagement work by the team was noted to be looking into increased levels of empowerment and information sharing. It is intended for a climate hub to cover every area in Scotland to enable people to be able to get more information on climate related issues, and for better assessments of local areas and what they need for climate action.

The Climate Engagement Fund was also mentioned. The fund will have projects that aim to spread more information on climate risks, as well as what government is doing to tackle climate change, and what people can do to respond to it.

CPEN was confirmed to have over 100 member organisations and the team anticipate more engagement will be required as they move forward with the Climate Change Plan. The next review of the public engagement strategy will also involve consulting with this group on the engagement strategy.

Health and social care

Rachel Dowle, government commitment lead, and Susan Paxton, civil society commitment lead, provided an update.  

Attendees were reminded that the commitment was around improving the quality and quantity of how people receive and deliver services in social care. A main focus for the commitment is on the quality of participation.

It was acknowledged that open government had been a fantastic vehicle for the commitment. The two areas the commitment leads reflected on at the meeting included the Getting it right for everyone (GIRFE) path finders programme, which was co-designed and participants were upskilled as part of this process, and the National Care Service (NCS) programme. It was agreed by the commitment leads that there has been lots to reflect on with the NCS advisory board to make sure there is an agreed participatory approach. They anticipated by November there will be a good story to share on this approach, and how the advisory board have been involved in and provided scrutiny of the group’s activities. The aim for the board is for their work as a group to extend beyond and across government to support different parts of the system to collaborate.

It was noted that the evaluation of the process is being used to update the guidance that had been developed from the co-design activity carried out as part of the NCS programme over 2022 to 2024. Wider progress on the delivery of the commitment’s milestones were considered good, and by November the commitment will outline milestone completion rates and share lessons learned.

Going forward, the commitment is looking to extend and scale capacity building – in particular a focus on seldom heard voices and underrepresented communities to make sure they are empowered to take part. It was acknowledged a large part will be around how government communicates, and so the commitment will be looking at increased transparency and the use of plain language.

The commitment leads concluded that they had engaged a lot of people so far, but they would look to do more around supporting people to communicate the benefits of participation and open government. They noted that this aim aligns with the findings outlined in Scotland’s recent OGP Independent Reporting Mechanism report.

Juliet Swann asked if there had been any communication on this work and the extension of Freedom Of Information (FOI) to care homes.

Doreen Grove confirmed it had been raised internally and a link had been made. It was agreed that there should be efforts made to follow up on this issue and better connect the areas.

Innes Morgan noted his interest in the advisory board and the broader spectrum of people it is looking to engage. He asked whether the commitment should consider to increase its focus around how the board’s voices can be used meaningfully, instead of seeking to engage a wider group of people.

Rachel Dowle confirmed this was an area that government were actively looking at, and the process and function of the board. It was acknowledged they had expanded the boundaries of the group and to aid this, a large amount of work had been carried out to make sure the group is supported in an inclusive way.

Rachel offered for the commitment to come back to the steering group to provide more information on their approach once agreed. The commitment was going to discuss with advisory group over the coming months how they could put theory into practice, and do this well.

Data

Shona Nicol confirmed most milestones for the commitment has been completed. Work had focused on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) register, the discoverability and usability of data, and the data maturity programme. It was reflected that the commitment would be looking towards how open data can be more embedded across government.

The commitment shared that early results were indicating that the AI register has had an impact on the work of government as it has a ministerial mandate for it use amongst public sector organisations. Half of all local authorities in Scotland have also been through the data maturity programme, and impact and behaviour change is expected from this training.

It was noted that work still continues on adding functionality to Find.Data.Gov.Scot and the AI register. The priority areas over the next few months for the commitment were considered to be:

• continuing to support other areas across government to improve their approach to open data
• taking a more strategic approach to open data. This will involve thinking about the flow of data through an organisation and the sustainability of it
• continuing to publish more information on the Find.Data.Gov.Scot website

It was reflected that a strong foundation of data communities and how these communities can manage their data had been established through the commitment.

It was acknowledged that a focus for the next plan could involve a discussion around open data and how it can support transparency and trust. The commitment would like to aim to keep improving data and getting closer to open data users, and noted the CivTech Challenge 10.7 as a potential source of information to help shape their approach to users.

It was also raised that the commitment is working with NatureScot on increasing the vision and value of open data, and is interested to develop a vision for public sector data on ethics and transparency.

Councillor Heddle stated his interest in the AI register, and remarked that it is an excellent and important step to demystifying AI. He then queried what the incentive is to participate, and whether it could go beyond the public sector.

In response, it was noted that there are more local AI registers, such as a Glasgow register. It was suggested that this is a potential way to see if these registers could be linked up to ensure the public have a greater picture of public sector use of AI. The incentive to participate was not only that it is mandated by Ministers, but a method to be able to reassure people public bodies are behaving responsibility with AI.

It was mentioned that Scotland is the only country in the world to have mandated the use of an AI register.  

Participation

Doreen Grove provided an update for the participation commitment and noted apologies from Annie Cook, the commitment’s civil society lead. The commitment was considered to have made decent progress but it would be outstanding on a number of elements. This includes some bigger milestones around monitoring and evaluation, and progress on the IPDD working group’s recommendations. The commitment was also not able to make the progress it wanted to on expanding the remit of the National Participatory Budgeting Strategic Group (NPBSG) to examine wider democratic innovation by government. Progress on these outstanding milestones were confirmed to be due to limited resources.

It was reflected that every commitment had been thoughtful on participation as an approach, and what this could look like in their context. It was confirmed that the participation commitment would want to take this forward and consider how it could better support other commitments.

Specifically, it was noted the commitment will look to be more strategic, and have shorter and clearer milestones that are more relevant to the other commitments. The participation commitment would also be interested to build on areas of transparency, trust and participation going into the next plan.

COSLA reflections

The Minister asked for Councillor Heddle to share any reflections from local government following the discussions.

Councillor Heddle noted it was welcome to hear the progress that had been made, and in the spirit of looking ahead, he reaffirmed COSLA’s commitment to this work. He acknowledged Participatory Budgeting (PB) as an important success, and subsidiarity as key to supporting open government in Scotland and to increasing trust across all spheres of government.

Councillor Heddle reflected that open government was supporting the purpose of the Verity House Agreement – to support communities, fiscal transparency and empowerment.

It was acknowledged that participation is a human right, and COSLA are strongly committed to engaging with the Scottish Government on the European Charter of Local Self-Government. Councillor Heddle expressed that when we encounter challenges we face today, we should embed what we have into law. The European Charter of local self government and human rights is vital to that, in order to avoid discussions becoming too far away from reality and people. It was noted that this is a shared endeavour to ensure local government can be a leader alongside the Scottish Government in this work for the next action plan.

Juliet Swann followed Councillor Heddle by sharing her reflections. It was noted that the Steering Group will need to be clear on the purpose of the commitments and their activities. This will include, as mentioned during the meeting, the different users and their different needs.

It was also reflected that there could be themes the group could consider adopting underneath a trust and transparency strategy to ensure a more thematic approach. Areas could include end users, local adoption, ways of working as well as overarching thematic groups where activities are collectively delivering towards a policy area.

Any other business

Dr McTernan asked if Scotland has any plans to attend the next OGP Global Summit in October.

Doreen Grove confirmed that Scotland will have presence at the Summit in some form. Scotland has been asked to run one session on the AI register and is considering involvement in other ways also. As a result, options for Ministerial attendance is yet to be presented to the Minister.

The Minister noted his interest to attend if he was available.

Actions and next steps

• It was agreed that efforts would be made to increase join up on the future of data strategy for Scotland. This will be an action for the Open Government Steering Group Secretariat and COSLA officials
• The Minister confirmed that the Doreen Grove and Juliet Swann would look into the extension of FOI and care homes, and explore if a stronger link could be made across these areas
• Rachel Dowle to provide more information on their approach to the National Advisory Board once agreed

The provisional date for the next meeting is Thursday 25 September, 13:00 to 14:00. Any non-members wishing to attend a meeting as observers should contact the secretariat (opengovernment@gov.scot).