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Civil society and government officials for each of our five commitments have been working hard to deliver on milestones included in the action plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our five commitments address:<\/p>\n As part of our commitment to the Open Government Partnership, we publish progress reports throughout the year.<\/p>\n These reports provide a comprehensive update on what has been happening across each milestone and are submitted and agreed by each commitment lead (*to note when we mention \u2018commitment lead(s)\u2019 we are referring to each respective civil society and government lead for each commitment. Both work together to lead on the implementation and delivery of each milestone, often with the support of a wider civil society working group, or sub group*)<\/em>.<\/p>\n This means everyone is able to track the activities that are happening for each commitment and understand the next steps that will be taken on each milestone.<\/p>\n Our progress reports mean everyone can see the work that is happening, and what has perhaps been delayed or stalled. We categorise all activity as one of the following \u00a0as this helps explain and visualise where each milestone is at in terms of activity:<\/p>\n Another requirement as a member of the Open Government Partnership is for our oversight group, or steering group<\/a>, to meet at least 3 times per year. This group is made up of senior government and civil society leads from each commitment. The group is there to agree and monitor the implementation of the 2021 to 2025 Action Plan alongside setting the strategic direction of the wider open government strategy in Scotland.<\/p>\n To align with these meetings, you can expect at least three, comprehensive updates each year via the progress reports. All progress reports throughout the action plan will be available and stored on our collections page<\/a>.<\/p>\n This page stores all information related to Open Government, so check here first if you\u2019re looking to find out anything about Open Government in Scotland.<\/p>\n Civil society representatives and government officials have been busy making progress on milestones to achieve and work towards some important initiatives that open up the work of government to the public.<\/p>\n Each commitment and their main goals over this action plan vary. However ultimately we are working to make sure there is more transparency, accountability and accessibility to what we\u2019re doing in government.<\/p>\n So, what have we been doing? Some highlights from 2022\/2023 include:<\/p>\n Fiscal transparency portal: <\/strong>developing and testing a very early version of a fiscal transparency portal which aims to improve the way people understand and access government financial information. This online portal will support the public to \u2018follow the money\u2019 \u2013 e.g. from when a budget is announced in Parliament to where this funding is then spent.<\/p>\n At the end of 2023, this early version of the portal has been tested by civil society and government officials working on the commitment. Funding has been secured for the next phase of the portal\u2019s development, and work will finish by the end of February 2024.<\/p>\n The team are currently working to make these improvements to the next version of the platform. It is anticipated the following phases will be followed to create this:<\/p>\n Next steps involve further testing, and building a business case to gain approval to begin to roll it out across the Scottish Government. This will involve starting to develop a version of the portal that can be used by members of the public. Anyone will be able to test the portal and provide feedback on the usability of it.<\/p>\n Improving communication of public finances:<\/strong> the commitment also delivered on an initiative to support in increasing awareness of tax in Scotland. An animated video created in collaboration with external stakeholders called \u2018Raised in Scotland, Spent in Scotland\u2019<\/a> was published in 2022. The video aims to communicate, in a more accessible way, topics such as reserved taxes, the Block Grant, devolved taxes, local taxes, and what the money raised is spent on.<\/p>\n In 2022, the commitment improved information to aid scrutiny of the annual budget and its associated spending by producing information on the Scottish Budget that is understandable and accessible for a wider audience<\/a>.<\/p>\n It also made improvements to the guide that accompanied the Autumn Budget Revision 2023\/2024 supporting document<\/a>.\u00a0Improvements have received positive comments from the Scottish Parliament\u2019s Finance and Public Administration Committee (FPAC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n These milestones supported in meeting the commitment\u2019s aim over the next two years to improve the accessibility of Scottish Government fiscal data and information.<\/p>\n Recruitment: <\/strong>the commitment oversaw the successful hiring and on-boarding of a person centred design team to drive forward the Health and Social Care\u00a0commitment, and to work closely with policy teams leading on major areas of health and social care reform, such as the National Care Service<\/a> (NCS) and Getting It Right For Everyone<\/a> (GIRFE), to identify priorities for co-design activity.<\/p>\n Lived Experience and Stakeholder Register<\/strong>: routes were established for stakeholder organisations and those with lived experience to engage with co-design activity. A Lived Experience Expert Panel and Stakeholder Register<\/a> were developed to support in meeting this commitment.<\/p>\n Co-design developments: <\/strong>Training materials, tools and guidance have been developed for this first iteration of the \u2018design school\u2019 model in health and social care settings, with both the NCS and GIRFE programmes moving through the stages of co-design, with hundreds of participants taking part in workshops and sessions.<\/p>\n The ‘Design School’ is the name given to the wrap around support and training that is offered to people with lived experience, stakeholder organisations and policy teams to work together on policy and service change<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Next steps for the NCS involve:<\/p>\n Next steps for GIFRE involve:<\/p>\n Develop role and remit of civil society membership: <\/strong>in November 2023, the Third Sector Health and Social Care Collaborative took on the civil society working group role. It was recognised this is an opportunity to reach a diverse range of stakeholder organisations across the sector, and to reduce duplication. The group will be asked to act as critical friend on progress and to support the development of milestones, and guidance, methods and tools being produced.<\/p>\n Louise Meikleham from Scottish Government\u2019s digital division wrote a blog that outlines data\u2019s role in Scotland\u2019s current Open Government Action Plan 2021 to 2025.<\/a> The blog covers how the action plan is improving the use, accessibility & quality of Open Data across the public sector.<\/p>\n We would recommend reading the post to find out more about this commitment as it summarises key areas of activity to date and next steps.<\/p>\n Further highlights include:<\/p>\n Climate Policy Engagement Network (CPEN)<\/strong>: in collaboration with civil society, the commitment saw it complete it\u2019s initial milestones and develop and agree a terms of reference for the network, alongside a number of milestones over the course of the action plan.<\/p>\n The Climate Change Policy Network launched in April 2023, and is the main area of activity for the commitment. The network had over 70 members representing 60+ organisations across a range of different sectors, interest and demographics in the first month of operating. Member organisations include representatives from the public sector, equality groups, community organisations, academia and more. The network has been engaged on climate related policy, including the revision of the Climate Change Plan, and Scotland’s Just Transition Plans.<\/p>\n Next steps involve engaging with civil society to consider milestones for the next year to 18 months, with a focus on building the network, its functionality and areas of engagement.<\/p>\n Participation Framework<\/strong>: to build the resources available to public sector staff to support high quality, public participation and engagement, the commitment published the Participation Framework<\/a> in February 2023. The resource provides a guide to good practice and information about participatory methods and when to use them.<\/p>\n The commitment also established a plan to further include equalities and human rights guidance into the document, which was taken forward in April 2023. A series of public workshops ran by expert facilitators from Deciding Matters took place to consider where equality and diversity, as well as inclusive practices could be better reflected in the participation guidance. Next steps involve outputs from the workshops being published and informing the next iteration of the Framework.<\/p>\n Participation Procurement Framework:<\/strong> This procurement framework agreement is being developed to support staff to commission service providers who can design, facilitate and deliver high quality and meaningful participation activity with a wide variety of people. The Public Information Notice for interested suppliers<\/a> went live on Public Contracts Scotland in December. Next steps include pre-market engagement with interested providers and users, both internally at Scottish Government and externally.<\/p>\n This framework agreement for adults complements, and follows on from, Scottish Government\u2019s Children and Young People Participation Framework Agreement<\/a> (CYP). The CYP Framework Agreement seeks to ensure a broad range of voices can be involved in government decision \u2013 making, especially those identified as being seldom heard, furthest from their rights or vulnerable because of factors related to their personal development, features of their family life, or because of wider influences that impact on them within their community. The CYP Framework Agreement will launch in January 2024.<\/p>\n Paying participant guidance<\/strong>: a guide to paying participant expenses and time has been developed and will be published in 2024. The guidance will be advisory in the first instance, but will improve standards across the public sector when it comes to appropriately compensating for participant time, knowledge and experience.<\/p>\n Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy (IPDD):<\/strong> the commitment also co-ordinated a cross governmental response to the Institutionalising Participatory and Deliberative Democracy (IPDD) expert working group\u2019s report and recommendations<\/a>, which set out how Scottish Government will make Scotland\u2019s democracy more participative and inclusive. The response<\/a> outlines what the Scottish Government will now do to deliver its commitments on participatory and deliberative democracy, and responds to each recommendation the report detailed.<\/p>\n Children and Young People: <\/strong>alongside delivering on the Children and Young People Participation Framework, the Children\u2019s Rights Unit supported the creation of a Young Persons Participation Toolkit. Co-created with young people, The Right Way website<\/a> was launched in April 2023.<\/p>\n The toolkit aims to support and challenge officials and decision-makers, as duty bearers, to work to ensure young people\u2019s UNCRC Article 12 right<\/a> is respected. UNCRC stands for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The hub provides resources, tools and guidance to meaningful involve young people in policy development and decision-making.<\/p>\n Participatory Budgeting:<\/strong> In July 2023 it was announced that local authorities had reached the milestone of the 1% mainstream PB target. Since 2021, more than 110,000 people took part in participatory processes and directly decided on how \u00a3154 million worth of council budgets had been spent. There was also the allocation of \u00a31.2 million from the Just Transition Fund for the first time, which was shared to local communities in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray in 2022\/23. Over 10,000 people were involved in the voting process which led to 45 successful projects now being delivered.<\/p>\n The Green PB Action Group was set up in March 2022 to contribute and oversee positive ongoing development and adoption of Green PB activities and processes across Scotland. The group has co-designed a number of Green PB tools and materials including the newly launched Green PB Seal and Badge<\/a> which recognises and supports green PB initiatives.<\/p>\n We knew when co-creating this action plan that progress on some key areas of activity could be quick and completed within a year (for example, hiring a specific role or delivering a programme or project). However others would take longer as they involve, for example, the development of infrastructure that isn\u2019t already there (such as setting up a new centre of excellence).<\/p>\n We acknowledged this when creating the action plan, and made a commitment to review milestones every year.<\/p>\n Commitment leads from government and civil society will meet early next year to discuss where milestones could be developed to better reflect what is being planned and delivered in 2024 to meet our open government commitments.<\/p>\n Revised milestones as part of the Open Government Action plan 2021 to 2025 will be posted on the Open Government Collections page<\/a> \u2013 here you can see the process that was followed last year.<\/p>\n We welcomed Juliet Swann to her new role as Scotland\u2019s Open Government civil society chair in November, following Lucy McTernan stepping down from the role<\/a> on grounds of good governance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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How often are these progress reports updated? Or how often can you expect to see updates?<\/h5>\n
2022\/2023 highlights<\/h3>\n
Commitment 1 \u2013 Fiscal Openness and Transparency<\/h3>\n
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Commitment 2 \u2013 Health and Social Care<\/h3>\n
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Commitment 3 – Data and digital<\/h3>\n
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Commitment 4 \u2013 Climate Change<\/h3>\n
Commitment 5 \u2013 Participation<\/h3>\n
2024 onwards<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Milestone development<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Scotland’s civil society chair<\/h4>\n
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