Participation

Our journey through consultations

January 13, 2020 by Chris Connolly No Comments | Category digital platforms

We just published our 500th consultation on https://consult.gov.scot, where we have received nearly 125,000 responses. Topics ranging from electoral reform to international engagement on Irish-Scottish relations.

How do we celebrate? Release a new design of the site and a new email alert subscription.

You can find out more about consultations with this short video.

What’s changed since our role out of the consultation hub in October 2015?

Here are a few things:

Commitments

The Scottish Government has formally committed to improving the way that we consult though the Open Government Action Plan 2018-2020. This includes reviewing practice, helping policymakers know when and how to use consultation, and to build on existing guidance.

We have been working closely with researchers to improve our guidance. This is designed to guide policymakers through the consultation process and to promote good practice.

Accessibility

Through ongoing development by Delib, the platform’s developers, consult.gov.scot. has become more accessible. We have also worked to remove barriers by simplifying the ‘about you’ page, linking to html publications (rather than pdfs) and promoting the use of more accessible language and structure.

Easy read versions and British Sign Language (BSL) videos have been created to increase the accessibility of consultations such as our easy read version for the Culture Strategy consultation and our BSL video for the Hate Crime Legislation consultation.

Transparency

All Scottish Government consultations are published on the site with a full listing of open and closed consultations, published responses and links to analytical reports.

Promotion

We have introduced a new email subscription to stay up to date on consultations.  Sign up for updates.

We’re also promoting consultations via social media. Our content team has created some great videos to explain what a consultation is about in short and snappy ways.

Check out our Circular Economy Bill consultation video on Facebook.

We are continually working to improve the way we consult and engage. We’d love to hear about good examples of public engagement, tell us about your experiences in the comments below.

Get in touch at DigitalEngagement@gov.scot or follow us on Twitter @scotgovengage.

Tags: accessibility, Citizen Space, consultations, digital engagement, open government

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