Participation

Meet the Scottish Government Digital Engagement Team

February 29, 2024 by Digital Engagement Team No Comments | Category consultation, contributing to positive outcomes, digital platforms, Get involved, Our work

Who are you and what do you do?

Hi, I’m Finlay. I’m a digital engagement manager for the Scottish Government. We’re a small team of 3 but we work with our colleagues all across government to support good digital engagement with you, the public. What that means is we use digital tools like online surveys, crowd sourcing platforms and more to create opportunities to speak to and hear from you on decisions being made. You can see what digital engagement is going on at our Consultation hub. These are important ways for you to be able to give your views and influence decision making happening in government. I love what I do and I think it’s absolutely crucial that we, as a government, constantly improve the ways we share and listen when making decisions. Have a read of ‘The Scottish Approach’ to public participation in the Participation Framework.

How does the work you do impact the public?

Well, we work to make sure digital engagement is effective and accessible. The more people that find out about a consultation, can access it, and give their views the better. For example, within the first couple of months of the COVID-19 pandemic we used a platform called ‘Dialogue’ to hold a national conversation, gathering ideas and views on restrictions to be put in place. In the first 5 days over 16,000 comments were left and these helped shape the decisions being made as we came out of lockdown. Beyond the practical side of people being able to influence policy that directly affected them, it gave the public a space to be heard at a traumatic and isolating time. I feel privileged to be able to work on projects that can have such a potentially powerful impact on our lives. We’ve also published 2 other blog posts on the COVID-19 national conversation if you’re interested in finding out more:

• A weekend of coronavirus (Covid-19) Dialogue
• Coronavirus (Covid-19) conversation proves very popular

Are you working on anything interesting at the moment?

Recently I’ve been working on ways to boost our communication. I want you to be able to easily find out more about the ways to get involved in government decision making. If you’re interested, give us a follow on Twitter at Scot Gov Engagemement, read our participation blogs, and subscribe to our newsletter.

Tags: consultation, Dialogue, digital engagement, national conversation, participation, public engagement, scottish government, the scottish approach

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