Scottish Office: Involving Civil Society in the Work of Parliaments

Non-Graphical version

Involving Civil Society in the Work of Parliaments

The Project

This report relates to the schedule issued by the all-party Consultative Steering Group on the Scottish Parliament:

Part B

The CSG has agreed a number of key principles relating to the operation of the Scottish Parliament:

the Scottish Parliament should embody and reflect the sharing of power between the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Scottish Executive;
the Scottish Executive should be accountable to the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament and Executive should be accountable to the people of Scotland;
the Scottish Parliament should be accessible, open, responsive and develop procedures which make possible a participative approach to the development, consideration and scrutiny of policy and legislation;
the Scottish Parliament in its operation and its appointments should recognise the need to promote equal opportunities for all.

A research paper should be produced detailing how these principles can be embodied in the Scottish Parliament through methods of enabling the participation of civic society in the work of the Parliament Areas of particular interest which should be addressed by the report are:

1. Experiences in parliaments in Europe and elsewhere of methods of enabling civic society to become involved in the work of the Parliament, including the identification of problems which need to be addressed by the Parliament and the Executive, and in the identification and appraisal of potential solutions; ways in which consensus is sought and achieved and how civic society is involved in policy development and scrutiny of policy administration;

2. Social Partnerships in Europe: the various arrangements in place and views on their effectiveness;

3. Experiences of other Parliaments in Europe and elsewhere in involving non-members of the Parliament in the work of the Parliament, and in particular in the work of committees tees.

This report addresses the issue of how civic participation and social partnership can be instigated and sustained in the operation of the Scottish Parliament by drawing upon expert experience in other parliamentary systems. This report brings together all the material that was available within the constraints of the time span of the project (5 weeks) and the time of year (July-August). Research undertaken outside of the primary holiday season - particularly in France, Spain, Italy and Belgium - would no doubt yield more detailed results. However in some areas, particularly on social partnership and the involvement of non-members, there appears to be a more general lack of detailed and up to date information. Definitions of social partnership are particularly varied and this complicated the collation of comparable material from different countries.

Despite these restrictions this report endeavours to cover all the substantive aspects of the brief. The report is divided into three sections:

Part A looks at methods that enable individual citizens to influence legislation and participate pate in the decision-making process. Please note that we were asked not to include information on the use of technology in new democratic practices as this has been covered elsewhere. We include those practices that would be most suitable for use beyond the local cal level.

Part B considers mechanisms for including social partners across Europe. We have also included a discussion, and case studies where available, of wider social partnerships.

Part C considers the involvement of non-members in the work of parliaments.

Introduction

Civic Participation and Democracy

The widespread perception that a 'crisis of democracy exists, particularly in Western nations, has been extensively researched recently.¹ This sense of crisis has been fuelled by the decline in traditional forms of political participation, widespread distrust of politicians and concerns about the concentration of power in fewer and fewer hands. This 'democratic deficit' is particularly fuelled by a lack of openness and public accountability that makes the processes of government inaccessible to influence by citizens.

The Maastricht Treaty declared that in the European Union all decisions should be made 'as close as possible to the citizens'. This commitment to closing the gap between citizens and the state is embodied in the principles of the Scottish Parliament. The Constitutional Steering Group has stressed the need for a participatory approach to the development, consideration and scrutiny of policy and legislation. Alan Miller's report to the Scottish Constitutional Convention in May 1998 reinforced the message from the Crick/Millar proposals and other commentators urging the Scottish Parliament to become a 'model of democracy'.

A commitment to citizen participation does not signal the rejection of representative democracy but a realisation that it is possible to enhance the quality of democratic control. It is practical and possible for citizens to take direct control over collective decisions in some circumstances: such as in referendums but it is also possible for control of the decision makers to be enhanced through improved mechanisms for consultation. These mechanisms, if correctly applied, can both raise the general level of social capital by informing forming and involving citizens and make the democratic process more meaningful. These methods can help to overcome the limitations of the ballot box where:

We can help decide who our representatives are,
but not so much what our representatives do.²

It has been suggested that 'the most striking fact about political participation in liberal democracies is how little of it there is ³ and where political participation does take place it tends to be concentrated at the local level. The single act of voting is inadequate because representative democracy depends upon the participation of citizens as part of a continuous process of exchange.⁴ This report is concerned with outlining the methods by which this process of exchange is managed in other democracies and demonstrating some ways in which this process could be enhanced and broadened. Part A details some methods by which citizens as individuals can be involved in the decision-making process. Part B considers the involvement and influence of organised groups social partners - on the legislative process. Part C provides information on methods for involving non-members directly in the work of parliaments, particularly committees.