By George Clark clark@srds.co.uk
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 | Openness and Transparency |
| The Meeting of Many Minds |
| Strategic Intelligence |
| Virtual/Actual Meetings |
| Making the Minutes Count |
| Some ICT Enhancements |
The Scottish Land Reform Convention seeks to broaden participation in, and deepen understanding of, the process of land reform in the new Scottish democracy.
More specifically it seeks to support and inform civic society in achieving a just and sustainable democratic reform of anachronistic legislation. It will achieve this by:
| strategic proactive networking and opening out processes of governance to be more inclusive and participative (broadening participation) |
| facilitating campaigning and advocacy by increasing public knowledge of land reform issues (deepening understanding)1 |
Where the intention is to ‘open out processes of governance to be more inclusive and participative’ in the context of civic society it seems reasonable that (a) openness and transparency should be guiding principles and (b) best possible use should be made of the opportunities presented by information and communication technology (ICT).
In what follows these two issues will be considered regarding procedures which might be put in place to ensure inclusion and participation by as wide a range of civic society groupings and interests as possible.
Openness and Transparency
It would be useful if those who take part in civic society organisations were to abide by a commonly accepted code of conduct. An eventual comprehensive legal document might be lengthy but two key issues which will be given focus here are openness and accountability.
The purpose of the code of conduct would be to assist those engaged with civic society organisations to discharge their obligations to those particular organisations, to the process of just and sustainable democratic reform, and to civic society and the public at large.
The following statements are based on a code governing the behavior of Members of Parliament2 and are offered as the basis for discussion.
Openness
Those engaged in civic society organisations should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands.
Accountability
Those engaged in civic society organisations should be accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.
The SLRC exists to support the process of informed and participatory decision making leading to action on Land Reform. This presupposes a meeting of minds and ideas – many minds and many ideas – broad participation and deep understanding! What structures and procedures might be put in place to make this possible, and how might ICT assist the process?
The Meeting of Many Minds
Civic Society organisations come in many shapes and sizes and it might be argued that civic society as a whole includes individuals and groups that are not formally constituted as ‘organisations’. Many of these individuals, groups and/or organisations will be involved with the Land Reform issue as only a part of their overall agenda, often on a voluntary basis, and many will be located in geographical areas which present problems of time and cost in attending physical meetings in cities of the central belt. A total reliance on physical meetings would therefore be impractical and inequitable – what other possibilities exist?
This section first suggests that the key role of the SLRC is to facilitate the flow of strategic intelligence through its network of networks and that this process can be enhanced through ICT by (a) enabling a virtual presence at meetings and (b) making informative minutes widely available.
Strategic Intelligence
The SLRC was established with a Steering Group (for mandate and leadership) which quickly spawned a Planning Group (for management and administration). Membership was voluntary and although much progress was made it was felt that, to be more efficient and effective, it would be necessary to have a budget3 to employ key people for key tasks of both a continuing and contingent nature.4
The SLRC is in essence a network of networks whose main function is to facilitate the flow of quality and timely information concerning Land Reform between civic society individuals, groups and organisations and their government. Vertical information flows would be in both directions between the people of Scotland and their government5; horizontal flows would be between individuals, groups and organisations.
Given the quantity of information required in the system it would obviously be impractical for the SLRC to sit at the neck of an information egg-timer. Its task rather would be to facilitate and co-ordinate the process of quality and timely information flow ie to ensure the effective presence of a strategic intelligence facility.
All MPs have the support of specialist parliamentary staff and most have a personal staff (full-time, part-time and ‘interns’) who between them combine the functions of executive secretary, research assistant and caseworker6. If representatives of civic society are to engage intelligently with MPs it seems reasonable that they should, from their own points of view, have access to broadly similar facilities.
Civic society decision makers and activists may on occasion require well-digested, quality, up-to-date information at short notice. Where volunteers cannot be found to provide this there should be recourse to quality, paid researchers. The SLRC, through its network, could facilitate this process. An argument could even be made for providing such a service on an on-going rather than on an ad hoc basis!
Virtual/Actual Meetings
As was mentioned above all interested parties may not be able to attend all meetings and, even if they could, their interests might be in only a limited number of agenda items. This problem can be addressed by some simple procedural changes involving the process of meetings:
Before |
During |
After |
| Agendas are distributed well in advance and discussion/ concept papers are called for | Individual and or collated postal contributions to each agenda item are addressed and considered | Verbatim* minutes are distributed with briefing papers and handouts attached. |
| Discussion/Concept papers are distributed and comments requested | Emerging issues are minuted and requests for discussion papers made | Minutes are produced and distributed within two days of a given meeting |
| A staff member/volunteer collates the above materials for presentation at the meeting | Date and agenda for next meeting are set – this to include dates for postal contributions | Copies to those present actually and virtually, those absent, those who might be interested** |
* Full verbatim minutes are perhaps in excess of requirements but the minutes should be reasonably fulsome
** An aspect of Strategic Proactive Networking – let potential members know what they are missing!
Making the Minutes Count
Given that the vast majority of people concerned with land reform in Scotland may never have the opportunity to attend a gathering of the SLRC it seems reasonable that the outcomes of its meetings, decisions and actions7 should be as open, transparent and freely and easily available as possible.
Obviously the broad brush strokes will be publicised through its bulletins, conferences and press releases but in the spirit of being "a pioneering example of the new type of civic forum that will interact with the Scottish Parliament" what objection can there be to making its detailed workings widely available in the public domain?
| Fulsome minutes are distributed with briefing papers and handouts attached. |
| They are produced and distributed within two days of a given meeting (especially when dealing with legislative procedures where time can be a critical factor) |
| Copies are distributed to those present (actually and virtually), those absent, and to those who might be interested |
| Minutes (and attachments) are posted to the web site (also within two days of a given meeting) with an open invitation for responses to discussion points |
| Emails are sent to notify all members/contacts that the minutes have been posted – this should be routine but would be especially important when there are time-critical issues to be brought to the attention of a wide audience |
Obviously we have to be beware of socially excluding those without access to ICT. Wherever possible and financially viable hard copies of the following products should be made available.
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| Particular individuals/groups/organisations (voluntary or contracted) could be identified with a given claim, concern or issue and be the email address to which comments are sent. This ‘hub’ would be responsible for providing inputs to physical meetings but this would not prevent a group (a mini network) from establishing and doing its own thing eg, in terms of ICT, establishing a mailing list and/or setting up a web site. The latter could advertise links to the SLRC if signed up to the Code of Practice. |
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| The SLRC Web site could include |
| a public (moderated or un-moderated) Guestbook and/or Discussion Board. While those on the Scottish Executive web site are not well used the SLRC might be different! |
| an annotated links page perhaps associated with a membership list. This would help civic society organisations identify kindred spirits and sub-networks which they could profitably join. |
| a calendar of events related to Land Reform eg consultation and legislation events, SLRC conferences etc (to broaden participation) |
| an archive with briefing papers explaining the issues surrounding Land Reform in Scotland and indeed in other countries (to deepen understanding) |
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