 I welcome the special meeting of the Citizens Participation and Public Petitions Committee in 2022. I say special because I am especially pleased to be able to welcome members who participated on the citizen's panel on participation and who are going to be discussing with us their report and the recommendations that arose from it. I beg imbe increasing that we have apologies from our colleague Fergus Ewing, who is ond i ddim yn i gyd, i ddim yn fwy oedd, a'r anodd fyddwyd diwethaf ymddangos, a'r anodd fyddwyd yn i gyd yn i gyd wedi gynnig iawn ac yn ei wneud i gyd yn i gyd, yn gwrth gwrs pa fyddwyd yn i gyd yn i gyd, ac yn ei gyd yn i gyd yn i gyd yn i gyd yn i gyd. Yn y cyfans mwyntiau cyntaf, David Torrance ym Paul Sweeney, dwi'n i ddod am ydyn nhw'n gwybod i gyd yn i gyd yn i gyd yn i gyd. Those will immediately be brought to the substance of today's meeting, which is the Committee's public participation inquiry. We have with us around the table members of the 19 who were able to join in that work, Paul MacDonald, Gillian Rowan, John Saltman and Maria Schwartz have joined us, as well as Ronnie Paterson, who I can now see—I take and that's a mirror on the wall behind you, Mr Paterson, and not a porthole, so I'm assuming you're with us from home and not on board a ship somewhere. Most definitely, I'm out. Welcome to you. This is our first opportunity to talk to you. I was very pleased to join the group when they all looked rather nervously at one another over there first something eating at the start, but I know that it has been a tremendous experience in which everybody has really found their feet and enjoyed enormously. Before I go into a discussion of all of this, I think that we just go round the table and allow everyone to introduce themselves, and obviously I'm Jackson Carlaw, convener of the committee, and I'll come to you first. My name is Gillian Rewine. I'm from Dumfries. Paul MacDonald, I'm from Glasgow. Maria Swords, I'm from Edinburgh. Hi, I'm Paul Sweeney, and I'm a member of the Scottish Parliament from Glasgow. John Saltman, from Glasgow. We have a series of our officials who have met you at various stages along the way, but they hide anonymously from the public, so they'll be working quietly in the background and led by our clerk, Lim. The committee's remit was extended this session, the Public Petitions Committee, to the consternation a little bit of my predecessor, Joanne Lamont, who was the convener of this committee in the last session, because public petitions are almost essentially the people's business before Parliament in that uniquely almost in Parliament across the world, a single individual's signature is all it takes for a petition to come before this committee and to be considered and potentially progressed, and some very important pieces of legislation have subsequently followed through all of the free care of the elderly, the extension of care for early onset dementia, the women's mesh scandal and the way in which the Government has resolved that, all of these are issues that in recent years have come up through this committee. So Joanne, my predecessor was concerned that we would dilute that focus, but I think we've managed so far not to do that, and I think that it has been a natural coupling with the work of this committee, that we look at the whole question of deliberative democracy, much of which was initiated as an inquiry following the previous presiding officer, Ken Macintosh's commission on parliamentary reform in the last session, which very much suggested that in this session or actually earlier, but because of the pandemic, that really wasn't possible, we should explore the ways in which deliberative democracy might be extended and that is what initiated this committee's inquiry into public participation. We wanted to look at how people's voices were heard, we wanted to know when the Scottish Parliament is developing new laws of policies, how people feel they are affected by those, and a recognition that the Parliament doesn't hear from some groups of communities and how we can ensure that the views and opinions of everyone are included in the work that we do. We started off with a consultation with people across Scotland, we heard from 460 people and organisations who told us what they would like to see by way of improvements to allow us to engage more effectively as a Parliament now into its third decade. As part of that, the citizens panel was established. Out of thousands of people who were contacted, we were able to have 19 people who broadly reflect the demographic make-up of Scotland, who met online several times and then came together again in Holyrood. Throughout those sittings, they heard from MSPs, some of my colleagues, from Scottish Parliament officials, from third sector organisations leading academics about democracy and public participation and also from members of the media. We now know that the panel, having gone through all that endeavour, has come forward with a report, which we are here to discuss this morning, with some 17 recommendations on how Holyrood's work might improve, how it might reflect, how it might meet the needs of the full range of communities that we represent, and particularly focusing on those that, through discussion, understood by many of us, even subconsciously, have been underrepresented in the deliberations that the Parliament has entered into. We can keep ourselves very busy as a Parliament but not notice in passing that there are voices that are not being heard. The recommendations that you have come up with are wide-ranging. I have thoroughly enjoyed digesting them and reflecting on some of them and how they might, in practical terms, affect the work of the Parliament and move towards implementation if the Parliament was to find favour with them. I hope that you will make a ringing clarion call to saying that you hope that the Parliament will embrace your recommendations and that this report is one that we as a committee will be empowered to take forward and represent to our colleagues and to Parliament on your behalf. It would be important, as part of this exercise, that the recommendations themselves lead to potentially additional changes to the way that we do business here at Holyrood. As we move to our discussion, I understand that there are different areas that you will individually potentially be leading us on. My colleagues and I will follow on and ask just in as free-flowing a way as we can. Ronnie, if you can at any time—you are the only person who is joining us online this morning, so if you raise a hand or something, I will see that, so I will know that you want to come in. The best place to start is on your general experience of being involved in the panel and how you feel the process that you went through was. Ronnie, I will come to you since you are joining us from your living room this morning and ask you if you would like to tell us how you felt the process had been. I absolutely loved the process that you were involved in. I suppose you would put me in the sort of demographic that is ignorant and arrogant to politics. When I first came in, I realised that it was not really about politics, but when you spoke about deliberative democracy to take the group as we were, the 19 that came together, and to be able to discuss it in a normal way—none of the sort of well-versed, opposed in politics or academia—we came up with those recommendations 100 per cent as a group. Now, whether that was this 19 or another 19 or another 19, I think that it was amazing that we all agreed at the end of the day that those observed recommendations, and I think that proves and shows the power of that deliberative democracy, together we actually came up with these. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I love the process. Excellent. Maria? It was a really great opportunity to come together. A lot of people had their own ideas and then others could contribute and we could expand on these ideas and come up with even better plans. It was good to actually—we were able to test out some ideas because of actually some ideas that we liked within the group. Then we put them forward to target groups and we got immediate feedback, which was really good. John? I found it very useful to the range of information that was presented to us. Some confirmed things I maybe thought I knew and others completely dispelled illusions I had. Certainly seeing what we saw and watching the group come together and, as Maria said, the way we were able to test ideas out on each other and with third parties, it was really enlightening. I am quite proud of what we have done. Gillian? I loved the whole experience from start to finish. I found that it was a wide range of representation, young people underrepresented, but they certainly had been invited. I loved it. I thought the level of expertise that was put in front of us from various organisations were amazing. We all came together and we debated it respectfully. Nobody railroaded over anyone else. Collectively, we have come up with the recommendations and we hope that you guys will implement them. Paul? I found it really interesting. I have always been a follower of politics, but I did not even know the difference between Parliament and Government literally when I came in here. I did not understand the separation of that structure. I have always wanted to engage with what was going on in the Government, but I have never really known how to do it. I have always felt quite frustrated about it. It was very interesting to see that there are systems in place and what potentially even better improve systems. If more people—I found this in a panel—a lot of people had the same issues and the same frustrations. That comes out in distrust in Government in general and people posting angry things online, because they just feel frustrated that they do not know how to engage. If it opens that up, it will be a very positive thing. That is going to be the first area that we come to. I know that you and Maria will be leading on that. I think that for those who may be following our proceedings this morning, it is important to say again that the 19 who came together were not nominated as such. They are not representatives of organisations or third-party sectors or bodies from a very wide random selection of the public. We arrived at the 19, and the whole point was that we were bringing into this inquiry voices that are not coming with any particular baggage or association with political activism or the third sector or voluntary organisations or anything of that. It really was a fresh look and input. I think that that is quite remarkable that, through that process, you have all come together with such a striking report. The recommendations fall into really a series of different obvious headings. The first of which we are going to look at is on community engagement, which is the subject that Paul was just starting on. I know that Maria and Paul are going to lead us in this area of the report. I do not know which of you is going to take the initiative, but whichever of you is going to do so, please do. Maria, your name comes first, so I do not know whether you are taking us in. Community engagement. Our first point was to remove barriers to participation so that everyone has an equal opportunity to be involved in the work of the Parliament. What we have discovered throughout this process is that many different people have many different reasons why they may struggle to engage with Parliament. It may be disability mobility issues so they cannot get to Parliament. They may have issues or they may not be technology literate, so they have issues working with computers, they cannot access the Parliament website. For other people it is time. Therefore, we need to be looking at different solutions because there are so many different barriers to solve the problem. One of these aspects is, so one of them, for example, is cost. If you look at the first paragraph, race awareness, the Scottish Parliament will provide payments which addresses the cost of barriers that people face when coming to the Parliament and taking part in engagement activities such as travel expenses, lost income from time of work, childcare and additional costs related to accessibility requirements. Transport, time of work, childcare, these are all big barriers we have identified as working adult struggles, for example. Ensure access for people with English as a second language. There are plenty, a lot of foreigners here where English is not the first language and there may be a barrier with that on the other end. Also, there are a significant number of people with learning disabilities, and therefore we suggested that participation should be supportive with technologies of promoting and increasing the use of easy read of flyers, documentation, legislation that is being put out by the Parliament for the public. The second recommendation was to create opportunities for people to use and share their lived experience and to engage in issues that they care about. We heard from a number of experts on things that we can upskill and educate ourselves quickly. We do not have the bandwidth to feel passionate about everything all the time, but when we do need to have the channels there to engage, we are identifying witnesses, ensuring even balance between academic and professional experts. One thing that we found was that people felt that there were a lot of professional experts or that opinions were coming from the media or from MSPs themselves, but people felt that they were not really reflecting their actual lived experience of these problems and issues, which is why they felt quite strongly about the use of deliberative democracy really. Raising awareness of parliamentary business and plain and transparent language including visual media. Latest data post pandemic literacy levels show that about 33% of people in Scotland struggle with reading. Therefore, plain language and visual media are actually important to include these people as well. I'm taking research into the general public's level of trust and knowledge about the everyday work of the Scottish Parliament. I believe a lot more research is necessary. You consider us 19, we are actually very small sample size, so if you base all of your future engagement only on us 19 people, there is the possibility that you're just going to be wasting money. Before you spent thousands on an engagement campaign hoping to increase awareness, you want to make sure that it's actually going to help and it's actually going to reach the people and it's not just going to be ignored. One of the points that came up was maybe to have some sort of mobile unit, which is when we're talking about people with diverse voices and communities being influenced, a lot of people don't have access to everything. To go out into the community personally with some sort of a mobile unit or maybe using in more remote areas library buses and in some way to promote the work of the Parliament and also for people in the community who don't have good access to get more involved, where they can share opinions and maybe have just voted in certain canalital aspects of what's happening in our community. That would be a great way of engagement and certainly a more personal basis to promote Parliament. As they said before, we never really understood the chasm or the difference between Parliament and Government when everybody just mentions Parliament and they just think, oh that's Government and we know now that it's not and I think that's a good one to get out to keep people and put a better way than to do that on a personal basis. Point five was to ensure that community engagement by MSPs doesn't exclude people that are out with community groups, including by evening, weekends and online. We found that the systems engagement have become quite set in place, quite rigid and we identified multiple groups that are out with the sort of that are not getting involved. There are people that have an opinion but aren't involved in community groups, not everyone is necessarily actively looking for ways to engage. They also have a very strong opinion about it but they just don't know where to start. It's just opening that up to different means through digital engagement, through social media and if it's visiting the Parliament and providing costs for them to engage or to provide childcare and so forth. For me personally, so this was for me the very most important point, I'm someone who works full-time, I spend a lot of my time at work, I work a lot of overtime, on the weekends I'm tired, I pay the bills clean so I don't have a lot of time left. So for me for example my biggest barrier is time so I need something in the evenings, something in the evenings on the weekends or something I can quickly look up on my phone because at the moment for me I need first of all time to reach research, a difference between government and Parliament, they need to research how to engage with it, they need to find time how to engage with it and a lot of it happens during the week, Mondays through Friday and I just can't take time off work for that. Thank you. The last point, create a system such as a web page where people can register and be notified about opportunities to engage so the Parliament should create an advertisement for people to register, the details interest for the Parliament, MSPs and committees would be able to contact individuals about opportunities to engage in the work of Parliament, then an issue arises that individuals are interested in, this idea was inspired by the amount of issues discussed at Parliament at any one time, passing the public by, the solution could ensure that no one misses a chance to engage. Plans for example a call for view, at the moment you need to go on to the website regularly to see if there's an update to it, how come you can't just subscribe to an alert and if there's an update to it you get an email alert or there's a new call for view and if you're interested in it you can go and look. Well let's go through each of these points in turn and see whether any of my colleagues want to just pursue the discussion on them as we do. The first one was the removing the barriers to participation and to follow up on previous research by researching different methods of engagement, we're coming to that but in terms of removing the barriers to participation and the consequences for those who might try to participate in terms of lost income or the cost of coming to here or any other arrangements that would have to put in place, any questions that arise from either from that section to either my colleagues. Paul Sweeney. Well, convener, I just say thanks very much for the really impressive set of recommendations so far, I think I was really compelled by what you were saying I think that there are really good points. I suppose there's one issue about a chilling effect that people might have in practical terms about engagement and perhaps there needs to be some sort of statutory protection for people who want to engage in parliamentary business in some capacity in the same way that jury duties have legally protected this thing, although it's not the same thing about compulsion of attending. But if people were wanting to engage on an issue, they had actually a legal right to do so in some way where their employer for example couldn't discriminate against them or prevent them from doing so. It might be over the top as a solution but it might be something worth considering that there might need to be some sort of statutory right for the citizens. I think that that is contained within the recommendations as we move further forward into the report. You also make reference to happy to translate and the ability of people to follow proceedings for whom English isn't a first language. What was your feeling about that? I was interested to know if anybody had any experience of happy to translate amongst the 19 or on what basis had it come up as being an option. How had it arisen? I believe we had a target group that we met with or a couple, so at some point we were split into different groups and we met different target groups. One was young people, one was people from different culture backgrounds and another group was people in poverty. I believe that this came up in the group with different culture backgrounds and immigration. There was just a suggestion. I think that I attended one of the informal round tables that took place during the process and I was interested to know where the experience of that facility had come from. The second recommendation is about people with lived experience. I think that probably, as a committee, we can all accept that. I know that Parliament, both the commission and I, was on previously. I think that also in the discussions that we have had, the phrase used here is the usual suspects, which is not always a very kind thing, but it has been that, in the evidence that comes to many of our committees, there have been easy-to-reach organisations that have almost become quite professional witnesses on a whole cross-range of issues. It has maybe been too easily a default reserve for the Parliament to go to them and, in passing, not to necessarily seek the wider views of people with lived experience. Were there any examples when you were doing your work or where you felt that had come out, that the lack of lived experience had been an issue? No, actually, we've had a lot of lived experience. I can't say if it was a majority, but we had a big amount of people come in and speak about their own experience, talking about their own backgrounds, for example, and gave their views on that. David O'Poll, anything you want to ask on that question? Can I just say firstly, when this was brought about at 19 individuals with such different backgrounds who were going to meet, I thought that this could be a disaster for a recipe. A recipe for disaster, she does say, but I am really, really impressed with the 17 recommendations and 100 per cent agreed with it, so well done to every one of yous. Around engagement and individuals with lived experience is somebody who has been in the Parliament 11 years and for some of us has been here a lot longer, not looking at a convener. It's the same witnesses we see all the time, again, in the same groups of self-interest. To get people with lived experience, how does the Parliament really reach out to get that? To make that sort of effort to go out there into communities and find people, rather than every time we get the same, as a convener says, the same groups represent us on committee all the time. I think that that's partly what the citizens panel was doing. We had 19 people who had lived the experience of their own, who had not previously been engaged, and it's finding a way to access that resource more generally when we are trying to pursue our work. I imagine that that's what you were trying to get us to consider. Paul. I think that it's an interesting point, because just yesterday we considered stage one of the Movable Transactions Scotland bill, which on the face of it was a Scottish Law Commission bill, which was very dry and technical and related to being able to use movable assets to raise finance or debts against, and it was primarily geared towards businesses. For example, barrels of whiskey, fleets of vehicles, etc. You could raise finance against, not just on land and buildings, but one of the unintended consequences that rapidly became apparent was that this could open up an entire irregular lending market to consumers, so that your back street lenders using household goods is collateral to raise debts against or a virtual pawnbroking, but it was only at the very last stage where that became obvious, because the whole consultation on the bill had been focused around the banking sector and the legal sector, and it was only because of this lived experience that was brought through from the money advice agencies at the last minute that they realised that you're potentially opening up an entire explosion of unintended consequences here, and it was only then that the Government realised that stage two are going to have to amend the bill to take out consumers. I wonder whether that may be a symptom of a wider issue, because there's such an echo chamber at times, people aren't necessarily aware and drafting legislation that there's wider consequences, and that could have potentially been devastating for families if potentially those predatory lending practices had been introduced. It's just an example from yesterday in the debate in Parliament where this kind of improvement would have resulted in better quality legislation at an earlier stage if we'd been able to engage with people who were actually at the sharp end of predatory lending practices in the country. Yeah, a practical example of how it would make a difference. You then talked about the plain and transparent language, but I was struck. In a way you were also arguing that even if we accept all the recommendations at face value, that isn't itself should not be the basis in which we proceed. There needs to be some work done to understand whether people accept and think that those would be the things that made the difference themselves. Is that what you were trying to suggest? So, for example, we had the idea, flugging through our group of 19s, that maybe you could put leaflets in supermarkets of like how does the difference between Parliament and Government, who's your local MSP, you know, regional, depending, and we as a group liked it quite well, but then when we took it forward to third party groups that came in to talk about the target groups, it wasn't all that well received, so I'm of course not wondering. We are at risk of just, if you just take our 19 people suggesting a face value, I believe you may be at risk of just wasting money. You could be spending thousands, tens of thousands of pounds on printing flyers, and then no one takes them or just checks them with a bin or something, so it would be a shame. Okay, so that's a cautionary note, which is to not just to blunder forward, but to think carefully about how we progress with the recommendations. Okay. Ronnie, the bus advocate, this has already caught a certain amount of media attention, and I was interested, I don't know, well let's see what colleagues think, did any colleagues have any thoughts on relation to the bus? David? As somebody who lives in the central belt and everything's focused on the central belt, I think for communities, rural communities, and hard to engage areas, and especially areas of deprivation, which many of us have in our constituency, I think the bus is a great way for the public to engage with Parliament, because how many people in rural communities ever see the Parliament of what a Parliament does or engage with a Parliament, and especially, and I'll take it to the other side, I've got some of the highest areas of deprivation in Scotland. It's very, very difficult to communicate with them, so something like a bus going into areas or in their community hubs would promote the Parliament of what it does and how they could engage with Parliament, so I think it's a really, really good idea. Paul? Yeah, I think the concept is really interesting. I mean, the only example I can think of was in Poppy Scotland, converted this old truck into a mobile exhibition about the First World War. It went round Scotland, and it was incredibly successful to have with young people about education. It was like a mobile exhibition about a museum almost, but it was very well put together. But I think it could be a wider thing, because a large part of the issue is that a lot of people don't actually know where the Parliament fits in the broader range of concerns that they might have in relation to local government issues and UK Parliament issues, so we have a broader, potentially educational opportunity to discuss more generally what's the role of the councillor, the member of the Scottish Parliament and the member of the UK Parliament in relation to your local issues, local needs and how you engage effectively with all the institutions in our democratic society. I think that it could be a broader enterprise, it could be quite successful, it would be worth testing out. Even just the point about what is the Parliament's function in relation to holding power to account is really important, because it all merges into one blob in the mind of the public. Teasing that out would be quite useful. One of the things that I've often thought would be really good is a long-running fly-in-the-wall documentary that gets into the mechanics of how Parliament operates on a day-to-day basis. Inside Central Station on BBC, it's a long-running programme, it's a public service broadcasting thing that covers councils, Parliament covers both Parliaments and deals with what it's like day-to-day, rather than in a political sense, but in the mechanical sense of how it operates. It would be a very effective tool for getting the public aware of how it works on a day-to-day basis, rather than being in the political theatre that's all they ever see. I keep pitching this to the BBC, but I don't know if they're going to take me on. I mean, interestingly, similar such fly-in-the-wall documentaries have been done in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They've not been about the party politics, but about the clerks, the speaker, the way in which the engineers, the maintenance crews, the security. It's been about how the actual mechanics of the Parliament operate, not really about the political business that goes on in a party pejorative sense. Even for people who are involved in politics, seeing the workings of other parliaments is very engaging. You get to learn how that works. I was interested, Ronnie, in relation to the bus. There are a couple of words in there, and I just wanted to understand what you meant. The bus could be, I don't want to call it a travelling museum, but it could be a travelling exhibit that is an educational tool that shows people how Parliament works. I also see that it says here that it could talk to people about their issues, and that presumes then that there are people with the bus who are able to talk to people. What I wanted to try to understand is, did you mean that to be an active political engagement talking, as in MSPs from different parties, would be part of the bus within the different communities? Or did you see the bus more as educational officials from the Parliament who would be there to explain the function and how Parliament works? I'm trying to draw a distinction between those two functions because—or was it both—it would be in a place for long enough that there might be sessions where it was about the mechanics, or there might be sessions where it was, if you like, a focal point for the public who sometimes find it difficult to engage with politicians to know that they could come and do so. Mindful, of course, in the modern world of the security both for them in doing so and the politicians and others who would be involved. What did you see its function being when it was out and about? I thought it could be more than just educational. I mean, there is educational engagement, but one of the very first things that was brought up when we started this journey was why do people not engage? In one of the words that was used was trust. I think that there's an opportunity going out in person, in some sort of a mobile unit, and just to explore and maybe do a wee bit more to engage with people and build that trust. How that's done, I don't know, but I think it's worth exploring. I think that a lot of our recommendations are about engagement, knowledge and trust, and they all sort of merge together, and that would be one of the tools that could be used to go out into the communities that don't engage at all and maybe just build a wee bit of trust somewhere along the road and give them a wee bit of knowledge, and I don't think that's ever going to be a bad thing. We've had examples here of some of the different engagement buses that go around the country, whether it be major power companies or whether it be ones about diet and how people might live better, or whether it be about health. There was one here not so very long about liver function and things, and a lot of those buses now can expand out the sides to create quite a big room that the whole thing opens out to create quite a big working space. We've certainly had engagement with organisations investing in that kind of operation, but I think that the key thing for me in it would be, coming back to Maria's point about maybe just doing more research and things, the worst thing would be if we spent a lot of money on a bus and then sent it out to find a purpose rather than us having an idea what that purpose should be, which was validated by research. We'd already done with people as to what they would like it to do when it was going to be in their community because what you wouldn't want was a blue and white elephant, if I want a better purple and white elephant, if I want a better description, you'd want it to do something. I'm intrigued that you saw it as more than just a kind of, here is what happens, but we're discussing issues today and we would like in your community for you to come along and participate in that. Discussion is essentially the kind of thing that you're saying as well. We'd have to be careful. I don't think that it could really be a surgery bus because there wouldn't be the ability to have private conversations with people about highly personal issues that they might be struggling with, but it's certainly one way where we could, I can imagine, you could have more open discussions. David? I think that if the bus is going to go out, there has to be something that promotes a Parliament, how they could engage with a Parliament and how a Parliament could help them engage. I think that once you add politicians, another dimension comes in which would skew if the whole process, we all know what it's going to have. We will take our own self-interest to heart. Surely not. No, we all know it. Let's be honest, no matter what. I think that if a bus is going to go out there, you keep politicians well clear of it. I do, I really, really do. Oh, I'm tempted to say, David, that maybe how they do things in the SNP, but it's certainly not how they do things in the high farts. And I'm not believing that either. I wouldn't do that too. Well, I mean, that is, I think, what we can look into. I mean, I think it's certainly an idea that we've not considered as a Parliament, particularly given that the Parliament did, particularly in its early years, the pandemic hasn't helped in the last session, have much more of a proactive engagement. I know we come to Parliament days as another of the areas that we talk about. Maria, you've very personally felt committed to the next of these comments, which is when the Parliament actually meets in order for people to be able to engage with it. And what did you mean by that? I mean, what would you like to see? Were you saying that from time to time you would like to see a Saturday sitting of the Parliament? Or what was it you would like to happen? Or if there was something happening out with the normal working hours of the week, what is it you would like to see happening then that you might then have felt interested in engaging with? Well, on the one hand, being able to meet with MSPs either in the evenings, early evenings, for example, or on the weekends, or having just an online portal where you can write down your ideas or your grievances and which then can be put forward to members of Parliament, for example. Okay. Colleagues, that's helpful. And then we've got the web page. So I think we'll move on to the second section. Just on point five, on the community engagement, Maria, is that not what MSPs are meant to do with surgeries at weekends and things like that, so make sure that the public can easily get them to engage? Yeah. But there's a distinction between that and engaging with the parliamentary apparatus, potentially. And I suppose we do talk about cross-party groups later on, because actually I was interested in the importance that was attached to all of that. And of course the Parliament doesn't really facilitate cross-party groups particularly, so that may be something that out of this report needs to be looked at again. Can I move on to the second? Thank you very much, both of you. And the next section is going to be led by Ronnie and John, and that is on how Parliament uses deliberative democracy. So, Ronnie and John, I don't know which of you is kicking off first. Do you want to take it, Ronnie? I'm not unmuted. You're on. Hello? Yeah, I'm on. John, could I ask you, could you do paragraph seven first, and I'll do the other three? Would that be okay? Perfect. Okay, so we talked about deliberative democracy. We heard quite a lot about it. We heard the pros, we heard the cons, and quite importantly, we heard that it's a tool to be used with discretion. We did feel that if it's going to be used, it needs to be embedded in legislation, so there's a proper framework for it. You know, we've got the bold text here that the reason to legislate for deliberative democracy is in order to ensure that diverse voices and communities from all parts of Scotland influence Scottish Parliament's work, and the public are consistently informed and consulted on local and national issues. We went through and padded out the recommendation a bit, again, recognising that it's not a one solution for everything situation, and it would have to be used in the appropriate places, and that an appropriate framework would have to be designed. Coming back to Paul's earlier point, we did actually use the analogy of jury service for the protection side. The reason that word doesn't appear in this recommendation is we didn't want there to be any hint at all of it being compulsory. We like all the protections that come from jury service, time off from work, no backlash for taking time from work, expenses being covered, all of that, but we just want it to be very clear that there should be no compulsion beyond a similar process to how we recruited the letters going out if you're interested, fill this in, if not, put the letter in the bin, I guess, which I'm sure is what happened with a lot of the letters. We quite like the idea of the annually recurring citizens panel with agenda setting powers. One of the, the Jonathan from Belgium discussed that quite a bit, and we, we really quite liked how that worked, and the idea of actually, you know, giving a representative group of the public the ability to decide, or in partially decide, what's at the top of the list for discussion was really attractive to us. One of the other things that came up during that conversation was the idea of having MSPs directly involved in the panels themselves, very much as a minority and very much set up so they don't overtake the conversation, but it was very much felt that if they're in there meeting the panellists and get a bit invested, it's more likely that things will go forward to fruition. I think that's all I have on seven. Rony? Point eight that we put forward was to build a strong evidence base for the order of democracy to determine its effectiveness and develop a framework for measuring impact, and I think on that point it goes back to what we said that we came together as a group, and I think we've shown that that's quite a strong evidence base in itself, that it can work. Point number nine, build cross-party support for deliberate democracy as this is needed for it to work, and that is a crucial thing because at the moment we have elective democracy, representative democracy and deliberate democracy is quite a bit away from that, so I don't know if there's a rub between the two of them, but we definitely need to look into how we build cross-party support for that, and the point ten, the final one in this section, was where I commend that one of the panels should be set up specifically, a people's panel, to discuss MSPs code of conduct. I think that that goes back to the idea of trust and public accountability in this area. John, can I come back to you? I mean, I was interested in the, well, in two points, no self, bring in colleagues as well. When you talk about the recommendations of a timeline from which responses might be received, one of the issues arising from this whole inquiry, which has exercised colleagues on the committee ahead of us beginning our inquiry, is the sense of expectation that is raised amongst those who are participating and what happens to the work that they have done? Is there an understanding that, and in fact, Maria perhaps confirmed that there is, that any group of people can conform with a series of recommendations, but it doesn't necessarily mean that those recommendations are recommendations which can be or should be pursued because when you look into them further with other people they may not find wider favour, but is the suggestion here about a sort of building in a process timeline a response to that kind of concern about expectations so that there is a deliverable end result for those people who have participated? Is that the reasoning with that? Very much so, across this whole process, if we go back to the barriers from section 1, one of the barriers is why should I bother. You know, times are tough for people now, everybody has constraints on time, as Maria has pointed out, and there was a general feeling that why should I bother engaging is going to make no difference at all. Now, not everything that suggested is going to go forward, we're all adults, we all accept that, but if you don't ever hear feedback then that reinforces the why should I bother mentality. We address a little bit later in our recommendations having a really solid framework for feedback, but everyone I've spoken to amongst my social circle talking about this, that's come up and you know, if something's not going to happen just tell us, don't leave it in limbo. And that also feeds into Ronnie's with current point about trust, you know, we need to trust you, but you need to trust us and part of that is if something we say is impractical or just isn't going to fit with the general direction of travel, tell people, let them know in a reasonable timescale. And also if that timescale is structured, people will also know, well it's only been x amount of time, they're going to get back to me and y amount of time, so I know I've not been forgotten yet. So the timeline is particularly important, I think, Jackson, and it's actually, there's a whole later recommendation that addresses it. We wish we'll come too, thank you. And I have one other question arose for me here, you talk about an annually recurring citizens panel, I just wondered was this born out of your own experience? So did you imagine there by the Parliament hosting a weekend event like the one in which you all participated or did you see a different framework for the annual citizens panel? Because it in your suggestions here would almost be leading the initiative of what would follow in terms of local panels and communities in terms of the agenda items that might be being set. So would it have a life of its own or would it have, as your panel did, a sort of genesis here in the Parliament? We were very open to debate on that one, it was an idea that Jonathan Moskowitz with the Belgian group had discussed quite a lot and a lot of us found that idea quite attractive. We found just broadly talking about the whole process, we met over two weekends a couple of online sessions and there was a whole journey there from, as you saw on the first evening, 19 people sort of staring at each other a little bit nervously till the last hour on the final Sunday and the sessions that came after that, a group of people really forging something ahead. In the idea of an annual thing, it probably would start with a fresh group each year because that would kind of be the point. It would have to have sufficient time to actually get that bond because, as I just said, there's a process of the group coming together to being effective, I think, in old-fashioned management speaks, it's storming, norming and performing and that would be quite a thing. How it's actually taken forward from that in terms of having regionable panels, I think that would need more research done, but it's definitely something that should be looked at. Paul, David, do you have any questions in this section that you're prompted to ask? I fully agree with that. I think that there's nothing really to add to it. David? No, the only one I might have is recommendation 10 about a panel should be set up to discuss an MSP's coded conduct. That's really quite interesting because you know the difficulties we've had in Parliament in the past with the code of conduct and the behaviour of some MSPs. We do have a code of conduct, so I was struck with that too and I wondered what code of conduct could cover so many different things. Was there something that the panel, as people watching MSPs perform, felt that the code of conduct could address that they felt maybe the existing codes don't? I was really interested in that because is it that all my MSP doesn't hold any surgeries or is it not engaging in my community, can I do my account for that? Roni? If I can be brutally frank, there is that general mistrust of politics that's come up over the last few years and we might as well address it. Having public engagement in the set of code conduct, I don't think the code of conduct would necessarily change a huge amount. Maybe some recommendations. One thing that was made very clear to us is each MSP is a sovereign entity and how they manage their constituency matters is down to them. I don't think a code should necessarily address that as a code, but we talk later about minimum standards of response and that's something that could maybe be worked in there. But if anything it would be an opportunity for the public to say, this is what I expect from my MSP. I strongly believe there will be a 99% overlap anyway, but actually having that engagement would be the biggest builder of trust you could do apart from the feedback. That trust, as everyone said, is quite essential, I think. Roni, do you want to come in on that? I think that it came about for me when I read through the code of conduct and there's not a lot of it to begin with. I have watched some things in television to the Parliament and probably not very happy with so many things that happen in there like others, whether it's showboating or whatever. That's quite unappealing to watch and doesn't give a lot of trust out sometimes. The reason I brought that in was that it is a summary to look at where we can build a bit more trust, a bit more public responsibility, a bit more transparency and what people do, how they conduct themselves, the things that they say in Parliament, which run along one of our other points that we've made about more power to the speaker in the house as well. I just think that it's very important that we have that transparency and honesty and sometimes we look at these things like myself in television and it just doesn't there at times. That's what was intriguing me was just where this was coming from because I wondered whether you were identifying politicians who go and spend time in the jungle. Obviously there's a Conservative politician from Westminster who's done that and previously a Labour politician from the Scottish Parliament who has taken themselves off to spend time in the jungle with celebrities. Whether it was that sort of thing that you had in mind or whether you referred there to the showboating of politicians in the Parliament, I'm sure I've been accused of that from time to time. It's sometimes the way we keep ourselves entertained. Was it the absence of evidence of individuals doing a function or abdicating that responsibility or was it their conduct in undertaking that responsibility in Parliament? One of the complicating issues in those things is that there are half of the members here of which David and I are examples who are elected first pass, the post to represent a specific constituency and half of our colleagues Paul being an example who are elected to represent a broader region. The work streams that we have are nuanced differently because of those different responsibilities, so what might seem an appropriate diet of work for a constituency MSP is quite different if you're representing a region. I'm not trying to be difficult here, I'm just trying to understand what it was that exercised the feeling that this would be useful. I think that when it goes back to my lack of knowledge about the working of government and so on, I'm probably just a normal member of the public who dip her occasionally and watch TV, and this sometimes mistrust of things that we see. That's where it came from. My idea was how do we change that, how do we well trust, how do we have transparency and how do we have some sort of public accountability and whether it's through a look at the code of conduct or something else, I don't know. We'll move on to the third section, which is public involvement in parliamentary business and Gillian, who's been sitting patiently, but Gillian, you and John are going to lead on this section. Section 11 is, carry out a cost-benefit analysis of the Parliament itself or communities meeting outside of Holyrood and compare this to a, more support and targeted invitations for people to come to Holyrood and reinstate in Parliament days MSPs going out into the communities for a day of activity. There's no point in doing this if it's going to cost an absolute fortune and no one's going to turn up to look at it, so you probably need to look at the costs of it first and how the general public would engage with that. The more supported, targeted invitations for people to come to Holyrood, when we were invited here in the first place, I believe 4,800 invitations went out, just randomly selected from the royal mail and then you registered your interest and you were selected after that. One of the things that we're doing throughout all this was to target the people who just looked at that through it in the bin and said, that's not for me. It's trying to get them to look again and be more involved in the Parliament because the Parliament's separate from the Government will have found that out now. We didn't really know that at first. The MSPs going out into the communities for a day of activity just to not look at specific groups but again could be on the buses or whatever and just speak to the people. They have surgeries but going into the actual surgery where the MP is can be quite daunting for people. If you take yourselves out to their communities and just allow them to just say what's the hold up here, I think you get a really good response. Recommend number 12 was set a nine-month deadline as a default for feedback on any outcomes of the engagement with clear reasons where the deadline would not be met, if applicable. This is the thing that John referred to a moment ago when I talked about a more detailed programme, fair enough. The live status of the decision making progress should be clear and transparent throughout because if people put an idea through the Parliament and they don't get any response or any clear response within a deadline, we're getting round to it, we're getting round to it, that's when they disengage because they don't feel that they'll ever get round to their issue. So instead of just, you could create a minimum standard response. The initial acknowledgement of engagement is yes, we've got that and follow up to explain how many responses and what are the next, you know, like what, how do you go to deal with this next and that's what I'm looking up. So follow up with information on the outcome of the inquiry, if you look at it. Well, are we doing that? Signposts do more information. Where can they get the information from? And a traffic light system for inquiries is flagging up what's being addressed and what hasn't. Monitoring calls logged and establishing rules on how long someone would have to wait for a response. The clerks here, we've interacted with them really well, you know, throughout the process and they're very, very keen for the public engagement, as are yourselves. And it would show people that participation is worthwhile and make people feel that their voice is being heard. Legislation inquiries can take a long time, so set expectations and from the start and consider how it will keep people involved in the longer term. If you do this, it will feel empathy. If you don't do this, it'll empathy and mistrust. So that leads us on to... Anyone? Thirteen? Ronnie asked a question when the chief executive was there. David McGill? Yeah, David McGill. And I can't remember what the question was, however, David did respond and say that we can't ask people to answer the question. So if he said, well, if you've not got the power to do that, let's give the Presiding Officer the power to compel MSPs to answer all questions asked. That is a direct reply and is relevant to the question and this should include a process for a deferred answer if an immediate answer cannot be given. You know, like if they don't know, just say I don't know but I'll find out, I'll get back. And this will improve public trust and engagement. And that's excited quite a bit of attention. And it is interesting because, well, we can come back to it because the commission on parliamentary reform, which I was a member, also looked at this area and other parliaments, one in Ireland, for example, the Republic of Ireland, where the equivalent of the Presiding Officer there can say that a question has not been answered and that is regarded as a fairly significant admonishment, which has led to that power not having to be exercised because nobody wants to be found to have fallen short of not delivering an answer and it's worked quite well. And then we've got one more recommendation. John, are you taking this one? Yeah, we talked about scheduling specific time for individual public questions. We weren't quite sure ourselves the best format for this. We didn't want it to be too staged like we saw with some things a few years ago, but we also saw examples of quite powerful times where an individual direct question has been asked from an individual member of the public directly to a minister. And it's been quite powerful to see and we do feel that as a form of engagement it has some real potential. If it's set up properly, it's a bit of a vague recommendation because we weren't sure quite what the best way to do it was, but we really do think it's something worth looking at. Paul, I'm very happy to this point because I think the issue of contempt for Parliament is something that is not well enforced and it's something that I've found to be really frustrating, particularly in chamber business. So I think that Hans Powers for the Presiding Officer to compel a relevant answer and also to compel timely and succinct answers in order not to act. It's almost like responses can then become antisocial because they consume time and it's actually filibustering to an extent. If you just havor on for a minute and a half and respond to a question without getting to the point, then it's actually designed to push other questions off the shelf, if you know what I mean, so they can not have as many questions. So I think there is an issue in other legislatures at the Irish Doyle, for example, that the Presiding Officer has the right to say stop. So I think that there's that element of you should treat this with respect, you would treat a courtroom in the sense that you should be giving relevant and punchy answers to or indeed the question should be succinct and to the point not going on often as a preamble that's a minute long. So I think that there's maybe something to that about tightening up the standing orders to make the Parliament more rigorous in terms of how the questions in particular are addressed. I mean, I know whenever I'm playing fantasy, Presiding Officer, I have often thought that I would ban notes, with exceptions obviously for people who require that for various reasons. But certainly the banning of notes that are read out to speeches during questions, notes only to which can be referred. I would like to have seen the Presiding Officer having the power to say, minister, this is not an opportunity for you to read out a speech. You are answering a question and you may refer to the note but you can't just spend the next three minutes reading it out. I think that that can be quite a frustrating part of it because very often the three minute exposition doesn't get anywhere near answering the question that was originally put and the members get very frustrated and then told that the Presiding Officer's got no control over what the minister has said. I think that that would be a way of addressing that, Paul. There's also an interesting one. There's a balance, for example, that Prime Minister's questions, which I've had the opportunity to participate in as well, the Prime Minister won't get an advance site of the questions. It's just numbered with names so it's just sudden death and that's why there's this kind of stack of notes where they're frantically but frequently it will be a really interesting point. I'll get my officials, the relevant minister, to respond and that's usually quite good when there's a constituency issue because it tends to escalate the matter very rapidly and you tend to get actually quite a decent outcome. So I just wonder rather on having that kind of preamble on the face of the order paper where then there's already a prescriptive response. I mean sometimes that's helpful if you want to get a detailed answer on something and you actually would volunteer to give the information to the minister in advance. I just think it would be interesting if we were changing it up a bit to see whether that format would actually improve relevant responses or at least make people a bit keener to respond. This can't become a dialogue between you and I but in fact the commission in parliamentary reform looked at that too but there was quite a strong resistance from government to allowing that to be as open as that on the basis they argued that they would give less constructive answers to questions. In the 2011-16 Parliament I was able to attend Parliament Open Days in Obendham, Fries and Stornoway and it was interesting, the one in Stornoway was very well supported by the public. There was an evening event that had several hundred people at it whether that was because we were on one of the islands and maybe the whole concept of the Parliament coming there was very much different. I can't remember David, were you in the petitions committee at that? Yes, I was. You remember that you'll come in on that as well. We went to one in Obendham that was quite well supported and we went to one in Dumfries that wasn't very well supported at all and it was interesting having been to the one in Stornoway which was a big success. I thought this is wonderful only to then go to Parliament Days in other places and nobody seemed very interested in coming to it at all but I do think that there were worthwhile initiatives that could be thought through and taken forward further but it comes back a little bit to Maria's point earlier about ensuring that what you're doing is something people in which people actually do want to participate. David? That point 11 was what I was going to come to. Nobody would be surprised that I'm somebody who promotes the Parliament and the committee's going out into the communities and the example that you've given, convener, the other one was at Locfine when we went to see if the rest would be ffaithful. That was the Obend one. That was quite well attended if you remember because I think I chaired it that day and I think that engagement with because it just wasn't going out there for what the committee was designed to do. At the end of every one of them we had a session with the public just for a general question and answer about how the Parliament worked and it was really good to see it promoted that way. I mean it's important to say to the our visitors that part of that Parliament day was a public session of the public petitions committee which both David and I were on and we were hearing petitions that had been raised by people from those communities specifically. One or two which led to fundamental changes on behalf of the community that I mean I think of the what was known as the tinker's heart which was a historical landmark burial ground almost of people from the travelling community and the fact that it was a very poor state of repair and it subsequently became adopted with formal access. So that was actually why we were participating and it was I think quite invigorating to actually go out to where the petition had originated rather than having to bring the petitioners in here. Any other questions on this session? I mean I'll come back then to the because I have reflected in point 14 which is your panel of questions from the public. Was this because you've seen the way in which digital communications have improved that would allow the public to participate in that way or were you imagining what I mean a formal session of the Parliament where members of the public could be present or where their questions would be introduced digitally or was it really just the concept and it left open? We discussed a number of different options and we'd looked at things that happened before from simple things like an MSP reading a question that they'd been sent by a constituent through to them appearing on video as we saw during Covid briefings through to them attending personally and we thought all of those had merit and it would really be a case of needing further research and discussion as to what would you know be best. Speaking personally and directly I quite like the idea of a member of public directly in the chamber and it just seems more authentic to me but I think the other ideas would work just as well. Okay thank you that brings us then to the final section which is communication and education and Paul and Gillian are going to lead on this section. Paul Macdonald this time. Use media outlets, documentaries and short films to highlight Parliament's successes and real-life stories of engagement to improve public perception and trust. One of the main things that I found obviously given the Presiding Officer was when I was speaking to colleagues and friends was why would I engage with the Parliament, I don't trust them, I don't answer questions, they waffle for 20 minutes and say nothing. Use media outlets, documentaries and short films that would actually highlight the successes that you have because some of the successes are really good and people don't you know so it needs to do more to tell people about the engagement and participation work as those it reaches are positive about the experience. If we can speak to people who have had a really positive experience about engaging with Parliament I think the word of mouth actually probably does more to support the situation. Radio, TV, newspapers, community groups, public sometimes find it easy to digest information by way of another person rather than TV. The Parliament should run more general information campaigns explaining the role of the Scottish Parliament basically I think that there's a lot of mistrust in politics when this came from in general and if people sort of understood there was a separation then they might be more keen to engage with Parliament because it's less political, it's less polarising than some of the police landscape at the moment and particularly there's a sort of I feel there's been a lessening of trust in government so if people appreciated there was a sort of division and there's an organisation which is more impartial that's working for them and they're more likely to get involved in it rather than just sort of sit as an outsider and be angry about what's happening in the in their country as such. Point 17 is something that one of my colleagues was quite passionate about. The Parliament should hold an inquiry and relationship between the aims of the current curriculum and the Parliament to explore systematic changes that can be made throughout schools and in communities to improve children and young people's knowledge and awareness of Parliament and deliberative democracy including through mentorships, internships and competitions. And we had a vision collectively that by the Parliament's 25th anniversary there should be a clear plan in place so that the Parliament's 30th anniversary all young people of vote age have a clear understanding and knowledge about engaging with Parliament and Government and all see engaging with Parliament as a normal aspect of everyday life and therefore we wouldn't have panels on teaching how to engage. Thank you. Any questions from Paul or David in this section? I think that it's a really powerful set of recommendations. I think we all know those repeat customers as casework inquiries and it can often be a core set of people who are always coming back to you for issues because they've tapped into the mechanism of how to do it and it doesn't mean that it's widely known about how to do it. It can be quite an arcane procedure to get and it can also be quite intimidating to get in touch with an MSP or an MP and I think perhaps making that more accessible would be useful and certainly there's these kind of mass email campaigns that we get from time to time where a campaign organisation will create an information box where you punch in your address and then you fill out a model response on a campaign issue and you can get thousands of duplicate emails basically and you have to kind of do a kind of mass response to which can be fine in terms of perfuncture engagement but it's broadly to signal mass interest in a particular issue but it isn't a close engagement issue but what I might suggest is is there a way for the Parliament to create a better interface for people to write to their MSP whether it's a matter of scanning a QR code on a bus shelter advertisement and it brings up a pro forma where it's here's your MSP's constituency and regional what is the nature of your issue and here's the text to fill out the box and it makes it easier to then send an email it might be less intimidating than having to sit and individually type it all out and everything else it might make it somewhat more simpler or you might actually have a call back service someone's requested a call back on an issue so you know if they wanted to get a phone call or a surgery booking service or something maybe there's a better interface being run through the Parliament's own website to do that kind of thing rather than it being relying on individual MSPs to have social media and websites that offer that kind of event which could be highly variable in terms of quality just a thought about whether making I mean there is like they work for you which is that kind of website which makes engagement a bit easier but again it might not be the easiest of interfaces I'm certainly struck by this conflation of Parliament and government I mean I suppose cynically sometimes people within the Parliament think the government thinks that Parliament is part of the government when in fact Parliament is not and it is interesting I suppose when I reflect that most of the communications people receive are from either aid the government itself through mailings relating to the pandemic for example where the government felt it had to communicate or through national government priorities which have been the subject of mailings to households or they hear from individual MSPs potentially by way of an annual report which isn't able or shouldn't be party political the Parliament doesn't fund that so but sometimes I know some members find it difficult for it not then just to be a collection of photos of things they've done because there's a limit on what they can actually describe by way of the activity they've entered into or I suppose people receive leaflets from party political parties which of course are much more pejorative and tend because we live in a united kingdom with two parliaments very often to be directed at nothing in particular in terms of an institution but you know to politics elsewhere so I'm struck by the fact that you that you very much felt as part of the exercise you were all in that that blurring of what Parliament and government was was very much one that had kind of affected your thinking of the distinction of this as a as an institution with which the public can engage quite directly and separately from government itself Paul is that correct yeah that was certainly a sort of a feeling that I picked up in the panel in the group and I think it's just general it's not related to politics in Scotland but it's just through the media and global media and from Donald Trump to Boris Johnson people have just sort of have less trust of government in general or of the whole institution and are less likely to get involved in it or engaged because it just it seems so unjust and so illogical but if they if they were aware that there was a more supportive organisation a sort of a like a say an institution that's impartial then yeah they might be more keen to to get involved and the final recommendation on the inquiry now as it happens I also sit in the Scottish Parliament's corporate body which is the body which is entrusted with running the functional aspects of the Parliament and one of the groups that we hear from is the Parliament's educational unit that engages with schools and I know they have very much been involved in the last few months on trying to understand how they reach the many schools that don't currently seek to try and participate with the Parliament we get lots of educational groups in you may see them if you're watching in the gallery behind in the lower section of the public gallery but it's quite often the same schools that have been coming every year and lots of schools that haven't and I just quite interested that you obviously touched on this area Gillian as being something that needed to be looked at in some detail and you talk about potential mentorships internships which of course could sometimes be controversial because you know people feel that that's unpaid labour or whatever and more competitions but you felt the group in the Parliament who are currently looking at this are right to be looking at it because there's a need to think of different ways to encourage the active interest of young people. It has to be known partisan as well I would imagine so that it's not just indoctrinating one political party that is a collective group throughout its Parliament not a political party that teaches the young people how to engage a lot better. David, thank you. I really think that that point 17 is really important because if we could engage with young people and reach out to them they will engage with the Parliament a lot easier in their later life because if you look at the Parliament it's only just over 20 years old for many people in Scotland as Parliament wasn't here when they were younger or even middle aged so it's very unlikely it would have engaged with it anytime in their life so I think that's a really key point and a bit about mentorship and internships and competitions is somebody who runs a competition for all the school kids for Christmas cars I couldn't offer them a prize in the Parliament but as you know it's not allowed you know like a day out in the Parliament and you'll get a meal or whatever it's just not allowed to do anything like that so it's something that I think it should be looked at because that way I've got six or seven primary schools engaged in my Christmas car competition which is great. Yes I'm the same thing but as you say there are we currently actually almost put obstacles in the way of participation with schools and it can be quite difficult for politicians to be proactive because some schools are sensitive to the idea that that might be not necessarily promoting the work of the Parliament but promoting a particular political ideology and all of that can create local education authorities to be concerned but no I think that's important. Well listen thank you all very much I mean that's been a really fascinating conversation I thought I'd just go back round each of you again just for a final thought that you'd like to leave us as a committee with. Ronnie I'll do it the same order I did when I started so what would you like to say to us as a final thought? Just very quickly I think it's an exercise that it's been a great success with the recommendations that we've brought forward as a group to do that together just as a random group I think has been amazing and I'd love to see it again whether it's on a national level or maybe a local issue level I think it'd be great to take that forward and I would recommend if anybody ever has a chance to do anything like this just jump into it next deep. Okay Maria? I would just like to ask you to not give up if something doesn't immediately stick so if you try something out and within the first two months you don't have you don't feel like you have enough people keep going with it it may take a while for work to get out that it even exists and then the people will come and then I could come if I went to John or Paul next I'll come to you Paul this time. Yeah well I was surprised when from the panel how many people have been always been keen to engage or have had strongly held views that they've wanted to to feedback from the through the panel and it's really a free resource for the for the Parliament to use and there's so many people that are willing to put work in for very little cost and there's a technology to make it very low cost as well and ultimately it will benefit everyone because it will make people give people a greater feeling of ownership and trust within the country and within the government itself so I think anything that can boost the the trust of the political establishments as well can be hugely beneficial. I would say that you know the Scottish Government and yourselves if you've got aspirations to be a world leader in democracy let's get the trust there first let's get the honesty let's get people engaging because they know they're going to get a reply and they're going to get a timely matter and an honest one and I love the experience. I'd like to repeat Maria's point that I think this is going to be a long term goal and I hope you guys really do stick with it. I'd like to take a second to thank the anonymous staff who've made this experience fascinating and have managed us so well they've let us wander our own path but somehow kept us from falling off the cliff and finally I look forward to hearing feedback on this. Well thank you very much so to Ronnie Patterson, to Paul MacDonald, Gillian Renn, John Sultman and Maria Schwartz thank you all very much for joining us today thank you to you and to your colleagues who participated I know your kind thanks to the many officials who were involved in assisting will have been noted and are appreciated and yes we look forward to discussing the report taking it out for further consultation and discussion with our colleagues and yes I hope that you will feel that it in due course produces results which you feel have been worthwhile so thank you all very much and I'll now briefly suspend the committee for a few moments thank you