Rethinking Scotland: Action required to include more voices in policy-making in Scotland

Carnegie UK ran a series of online conversations about Rethinking Scotland during the winter of 2020/21. Over 60 people took part in the conversations, we asked for people’s views on what needs to happen and who needs to act to put some of Scotland’s big ideas into practice. In Scotland we have positive policies, under the umbrella of the National Performance Framework, aimed at national wellbeing. However, although the Scottish policy landscape is a strong framework for improving wellbeing, stakeholders often struggle to translate this into mainstream practice, to improve outcomes for individuals, communities, and society. The key action identified to shift from rhetoric to reality was to open up policy making to more diverse voices, and to move from consulting to sharing power with citizens and communities.