This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Survey highlights attitudes to politics
17/08/2005
Modern politics must do more to engage people from deprived areas and young people, a government minister said today.
Minister for Parliamentary Business Margaret Curran's comments came after two research studies were published today about people's attitudes to participation and Scottish Executive participation activity.
Ms Curran said:
"Politics matters. It's about debating, deciding on and delivering on building a better Scotland. All of us in the political world share a responsibility to involve people in how their lives are run.
"This research backs up what many of us know already. There are large sections of our population who are disconnected from the process.
"We all need to do much more to engage and identify issues that really matter to people - our plans to ban smoking in public places and our work on anti-social behaviour really struck a chord with the public.
"The Executive already seeks people's views on a full range of policy issues but we need to get better at how we do this to ensure we hear from all sectors of society
"The Executive is also working on programmes such as promoting citizenship education in schools.
"But we also need to talk less to the political and media 'village' and more to people across Scotland."
Findings from the research include:
Survey of public attitudes to participation
- The biggest factors that motivate people to get involved are if an issue directly affects people (31 per cent), if it has local impact (20 per cent) or if they feel strongly about it (39 per cent).
- People living in the most deprived areas show lower awareness, lower motivation and interest in participation and are less likely to take up opportunities for involvement.
- Younger people place less trust in representatives and are likely to feel that issues have been pre-determined. However, they are also more positive about the role of devolution in making government more accessible.
- Older people are also less engaged in community or political participation, but they are more likely to trust politicians to act on their behalf.
- The biggest barriers to participation are lack of awareness of consultations (26 per cent) and scepticism of the value of consultation (24 per cent).
- Two thirds agreed that devolution had made it easier to give their views to government.
Scottish Executive participation activity
- A large amount of participation activity is conducted by the Scottish Executive (273 activities conducted in 2004 supporting 191 policy initiatives).
- Good practice is evident through the use of adapting conventional activities for particular audiences and in the combination of activities used. However there is a need to spread the good practice that exists.
- The Executive needs to work harder to engage with all sectors of society, in particular members of the public and minority ethnic communities.
- Although the Executive evaluates its participative activity there is a need to do this more consistently and learn more about what works and how this activity contributes to policy development.
The research included a literature review of what works when involving people in policy making, a survey of current participation activity conducted by the Scottish Executive and a survey of public attitudes to participation.
The Executive has taken forward its commitment to the principle of civic participation in a number of different ways. Examples include:
- promoting citizenship education in schools;
- supporting volunteering and the voluntary sector;
- promoting community engagement locally in Community Planning Partnerships;
- supporting grassroots capacity-building through the Community Learning and Development strategy;
- increased opportunities for civic participation in SE policy-making processes; and
- Promotion of good practice in consultations.