25th Anniversary Programme: Community Engagement

To mark the Scottish Parliament’s 25th Anniversary, the Presiding Officer plans to visit each of the eight parliamentary regions, alongside regional and constituency MSPs.

The visits are an opportunity for us to learn about how Parliament can involve more people in scrutiny.??

Parliament’s Participation and Communities Team, who organise the programme, want to hear communities' views on the role, purpose, and future of the Scottish Parliament.

Completed visits

Five of the visits have now taken place:

• Delivered in partnership with 14 community organisations
• Involving 81 community groups, schools and MSYPs
• Bringing together 325 people and 28 MSPs

We have sought to take a communities-first approach and developed each visit and event in collaboration with community partners.

Each visit has been developed with local people putting them first and taking different formats.

In Alloa and Sauchie we joined the Chatty Latte Café at Sauchie Resource Centre, visited Wimpy Park to meet volunteers and locals before taking part in a 'getting to know you' session with the local community at the Bowmar Community Centre.

The local community and parliament hosted stalls in a busy marketplace style event involving range of grass roots groups including, older and younger people, family and children’s groups and schools.

We’ve had a range of really positive feedback including local people who are finding the events friendly and inclusive.

We have worked with a range of organisations to learn about their approach to community engagement and how to involve more diverse and missing voices. Some of these are; Corra Foundation , Development Trusts Association Scotland , Grampian Regional Equality Council Ltd , Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector , Scottish Rural Action , Voluntary Action Shetland , and West of Scotland Housing Association .?

Going Forward?

The learning from the programme will be used to improve how the Parliament involves people.?Parliament’s Participation and Communities Team will do this by:?

• Reviewing the issues raised and the outcomes from the programme with some of the participants, at the Participation and Communities Team Communities Conference in summer 2025.
• Producing a Communities Strategy by autumn 2025.
• Feeding into the review of the Scottish Parliament Public Engagement Strategy in 2025/26.?

?You can read more about the programme on our website: 25th?anniversary webpage