This guest blog by Dr Cara Broadley arises from one of a series of SPICe academic fellowships supporting the organisation in its aspiration to increase public participation, and part of a Spring blog series on participation and engagement. Links to related blogs are listed at the end.
Cara’s briefing, which is embedded in this blog, has been drafted independently of the Scottish Parliament and with the aim of showcasing the visual nature of the project. Because of this, some users may have difficulty accessing the content. If you require a different format (for example text only), please contact c.broadley@gsa.ac.uk.
As with all guest blogs, what follows are the views of the author and not those of SPICe, or of the Scottish Parliament.
Over six months, I had the opportunity to work with staff from across the Scottish Parliament to explore how creative, participatory, and visual approaches can enhance public involvement and the effectiveness of evidence in scrutiny. This was the Parliament’s first academic fellowship with the Glasgow School of Art. Through shadowing, drawing, interviewing, and co-designing, the project set out to understand and unpack the challenges of committee scrutiny, identify opportunities for innovation, and collaboratively develop new tools and methods.
Project planning and summary infographics, observational drawings and quotes from project participants are included throughout this blog to bring the process to life, and the final PDF report is embedded.
PARliament Engagement: About the Research
This wasn’t just research about participation – it was participatory in itself. I worked closely with a core group of participants from SPICe, Committee Clerks, the Parliament Communications Office (PCO), and the Participation and Communications Team (PACT) through Participatory Action Research and Participatory Design, inviting them to reflect on their roles, map out evidence practices, and explore new ways of working together. The report, published this month, shares these findings, a roadmap for change, and a set of design principles co-developed through the process.
One participant reflected, “we all want the same thing: to engage, to communicate the work, and for the committee to succeed. But we all face in slightly different directions. How do you actually make that happen?” This perspective captures a recurring theme throughout the project: shared purpose, but a fragmented system of delivery.
These outputs are now offered to the Parliament as both a provocation and a practical resource. They are not prescriptive, but designed to support cross-service reflection, action, innovation, and longer-term institutional learning. The full report includes a set of co-designed briefs and prototype tools, principles for inclusive and creative scrutiny, and a roadmap for embedding new practices as Session 7 of the Scottish Parliament approaches.
The full report is embedded below, followed by an option to download
Reflections from Inside Parliament
This project was everything I love about research: immersive, responsive, and grounded in real-time challenges. Observing scrutiny in action – from committee meetings to public engagement sessions – and then working with teams to co-design new approaches to evidence gathering and handling, was both energising and deeply revealing.
One early insight stayed with me throughout: while the Parliament has made huge strides in broadening participation, there’s still a tendency to default to familiar formats. Engagement is happening – but how consistently, and how meaningfully, is it shaping the scrutiny process? That depends.
The people I worked with were open, thoughtful, and candid. They talked about barriers that aren’t structural but cultural: differences in how evidence is valued, how members engage, and what kinds of knowledge are taken seriously. One participant described how the attitudes and mindsets of committee members can either block or unlock innovation. That’s not an easy thing to design around.
“You can take an idea to a committee five times, and they still say no.”
project participant
“Sometimes you find out there isn’t actually anything stopping the committee doing something differently — and that’s when innovation can truly take shape.”
project participant
Recent evidence taken by the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee during its Committee Effectiveness inquiry highlighted similar themes, with Professor Meg Russell (University College London) emphasising that that “structure cannot trump culture”.
The co-design workshops were a chance to bring the four support teams together to consider working practice – not something that happens often. For many, it was the first time they’d had space to reflect collectively on their role in scrutiny, and to share perspectives across service lines. The result wasn’t just a set of prototype tools, but a new sense of what might be possible.
“You’ve managed to bring together discussions that usually stay hidden. I’ve seen people work here for years and not understand the beating heart of what we do.”
project participant
What also emerged was a deeper understanding of how informal engagement – such as visits to community groups or off-the-record sessions with the public – can offer powerful insights but aren’t always treated as credible forms of evidence. And yet these spaces often bring out the most compelling testimony, as one participant highlighted:
“It was a really difficult session, but incredibly powerful in terms of understanding the reality of what the consequences of this legislation could be.”
project participant
Throughout the research, observational drawing played a significant role in helping me process and distil insights from my shadowing work. Sketching scenes from committee meetings and staff interactions allowed me to tune into spatial dynamics, relational tensions, and the emotional textures of parliamentary life. These drawings became visual fieldnotes – a way of noticing what might otherwise be missed, and of capturing the less tangible elements of how scrutiny unfolds.
Across interviews and co-design workshops, participants reflected on the persistent tension between innovation and institutional inertia. While many teams are actively seeking to develop new approaches, the capacity to test, iterate, and embed these approaches is often squeezed by time, resources, and competing priorities.
One participant described the co-design process as a much-needed opportunity to build cross-service understanding:
“I think it’s almost about us starting to build that expertise ourselves in how we have these co-design conversations – and how we approach those discussions. You’ve managed to bring out things that usually stay buried. Now we need to find a way to keep going.”
project participant
There’s also something powerful in realising that scrutiny support teams often work towards the same goals – but from very different starting points. Visualising those connections and creating tools that help structure collective decision-making is one way design can help teams work more cohesively and effectively.
Questions Raised
Informal engagement sessions involving MSPs and members of the public often form part of a committee’s inquiry work. While these moments are crucial for connecting parliamentarians with lived experience, they also raise important questions. How equipped are MSPs to manage the complexities of facilitation, especially in emotionally charged or sensitive contexts? While PACT brings specialist expertise in engagement and play a central role in choreographing participatory work, its contribution to scrutiny is often behind the scenes. Rather than raising new concerns, these reflections underline the importance of continuing to recognise and support PACT’s strategic remit in designing, facilitating, and enabling meaningful participation across the Parliament.
These are not abstract concerns – they shape the quality, credibility, and representativeness of the evidence that underpins decision-making.
The process of carrying out this research also raised deeper questions – not just about tools or methods, but about the assumptions that underpin scrutiny itself. It prompted reflection on whether participatory approaches are always taken seriously, and whether there is a shared understanding across Parliament of their value.
Can communities genuinely help shape parliamentary scrutiny in ways that go beyond consultation? Do we have the infrastructure – and the political will – to involve people meaningfully from the very beginning of an inquiry, not just once the questions have already been decided?
These are complex, systemic questions. They are not accusations, but invitations – to think differently about where scrutiny begins, who defines its terms, and what kinds of evidence we choose to prioritise.
A Call to Action
This project has shown that the tools, ideas, and energy for doing scrutiny differently already exist within the Parliament. What’s needed now is commitment: to share ownership, to build confidence, and to let go of the need for total control.
The design principles we developed together don’t provide a checklist – they offer a direction of travel. They reflect values the Parliament already holds: openness, participation, transparency. What this work does is offer new ways of living those values in practice.
In the final evaluation session, participants reflected on the relevance of the principles and tools to broader strategic work across the Parliament:
“I’m really keen to bring the principles into the public engagement strategy review – I think they’ll be incredibly helpful. A lot of the same things will come up.”
project participant
“They speak to the Parliament’s founding principles. If we want to live those principles in practice, we need to embed approaches like this.”
project participant
The next phase of SPICe’s fellowship programme explores the value of lived experience in scrutiny. This project offers a foundation to build on for continued learning, adaptation, and institutional development. With an election and the formation of a new Parliament only a year away, this is an ideal time to reimagine not only what scrutiny does, but how it’s done – and who it’s done with.
“This isn’t just about engagement – it’s about scrutiny as a whole, and how we do it better.”
project participant
If scrutiny is to reflect the full diversity of experience in Scotland, it needs to be shaped with that diversity at its core. The challenge now is not to find new ideas, but to act on the ones already in the Parliament’s hands.
Dr Cara Broadley, Glasgow School of Art
Related Blogs on participation and engagement in the Scottish Parliament:
- Guest Blog: Continuously improving people’s panels at the Scottish Parliament – Lessons from our independent evaluation – SPICe Spotlight | Solas air SPICe
- Delivering a model for parliamentary scrutiny of climate change: a Climate Change People’s Panel – SPICe Spotlight | Solas air SPICe
- Guest blog: Connecting deliberative practices in Parliament with participation and community engagement – SPICe Spotlight | Solas air SPICe
- Embedding Deliberative Democracy in a Participatory Parliament
- A shopping list for Scottish Parliament citizens’ assemblies? – the Citizen Participation and Petitions Committee’s Public Participation Inquiry
- Recommending a more participatory future – the Citizen Participation and Petitions Committee’s Public Participation Inquiry
- Turning the lens inwards – the Citizen Participation and Petitions Committee’s Public Participation Inquiry