David Allan reflects on the policy reunion event which looked at the National Standards for Community Engagement. In early 2015, the Scottish Community Development Centre and What Works Scotland were commissioned by the Scottish Government to undertake a full review and refresh of the National Standards for Community Engagement.
Blog: Health and social care integration: Sharing learning across the North Sea
Dr Ailsa Cook from Outcome Focus, Dr Guro Huby from University College Østfold and Dr Sarah Morton from What Works Scotland reflect on the Scottish and Norwegian approaches to improving public services for people with mental health issues and addictions.
Blog: Governing with the people
Claudia Chwalisz, senior policy researcher, discusses political participation for citizens. The blog, from August 2015, explores case studies where people have been given a genuine voice in decision making, following Claudia’s research for The Populist Signal.
Blog: A democratic future for community planning?
Guest blogger Calum Irving of Voluntary Action Scotland explains in August 2015 how his organisation has been working on a new vision for third sector interfaces to build the third sector’s relationship with community planning.
Blog: Think YES? How to deliver transformational change in relationships between staff, managers and local people
– what would you do if your organisational head said, “Think Yes” in everything you do? In this blog from July 2015 Claire Bynner and Ken Gibb describe the experiences of housing officers from Glasgow Housing Association following their new chief executive’s approach to leadership – “Think Yes” in everything you do?
Blog: Local Government Finance
James Mitchell, from the Academy of Government at the University of Edinburgh, summarises a presentation he delivered to CoSLA in July 2015 on local government finance.
Blog: What Works Centre for Wellbeing – Call out for stakeholder engagement
Hannah Wheatley from the New Economics Foundation introduces the What Works Centre for Wellbeing, launched in June 2015 by the What Works Network as a government-funded initiative aiming to enable stakeholders to access evidence on wellbeing.
Blog: People make Partnerships
Guest blogger Anthony Fisher,Team Leader in a Community Care Team and member of Scottish Collaborative Innovation Partnership Process, attempts to simplify, in June 2015, why partnership is the way ahead and that it’s so much more than sharing office space.
Blog: Why and how ‘what works’ is important for Scotland
As chief researcher at the Scottish Government, Zoe Ferguson was instrumental in establishing What Works Scotland. in June 2015 she reflected on the journey so far.
Blog: I can’t believe it’s not better
Nick Bland, of What Works Scotland, shares reflections on an evidence review, ‘Scaling-Up Innovation’, published in June 2015 as part of What Works Scotland’s work on spread and sustainability.