Report from the Scottish Community Development Centre and What Works Scotland explores the role and relevance of community councils in Scotland’s evolving policy context, especially as public service reform continues through the Scottish Government’s Local Governance Review.

This research report outlines and shares some of the learning about putting Christie into action from collaborative action research and reflection with Aberdeenshire Community Planning Partnership. It argues that understanding the developing frontier of collaborative and participatory governance will help to identify potential opportunities to make further progress with ‘wicked’ issues like inequality.

Case study which highlights the work of STRiVE, a third sector interface in East Lothian, and its initiative to strengthen the participation of third sector organisations in local governance.

This research explores how key stakeholders and potential users of the Participation Request mechanism articulate and frame the associated challenges and opportunities. The Scottish Government introduced a new process for community engagement, known as Part 3 (Participation Requests) of the

Policy briefing that reviews how participatory budgeting (PB) has become central to advancing three policy agendas in Scotland – public service reform, community empowerment and social justice – and examines the requirements to mainstream PB including the co-production of new systems, new mindsets and ways of working.

A working paper examining the findings of four What Works Scotland researchers during a three-year programme to explore collaborative action research with four community planning partnerships.

Report and executive summary of the findings from the second survey of community planning officials in Scotland, conducted in 2018. It compares the results to those from the 2016 survey and offers an overview of key dynamics, challenges and accomplishments over those two years, with a particular focus on the Community Empowerment Act.

Coryn took part in took part in an international learning visit to Paris in December 2016. Two years on, she revisited the city to take part in the Third National Meeting of Participatory Budgeting.

Link to a film on facilitation training in Aberdeenshire, a workshop aimed at developing people’s skills, to enable them to work more effectively with their local communities and achieve better engagement with all populations.

This policy briefing focuses on evaluability assessment, a systematic and collaborative approach to deciding whether and how an evaluation should be done. EA involves stakeholders working together to reach a consensus view of what the policy or service change is expected to achieve, what data sources are available to measure change processes and outcomes, and what is the best approach to evaluation.