A new long-term partnership between Third Sector Dumfries and Galloway (TSDG) and the Scottish Parliament aims to bring the voices of communities across the region into the heart of parliamentary scrutiny.
The partnership is designed to deepen community engagement with the Scottish Parliament across the region and will work to ensure that the lived experiences of local people, including those from marginalised and under-represented groups, meaningfully inform and influence parliamentary business after the election.
Representatives from the Parliament team attended this week’s meeting of the Third Sector Leaders Forum in Dumfries, where they joined sector leaders to explore their priorities for the year ahead and how the sector can work together. Discussion also focussed on how communities across the region can be better connected with the work of Parliament.
This was followed by a community visit to New Galloway, where the representatives met directly with local groups to discuss practical ways to engage with parliamentary committees along with what was happening at a grassroots level.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Parliament said: “The Scottish Parliament is here to represent everyone across the country. This work is about getting out and about in communities across Scotland to understand more about what we can do to make it easier for people to make their voice heard. This partnership will ensure that people in Dumfries and Galloway can make a positive difference in their Parliament.”
The team’s aim is to embed the involvement of diverse and often excluded voices in the life of Parliament.
Through the partnership, the two will combine TSDG’s deep-rooted community relationships with the Parliament team’s participation expertise to create new, accessible pathways for people to contribute to parliamentary work.
Together, the partnership intends to address the key barriers that prevent many people from engaging with Parliament: lack of awareness of its relevance to everyday life, low confidence, inaccessible information, and a sense that Parliament is not ‘for people like them’.
The collaboration aims to improve parliamentary awareness, increase in-person community engagement, build confidence among local groups, improve accessibility, and diversify the voices heard in scrutiny.
Following the initial meetings in Dumfries and New Galloway, the partnership will continue to develop the collaboration with further community link ups and engagement opportunities across the region.
The partnership forms part of the Parliament team’s wider 12-month action plan, which commits the team to visiting all 32 local authority areas in Scotland, running community-led events in each parliamentary region, and developing an impact framework to track and communicate the difference that community participation makes to parliamentary business.
Alan Webb, Chief Executive Officer at TSDG, said: “This partnership is a real opportunity for organisations and individuals across Dumfries and Galloway to be better connected to our Parliament and to ensure the experiences, strengths and needs of our communities can be best represented in parliamentary scrutiny and the development of policy.
“We are delighted to be working with the Scottish Parliament Team, a connection that is very timely given the recent launch of the Democracy Matters route map from Scottish Government which aims achieve renewal of community governance and local decision making too.”
Main picture: The partnership began with attendance at the latest Third Sector Leaders Forum. From left, new Forum Chair John Muir, Community Inclusion Lead for LING; Claudine Brindle, of Dumfries and Galloway Carers Centre; Emmanuelle Le Coz and Kate Smith, of the Scottish Parliament; and Helen Keron, Head of Communities and Place (Interim) at TSDG.