The Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland is now coming to a close. Made up of 100 people like you, selected to be a cross section of Scottish society, they came together to address what kind of country we are seeking to build in the 21st century (writes WILLIE SULLIVAN, Director of ERS Scotland).
Citizens’ assemblies like these have been used around the world to find solutions to complex problems and hold politicians to account. Scotland’s success depends upon the power of people working together to tackle the real challenges, and one of the things the Assembly was nearly unanimous on was the success of the citizens’ assembly format.
Over 80% of the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland backed the idea that “In order to overcome the challenges in relation to citizens’ engagement in decision-making, the Scottish Government and Parliament should set up a ‘house of citizens’ to scrutinise government proposals and give assent to parliamentary bills.“
Along with the Sortition Foundation, Common Weal and the RSA, we’ve put together a proposal for how a House of Citizens’ could work.
When the Scottish Parliament was set up, the designers were right not to mirror Westminster’s broken set up – with a House of Lords packed full of party donors and political cronies.
We knew we could do better than that. Two decades later, assemblies from around the world have shown the success of citizens’ direct involvement. Momentum is growing – sign this petition and help us push the campaign to the next level.
Best wishes,
WILLIE SULLIVAN,
Director, Electoral Reform Society Scotland