Devolution 'opens access to government'

Wednesday, 17 August 2005 12:00 AM

Young people in Scotland may not trust their representatives but they believe devolution can bring government closer to the people, a new survey finds.

A study commissioned by the Scottish Executive finds there are large sections of society disconnected from the political process, but that two thirds of people believe devolution has made it easier to access government.

Minister for parliamentary business Margaret Curran welcomed the findings but insisted the executive would continue to consult the public on as many issues as possible, while also pressing ahead with promoting citizenship classes in schools.

According to the survey, people are most motivated to get involved if an issue is something they already feel strongly about (39 per cent), although 31 per cent of respondents said something that affected them directly was also a compelling reason.

A further one in five said they would get involved in an issue if it had local impact, with the biggest barriers to participation across all the groups being lack of awareness of consultations (26 per cent) and scepticism as to its value anyway (24 per cent).

"Politics matters. It's about debating, deciding on and delivering on building a better Scotland. All of us in the political world share a responsibility to involve people in how their lives are run," said Ms Curran.

"This research backs up what many of us know already. There are large sections of our population who are disconnected from the process.

"We all need to do much more to engage and identify issues that really matter to people - our plans to ban smoking in public places and our work on anti-social behaviour really struck a chord with the public."

She said the executive already seeks people's views on a wide range of policy issues but this had to be improved to ensure all sections of society were involved. In addition, the executive is working to extend schemes such as citizenship education in schools.

A second study, commissioned in tandem with the first, finds the Scottish Executive conducted 273 participation activities last year, supporting 191 policy initiatives. But it finds more work must be done in engaging minority ethnic communities in particular.

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