Talking about community digital participation

If you take a close interest in the governance of digital participation activities in Scotland (!) then you'll know there's a Leadership Group convened by SCVO to help steer our work, and a Ministerial Advisory Group convened by the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs. The latter met last week, and there were two substantive items on the agenda. The first was a discussion about the role of third sector organisations and local government in helping to deliver a step change in digital participation in Scotland. This was grounded in the usual framework of access, motivation and skills, and we talked about the different ways that partners can both drive demand for digital participation and help provide a supply of resources to support people. The second item was an exploration of the thinking around a right to digital participation, prompted by the recent report from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Michael Fourman describes this as something akin to the right to live a healthy life, which governments have responsibilities to respect, protect and enable. There's no easy answer but this is definitely an important debate to have; if you'd like to join in then our event in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is probably worth a look...