Scotland as a nation can be a place where individuals and communities are empowered. Our challenges within the NHS, schools, charities, social enterprises, civic society and local government will not be solved by organisations alone. Indeed, there is a new vibrant sense of democratic participation and of growing person centred, digital inclusion and participation among Scotland’s citizens.
Citizens in Scotland can build on the assets their communities have created. Community empowerment is an ongoing process. In the last ten years efforts have started to create the means on the web whereby the person can be at the centre. New web services and innovation are enabling identity assurance and control over personal data. The Application Programming Interface or API society means that citizens can work with organisations, and individuals can be equal participants in the delivery of complex public services in ways we could not have imagined before.
These capabilities combined allow individuals to play an active part in any process, and the organisation can work to improve the user experience and focus on the journeys and outcomes. The individual can perform their role and remove the complexity and risks around identity, verified attributes, data exchange and consent.
Mydex CIC enables the individual to be at the centre of digital services linked to Personal Data Stores.
Person centred services such as Mydex CIC mean that citizens have control and choice. Holyrood can help empower the people of Scotland. The choice to self manage, to invoke self directed support, and the control to decide how to work with service providers to obtain outcomes - these are all social contracts that individuals and communities can make with organisations.
Together, Scotland can show the lead in person centred, collaborative ways of working that mean we make the most of scarce resources. The SCVO, Scottish Government and EU support for the Digital Participation Fund provided a recent Grant Award to Mydex for work with citizens in East Lothian. This will enable person centred identity and personal data services to maximise the public value and citizen participation in digital content, networks and skills for the Third Sector.
Citizen engagement in democratic activities has grown in 2014. It's now time for individuals, families and communities to be able to play a more equal role with organisations in and across Scotland and the UK. In order to create a different Scotland, one might imagine a living laboratory for individuals and communities to come together and demonstrate social progress and civic inclusion. Empowerment is a way to support citizens, and organisations in Scotland need to work with the people and their communities, placing people at the centre.
Health and social care integration is one place where this might start. The individual can be the centre point for this integration; the person, community, and place round which services are designed and delivered. Unless these services are redesigned in a person centred way, there will be severe consequences for our own and our children's generation.
Scotland's people have shown recently how they wish to engage, to be heard and to influence the social contract in our country. There is an opportunity now for mutual trust and reciprocity to enable citizens to be at the centre of civic society, and to work with one another to design public services that meet the needs of individuals and not just the needs of providers.
Users of services in Scotland are the people most able to know how to improve them.
Last modified on 22 January 2020
