At its meeting on the 24 June 2008, the Public Petitions Committee agreed to conduct an inquiry into the public petitions process. The inquiry was prompted by the Committee’s consideration of petition PE1065. Its previous consideration of this petition took place on 23 October 2007 and 19 February 2008.

Remit

The Committee agreed the following remit for the inquiry—

"With regards to petition PE1065 and the public petitions process—

• investigate, identify and implement measures to improve awareness of, access to, and participation in the public petitions process
• identify and implement initiatives to assist in the effective and efficient processing of petitions, including what role ICT can play;
• investigate existing methods of scrutiny of petitions and implement new methods or practices to further improve scrutiny

in order to bring about benefits to key players in the petitions process such as potential and actual petitioners, the Public Petitions Committee, the wider Parliament including its other committees, the Scottish Government and other public bodies."

Timetable

The committee has agreed the following timetable for the inquiry in the context of its work programme—

Call for written evidence

The Committee would like to hear from you on the issues raised in the petition and the remit of the inquiry given above. Therefore, to assist those engaging with the Committee, it has produced a series of questions and issues it hopes will act as parameters for the inquiry. These are—

Investigate, identify and implement measures to improve awareness of, access to, and participation in the public petitions process

• Are you aware of the existence of the Parliament’s public petitions process?
• How did you find out about it?
• Would you say you found this easy or difficult?
• How do you think we might improve awareness of the petitions system?
• In terms of the material produced about the petitions system, do you think this is helpful, understandable and easily accessible?
• What improvements do you think we could make to the information we make available about the petitions process?
• What other information do you think we should provide and why?
• In terms of information, has anything hindered your access to, or participation in, the public petitions process?

Identify and implement initiatives to assist in the effective and efficient processing of petitions, including what role ICT can play

• How can the processing of petitions be improved?
• What further methods could the Public Petitions Committee implement to process petitions more effectively?
• What role can ICT play in making the processing of petitions more effective and efficient?
• In relation to e-petitions, how can the Scottish Parliament’s e-petitions procedure be enhanced?
• What additional features would you like to see on the e-petitions website?

Investigate existing methods of scrutiny of petitions and implement new methods or practices to further improve scrutiny

• What are your views on the current methods of scrutiny that are used by the Public Petitions Committee?
• What further initiatives and methods could the Public Petitions Committee use to improve the scrutiny of petitions?
• From your experience as a petitioner, what would you like to have seen done differently?
• What do you think worked well and how do we improve that further?

Submitting evidence

Written submissions (ideally in Word format) to the Committee should be provided in electronic format to petitions@scottish.parliament.uk. Written submissions should, where practicable, be kept as succinct, concise, focussed and non-technical as possible (normally no more than 4 sides of A4). The deadline for receipt of written submissions is 26 September 2008.

Before you submit evidence, please ensure that you have read our policy for handling information received in response to calls for evidence.

Alternative formats

This information is available in alternative formats on request.  Please contact the clerk at the contact details given below if you require an alternative format version of this documentation.

Committee Report

The Committee hopes to report on the inquiry in May 2008. The report will be published on the Committee’s webpage.

Contact

For specific information on the inquiry, please contact the Clerk to the Committee, Fergus Cochrane:

0131 348 5186 TypeTalk calls welcome

(Central) Textphone: 0845 270 0152

fergus.cochrane@scottish.parliament.uk

or

Zoe Tough, Assistant Clerk to the Committee

0131 348 5178

RNID Typetalk: 18001 0131 348 5178

(Central) Textphone: 0845 270 0152

zoe.tough@scottish.parliament.uk