Welcome Back My Friends...

... To The Show That Never Ends by Emerson Lake and Palmer was one of the first elbums I every bought (from a place called Easy Rider in Forrest Road in Edinburgh). Triple album. Wow! Anyway, Tuesday sees the final meeting of 2009 of the committee but, of course, the work continues in 2010 with a very full programme of meetings and external events. We are already filling the agendas for January meetings. The work goes on. So that's this week's tenuous musical link.
Two oral presentations on Tuesday. The first will take the form of a round table discussion on two petitions relating to school bus safety. Taking part are petitioners Ron Beaty and Lynn Merrifield, along with Malcolm Bruce MP, Garth Goddard of the Yellow School Bus Commission, a representative from Aberdeenshire Council and Josh Kane MSYP who is the Convener of the Scottish Youth Parliament Transport, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee. Those following the committee will be aware of the past consideration it has given to these petitions, mainly around the issues of seat belts and improving safety signage on school buses.
The second oral presentation relates to George Scott's petition on Haemochromatosis (Iron Overload). There have been a number of health petitions before the committee in recent weeks (eg the last meeting petition on Low Dose Naltrexone). Two very interesting petitions. You can see all the petitions being considered next Tuesday on the agenda. I just hope the meeting doesn't last as long as the ELP album mentioned above! (me, Royal Albert Hall, circa 1995, ELP reunion concert - not 'alf!).
Will post an update after Tuesday's meeting.
All the best,
Fergus, Clerk to the PPC

Local public petitioning processes?

Interesting petition just posted up on our e-petition site which is calling for the introduction by local authorities of locally based public petitioning processes (perhaps modelled on the system we operate here in the Parliament?). This would allow people at a very local level to take forward petitions on more local issues and have them considered (as the national parliament, petitions here must have a national aspect to them).
Of course this was something which the committee looked at during its inquiry into the public petitions process (paras.178-185).
You can of course support this e-petition by simply adding your name online (easy peasy) or posting a comment up to the discussion forum. Looking to put this before the committee at its 26 January meeting.
Fergus, Clerk to the PPC

E-petitioning

The Scottish Parliament was the first legislature in the world to accept e-petitions. A what I hear you ask! Basically, its a petition which we would host on our website which allows people (from all over the world) to go in, view it online, add their e-signature and enter into a discussion forum where they can, if they wish, put forward an opposing view to that set out by the petitioner. You can view our e-petition site here.
E-petitioning is often cited as a good example of e-democracy. Now that opens up an entire debate as to what e-democracy is which I am not going to go into here but we are proud of the opportunity which e-petitioning has provided to encourage and provide a further option for people to participate in the public petitions process as a democratic process. To give you some stats, around 3/4 of the petitions that come forward, the petitioner want to go up as an e-petition. Since 2000 when the first e-petition was hosted, there have been over 100,000 e-signatures and over 3,000 discussion comments. Site usage is over 1 million hits per month. Pretty impressive!
Of course, since then many other legislatures (and local authorities) have introduced e-petitioning systems - Queensland, Bundestag to name two of the big players in this field. E-petitioning has also enhanced the world profile of our public petitioning process here. However, the core of a petitioning process must be the scrutiny that is given to the petition itself, whether e or not. It is what the Parliament does with it. That is where the role of the PPC here is so crucial.
The reason for raising this issue is that we are now taking forward a project to revamp our e-petition site. We want to improve the appearance and functionality of it, introduce more modern technologies eg Web2.0 and offer more facilities to users which will allow us to share more information about the petition with them. Central to this project is ensuring we maintain ease of use for users. So, what would you like our new system to do? If there is a feature which you think the new system should have, let me know. At the end of the day, it must meet the needs of petitioners and the people who want to access e-petitions.
Fergus, Clerk to the PPC
fergus.cochrane@scottish.parliament.uk

What's up this week

Well, committee meeting tomorrow afternoon. Agenda actually not that bad compared with recent weeks. Did get slightly worried that I had maybe left some petitions off by mistake!
Two oral presentations from petitioners on NHS interpretation/translation services and on availability on NHS of low dose naltrexone.
Visiting the committee this week is Johannes Fritz from the University of Erlangen in Germany who is undertaking a research project on behalf of the Petitions Committee of the German Bundestag on e-petitioning. This follows up an earlier visit from Ralf Lindner at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research two years ago. Johannes will watch the committee's meeting tomorrow afternoon and then I'll have a sit down and blether with him on Wednesday morning before he meets Convener in afternoon. He also has other meetings lined up with various academics. Looking forward to sharing some ideas and thoughts on how public petitioning progress are being developed by the committee here and in Germany.
Also on horizon are discussions with the blood donation services in Germany and Greece in connection with petition before the committee at present. This will follow on from the videoconference held with Paris last week (see post below).
Fergus, Clerk to the PPC

Videoconference with Paris

The Committee has gone international again, this time with a videoconference with Paris. Frank McAveety (convener), Anne McLaughlin and Robin Harper heard from Dr Gilles Folléa, Leslie Sobaga and Sophie Skotnicki about how France has been promoting and encouraging blood donation (and eventually succeeded) for the best part of the last 10 years. Dr Folléa is one of the top heads of the Etablissement Français du Sang (EFS), the equivalent of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service.

The videoconference was on the back of petition PE1274 by Andrew Dannet which seeks to introduce a scheme to pay people each time they donate blood and to consider other measures to encourage more people to donate.

We received valuable information based on the French experience which will no doubt assist the Committee's work on the petition. We learned that in France, there are 156 sites where people can donate blood with 85% of these sites being mobile (going from town to town), all this backed up by local and national awareness campaigns pretty much throughout the year. One good idea that they have is that when people donate blood they are asked to make another appointment so that it is not just a one off (men can give blood up to 6 times a year and women up to 4). Donors are then reminded of the appointment by text message.

This was a videoconf which was well worth it and the petition will be back before the Committee in April.

Just to show you how international we really are, la vidéoconference a apporté des éléments neufs et innovateurs qui vont sans nul doute aider le comité dans ses délibérations. L’approche française est certainement un succès et les examples donnés, à la fois simples et pratiques, illustrent une bonne utilisation d’outils informatiques. Par example, lorsque quelqu’un donne du sang, on demande à cette personne de reprendre aussitôt un rendez-vous pour une prochaine fois. Le donneur recevra ensuite un message par texto pour lui rappeler du jour et l’heure du rendez-vous. Simple et efficace!

Merci

Clerking team

Understanding Parliament conference

Last Saturday (21st), over 100 people from small, local community groups around Scotland came together for the 1st ever "Understanding and Influencing Your Parliament" conference. For nearly everyone who came along, this was their first experience of engaging with the Parliament.

The petitions process was at the heart of what we had to share with them. We started the day in the Chamber with five speakers giving short presentations about the Parliament, the Scottish Government and what it is like to be an MSP - especially how constituents can help Members to do their jobs. As the Presiding Officer emphasized, the day was all about "people power". We wanted to show our delegates how they are at the heart of Scotland's political processes, and how they can use them to get their voices heard on their issues. One delegate coined the phrase "a citizens' democracy", which sparked lively debate from our panel. Here you can see petitioner Tina McGeever talking with some of the delegates.

We were delighted to welcome Michelle Stewart, one of our petitioners, to speak in the Chamber. Michelle's input - from the heart and without any notes - clearly showed why she was named as Campaigner of the Year earlier in the week.

Networking in the Garden Lobby had started first thing over coffee and continued over the lunch break. Delegates had a chance to go on a quick tour of Holyrood and to get their pictures taken for use in their local papers, newsletters and websites.

In the afternoon, it was back to the hard work with two workshops.

Fergus and Frank McAveety led sessions on petitions, sharing their knowledge and experience. As delegates departed at the end of the day, many of them mentioned that they were away to think about or even draft a petition so they must have captured everyone's imagination!

Michelle stayed on and we were joined by Tina McGeevor as well - they both contributed to sessions about how to run a campaign. Feedback has been very positive with comments about how much people learnt on the day and how pleased they were to experience their "open and accessible Parliament" in action. This event really showed how the Committee and the Education and Community Partnerships team can work together, with other Members and colleagues of course, to promote the work of the Parliament and how people can get involved, as flagged in the Committee's recent inquiry report. I suspect we'll be called on to run the conference again, judging by its success. Well, at least it keeps Fergus and Frank out of the CD shops on a Saturday afternoon.

Rosemary Everett, Head of Education and Community Partnership Team

Vietnamese delegation

A delegation from the Office of National Assembly of Vietnam visits the Parliament this week for a series of meetings and discussions. The main objective of the visit is to provide an opportunity to learn about the development of devolution in Scotland, relations with the UK Parliament and the other devolved institutions, the role of an MSPs, the support services involved in the work of the Parliament such as information and research, the legislative process and the work of parliamentary committees, the scrutiny role of the Parliament.
I will be meeting the delegation on Wednesday when we will have a blether about our public petitioning process. I met with a similar delegation 12 months ago - I must have said something that interested them!
The group comprises parliamentary officials and I am looking forward to meeting with them.
Fergus, Clerk to the PPC