Democracy Matters phase 2 - postponed

March 20, 2020

Democracy Matters, the ongoing conversation with communities around Scotland around improving local democracy and community empowerment, has had to be postponed due to coronavirus.

Seperately, due to unforeseen circumstances, the Scottish Government had to postpone the planned launch of the second phase of the Local Governance Review on 12 March.

Subsequently, with new public health measures on coronavirus announced this week, the government has announced it will not be possible for Democracy Matters conversations to take place in the immediate future. This is due to the health and wellbeing of people being the primary concern. 

The Scottish Government says it hopes to restart the conversations as soon as it is safe and practical to do so. A small group of stakeholders from the community sector, equalities interests, Local Government, and the Scottish Government met with the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government and the COLSA President on 12 March to discuss their hopes for the next phase of engagement, once it gets underway.

We'll post more information when it becomes available. In the meantime, you can find out more about Democracy Matters on the following links.

• See Scottish Community Development Centre's response to the first stage of Democracy Matters
• See the Scottish Government's webpage on the Local Governance Review, which Democracy Matters is part of