Over the past year, communities across Scotland have come together to get us through this pandemic.
As we start to rebuild, all of us can be part of that effort. If we want a Scotland that is built for us, it has to be built by us.
We are calling for parties to:
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Back a new way of doing local democracy – by letting communities set up local Citizens’ Assemblies to plan their areas’ futures.
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Introduce an ambitious Local Democracy Bill, that makes it easy for people to take power back to where they are.
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Sign up to the Declaration on Local Democracy (below), enshrining a principle of local community power
It’s time to move power from distant cities and dusty chambers back into our neighbourhoods.
*A citizens' assembly is a group of local people, chosen so they reflect the population, who are brought together to learn about and discuss issues, and reach a conclusion about what they think should happen.
Declaration on Local Democracy
Democracy is the right for people to decide how the place where they live is run. But too few people now believe that this right is being honoured. So we are calling for a new democracy which is ready to help us build for a hundred years to come.
First, decisions must be made for each place, in that place, by the people who live there.
Second, we must create a democracy that involves us all the time, where citizens do not just choose rulers but shape the rules.
Third, the right to choose must be matched by the power to do – and the power to do must be matched with the resource to do it.
This is our simple vision for our future; a truly local democracy, a truly participatory democracy and a truly powerful democracy.
It is not enough that the future is built for us, it must be built by us.
Read the full declaration here
