Scottish Fracking Consultations 2017
Conceiving and supporting the first participatory community component in any European national public consultationScottish Government ‘Talking Fracking’ Consultations
In 2017 CCN facilitated a series of 16 community discussions, which formed part of the Scottish Government’s Talking Fracking consultation on Unconventional Oil and Gas (UOG) exploration. These discussions were held in order to communicate local community views and perspectives on UOG and contributed to the Scottish Government’s decision to impose an effective ban on fracking in Scotland in October 2017.
Prior to the moratorium consultation, CCN piloted a community discussion process. Representatives of Scottish communities put this forward to the Scottish Government, who then included a component based on it in their consultation. Some have suggested it may be the first time a participatory community component has been included in a European public consultation.
All 16 consultations were carried out on the behalf of Community Councils in or neighbouring areas designated by the Scottish Government as having UOG resources with the potential for extraction. All discussions were facilitated by CCN working in collaboration with Connecting Scotland (CS). Numbers of attendees ranged between 30-120 participants.
Having observed the highly professional and considerate way CCN organised and facilitated community consultations, we invited them to help us with Bonnybridge’s ‘Talking Fracking’ Consultation.
Due to the high quality of presentation and facilitating skills employed by CCN members, a large group of residents was able to discuss the benefits and risks of fracking in a fair and open forum, and reach a consensual community position.
The meeting received positive feedback from residents, who later approved CCN’s report for accuracy. I would not hesitate to use the CCN team again for future consultations.
We have more than once turned to the Community Chartering Network (CCN) for assistance when an issue has
arisen that has had the potential to illicit differing opinions or perceptions.
CCN ensures everyone is able to express their view, that outcomes are community-led and reflective of the communities views, and that consultation events are well managed and produce consensus in potentially divisive situations.
We would have no hesitation in returning to CCN for assistance and would recommend their services to others.
Process
Each consultation was around 2 hours long and followed the same format of information sharing (50 mins), open group discussion on the potential pros and cons of UOG extraction for their community and Scotland (50 mins), and coming to consensus on the community response to Scottish Government (20 mins). The outcomes were written then up by the CCN and CS facilitators and all participants were invited to amend or object to any part of the written summary.
Following this feedback process, the summary was handed onto the Community Council to submit to the Scottish Government. On all 16 consultations consensus was reached that the outcomes accurately represented collective community position.
You can read CCN’s summary of the outcomes of the 16 consultations, or the individual submissions for Airth, Avonbridge and Standburn, Bonnybridge, Bo’ness, Denny and Dunipace, Grangemouth and Skinflats, Kirkinitilloch, Milton, Plains, Robroyston, Shieldhill and California, Shotts, Saline and Steelend, Torrance and Westfield.
The process highlighted a number of important issues related to citizen participation in democratic decision-making related to issues of local and national importance. These included:
- the absence of effective structures enabling communities to collectively discuss and agree on issues that affect them;
- the capacity of communities to reach sophisticated consensus position on complex divisive issues in a short time, with appropriate support;
- the value of an informed and considered position to Government or other statutory bodies, for enabling them to make decisions and take actions they can feel confident people will be happy with.