Most committees are supported by an integrated team made up of clerks, PCO, SPICe, PACT and (sometimes) Legal. Keeping everyone involved and up to date when work is moving fast can be challenging. We suggest a test where a couple of committee teams are supported to work together to design their communications strategy, addressing things like tracking inquiries, the use made of team meetings and how to follow up actions from committee meetings.
I think it would be very helpful to improve ways of sharing information about current work, and where possible, upcoming work, across clerking, SPICe, PACT and PCO teams. This would support scrutiny of topics that cut across several committee remits and help to identify early on where some form of coordination or collaborative inquiry may generate more impact. It could help to make more efficient use of internal resource and maximise benefits from more strategic public and expert engagement.
It's an obvious point, but I'd stress the importance of always bringing in other teams and working with them from the very start of the inquiry process, and not just paying lip-service to this.
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