Coalition of Community Groups Tells ScotGov: “Enough Tokenisation”

JustCitizens, along with a coalition of community groups representing marginalised communities throughout Scotland, has written to the Scottish Government to say: “Enough tokenisation”.

With our Open Letter, we have alerted the Scottish Government to our concerns regarding tokenisation of marginalised communities. We have raised the alarm on how superficial and disingenuous attempts at implementing “participatory” decision-making risk further eroding trust within our communities in institutions.

For the past few years, Scottish Government has highlighted that increasing inclusion, participatory governance, and trust-building amongst marginalised communities was a key priority. We welcomed this news with open-hearts and dedication. We engaged in consultations, lived experience panels, advisory boards, and other forums that were created on Scottish Government’s terms. Despite systemic barriers such as poverty, racism, sexism, ableism, and other forms of structural discrimination, we have given our time, energy, testimonies, ideas, and cooperation. We have gone into discussions trusting that Scottish Government were operating in good faith, wanting to make things better for our communities.

Instead, we have been ignored. Our voices were used as a tokenisation exercise, then pushed aside. Our concerns, our stories, our experiences, our opinions, our communities- ignored. We refuse to have our engagement be used to justify policies that go against the interests of our communities. We refuse to be photo-ops. We refuse to be tokenised.

We are calling on Scottish Government to take clear and defined steps towards:

Participatory budgeting 

Co-production of policy from start to finish rather than limiting participation to consultations and lived experience boards as add-ons 

Clear accountability protocols  

Commitment to breaking down the structural and systemic barriers that prevent marginalised communities from engaging with government 

Bringing policymaking to the people  

Being led by the communities you are elected to serve 

 

Read our open letter here: Open Letter

 

If you would like to add your organisation or group’s name to the letter, please email jrfa@justrightscotland.org.uk