10.00-11.00 CEST

As parliaments develop more channels for citizens to submit their views, many are then faced with the challenge of having to process large volumes of comments and submissions within what often are tight political timings and unhelpful processes. This is clearly a challenge faced by many parliaments so we have put together two IPU/IPEN Public Engagement Hub seminars on the topic to discuss different types of approaches.

In this first seminar, we will hear about how staff in the parliament of New Zealand have addressed this challenge by making sure citizens' evidence is considered by Members in committees. The focus will be on how the increasing number of submissions has changed how members get information from them, and proposes how members can engage with the data more directly.

This will be supplemented by a case study at the Scottish Parliament, which will outline how the Parliament analyses and processes mass citizens submissions. The focus will be on engagement for the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Bill and the Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill which received over 4,000 responses from the public.

Language(s): English, French, Spanish

This webinar is jointly organised by the IPU and the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN). 

The event is part of the series of webinars hosted by the Public engagement hub in IPU’s Centre for Innovation in Parliament in follow-up to the 2022 IPU-UNDP Global Parliamentary Report on Public engagement in the work of parliament.

For more information, please contact [email protected].

Find out how to join the International Parliament Engagement Network: ipen-network.org.

To engage with participants before and after the event, join the Public engagement LinkedIn page.

Speaker(s) details:

• Katherine Farmer (Senior Business Analyst, Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives, New Zealand Parliament);
• Alistair Stoddart (Senior Participation Specialist, Participation and Communities Team, The Scottish Parliament)