Citizen Power In Glasgow

The CCI champions new ways of working across the council and with city partners; fostering a collaborative approach involving citizens throughout the design process from initial research to co-designing solutions and leading civic innovation across the city. It is critical to informing our Open Government priority on participatory democracy, designing a new participatory decision-making system for citizens in Glasgow - ensuring whatever is designed will work for the people of Glasgow, the Council, and city stakeholders. As a city, Glasgow needs to find new, creative and innovative ways to solve our challenges within the context of challenging public sector budgets, a cost of living crisis facing many Glaswegians, and as our economy recovers from global pandemic and challenges. The CCI programme will develop new thinking, learn from others, and test various methods to implement a future approach which will work best for the citizens of Glasgow, and ultimately achieve more successful and sustainable outcomes for communities with stakeholders and resources aligned.

The CCI is pioneering our new approach to a citizen-centred, design-led approach within Glasgow City Council, creating an innovative and consistent model to engage and collaborate with people across the city, developing a joined-up system for people, place and services in Glasgow.

The programme is currently focussed on Citizen Power, but as we look to scale up the impact of our Open Government Strategy for citizens, our model and approach can be applied across other policy priorities, services and public sector partners. For example, the Including Young People Voices work in Greater Pollok has already progressed with the CCI and local partners working with the young people on Open Space and Planning to co-design a model to gather “citizen data” on Play in the city. The knowledge gained will be used in Local Development and City Plans, allowing the Council to co-design solutions directly with young people in their area - prototyping in local schools but with ambition to scale up across the city over the year.