The SCPO exists to support Scotland's churches to engage with
the political process at a Scottish and UK level. We help the
churches feed their commitments and experience into the development
of legislation and advise them on the most effective ways of doing
this. There is a full SCPO briefing paper, Making a
Difference, full of detailed advice and insight on how to build
relationships with your Parliamentary representatives and to
contribute to the decision making processes. Making a
Difference includes a step by step guide from identifying the issue
you want to raise, to finding the best way of doing this along with
the popular, 'Ten Commandments for Lobbying'. Click here to download
Making a Difference
To illustrate how SCPO can support you, we present an overview
of a successful piece of partnership working between the SCPO and
Eco-Congregation Scotland.
Putting Public Engagement at the heart of the Climate
Change Act
During the passage of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill,
Eco-Congregation Scotland became concerned that the emphasis on
targets and legislation could be meaningless unless communities
across Scotland were committed to cutting their carbon
footprints.
Working with the SCPO, Eco-congregations mobilised congregations
to contact their MSPs to urge them to ask the Government how they
planned to engage communities in meeting the ambitious target of an
80% reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases by 2050.
At the same time as building this popular support and
communicating with MSPs, SCPO and Eco-Congregation Scotland
targeted MSPs who were sympathetic to these concerns and worked
with them to draft an amendment to the Bill.
An amendment committing the Government to developing a Public
Engagement Strategy was subsequently laid and incorporated into the
Bill; a huge success!
This case study shows how eco-congregations' expertise and
commitment to community involvement in fighting climate change,
combined with SCPO's parliamentary knowledge and capacity,
delivered real change to our world-leading climate change
legislation, putting communities at the heart of this Bill.