Community groups can make a request to public service bodies, like Fife Council, to become involved in planning improvements to services. They can do this by submitting a ‘participation request’. Participation requests are designed to help groups highlight community needs and issues and to become directly involved in change or improvement. They are designed to build on existing good quality community engagement and participation processes, not replace them and not as a way of submitting complaints.
A participation request can be used to:
- help start a dialogue about something that matters to the community - highlighting needs, issues or opportunities for improvement;
- help people have their voice heard in policy and service development by contributing to decision making processes;
- help people to participate in the design, delivery, monitoring or review of service provision through to service change or improvement; and
- help people to challenge a decision and seek support for alternative approaches that would improve outcomes.
How to make a participation request
You can only make a request as part of an eligible ‘community body’. This means the community body must have a membership which is open to the community and whose work benefits the community.