Welcome to my website. I'm Debbie Wilkie,
Director of the Scottish Civic Forum and Education SCF and Director of Wilkie Associates providing a range of consultancy services: HR advice, training and policy development support.
After leaving school I worked for a number of years in the Scottish Office as a Policy
Manager in areas including steel, shipbuilding, area policy, local government and fisheries. I also worked and
qualified as a Trainer designing and delivering training for middle managers and fast stream staff on working with government
ministers. In 1999 I was appointed on secondment to set up the Scottish Civic
Forum.
The Civic Form was set up in parallel to the Scottish Parliament to help more people to have their
voices heard in the decisions that affect them. I was appointed as the Forum's Director in April 2004. Following
early funding by the Scottish Executive, a change of government Ministers led to a shift in government priorities in the participation
agenda and a decision, given to the Forum in February 2005, not to core fund the Forum after March 2006 with a drastic scale
down (50%) in funding from April 2005.
The Forum currently operates as a project funded organisation and also carries out some work on a
commercial basis.
Through the Civic Forum I have been fortunate to meet lots of people, who, like me, are are
committed to upholding the aims of the Scottish Parliament - to bring policy making closer to the people of Scotland.
It has given me a very different perspective from that of a civil servant. I believe that sustainable decision making
relies on dialogue with Scottish citizens. This, for me, means that people in Scotland should be involved
in policy development processes from the earliest stage, participating in how policy develops and influencing final decisions.
The Scottish Parliament is much more accessible than Westminster. However, desk research shows that those
giving written and oral evidence to inform policies being considered by Parliament are mostly from organised, fairly well
resourced groups and from public bodies. The presence of a wider range of people - the local lunch club or
the local credit union and many other locally led community groups and individuals whose voices we hoped would be heard
when the Parliament was established at Holyrood, still seems to be missing. Part of the Civic Forum's role is to 'mind
that gap'.
Similarly, some well-known political commentators have gathered together and published views about the Parliament.
The 'citizens' stories' project aims to collect a wider range of views, to complement this work.
I believe that we must continue our quest towards greater civic involvement, not simpy to secure greater social justice,
but to ensure that decisions taken are based on the fullest and best information available - in fact that decisions are
sustainable. This is not an isolated view - it mirrors one of the five principles set out in the Scottish Executive's
Sustainable Development Strategy
'Choosing Our Future'.
I was granted Chartered Membership of the CIPD in 2005 and recently graduated with an MA in Human Resource
Management and Development from Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University. The subject of my dissertation
was: "The impact on volunteer activity of motivation, expectation and psychodynamics: Volunteering below the Surface".
