The Scottish Government pitted “Lived Experience” against professional expertise

Four academics, including three with close and valued ties to Common Weal, have published a new academic paper this week examining the Scottish Government’s use of “lived experience” in policymaking and found that they often did so at the expense of professional expertise or systemic rationale.

The paper, written by Sebastian Monteux, Mark Smith, Marion MacLeod and Jane Fenton, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Scottish Affairs and specifically critiques the Government’s strategy in policymaking as one that ultimately harms both policies and the relations between the Government and stakeholders. The saga of the National Care Service Bill is the prime example used to illustrate where this led.

In that case, the Government spent great effort to set up a varied network of stakeholder groups, consultations, public conferences and other meetings while at the same time often producing policy regardless of or even despite the outcome of those meetings. When professional carer organisations, academics or other experts critiqued aspects of the policies, the Government turned to the “lived experience” of the cared for instead.

As the paper points out, there are good reasons to include all those affected by policies, and the place of the cared for in discussions about care is vital. Neither this briefing nor the paper itself says that the lived experience of the cared for should be diminished. To ignore them completely is to revert to a paternalistic approach where policy is done to the people rather than created with or by them.

What happened in the case of the NCS, though, was that “lived experience” was held up as more important than expert critical voices and was effectively used to drown the latter out. Worse, it was done without even well defining the term, without demonstrating how it might be measured and without explaining how the lived experience of the cared for was actually used to create or improve care policy. In essence, the Government used the term to shield themselves from informed critique while callously using those with experience of care to push through their own agenda. This served only to erode the trust between carers and Government, the cared for and Government and, worst of all, between carers and the cared for. All while not resulting in a coherent policy for care or the creation of a National Care Service.

Once again, this stands in stark contrast to the way that Common Weal advocates that policymaking should be done. Key stakeholders should be identified and included from the start, and one group of those stakeholders absolutely should be those who stand to be most directly impacted by the policy. Contrasting with our negative experiences of the NCS Bill, we would suggest our recent positive experiences of working with the Global South to influence Circular Economy policies in Scotland are a much better example of where the lived experience of those affected by waste produced by the Global North can be complemented by expert advice on how to solve the problem.

We would also add our experiences of the 2021 Scottish Climate Assembly, where ordinary citizens were able to use the advice of experts to produce extremely well thought-through and detailed policy advice to the Scottish Government – albeit with the caveat that, in that case, the Government didn’t set ordinary people against the experts but rather merely ignored both.

Policy is too important to be decided based on waving around the latest buzzword or by doling out favours to loyal cheerleaders. It must be based on rigorous data, expert advice from those who must deliver the policy AND the advice of those who are on the receiving end. Elevating one above the others just leads to the same kind of failure that collapsed the NCS Bill, which should stand as an example for this new Parliament that must not be repeated.

Mark Smith and Marion MacLeod have agreed to write an article for our Friday Magazine next week that goes into a bit more detail about their paper, so please make sure that you are subscribed to that and that you are subscribed to our Daily Briefing. Click the link here to sign up.