Equalities co-production initiative

Objective

 * This initiative will support a partnership of Equalities organisations across the UK to host an open conversation around engaging people furthest from decision making into plans around SDGs and Open Government.
 * Support will be provided by existing partners if the Open Government Pioneers UK Project. However, the overall direction and design will be determined by the equality organisational partners.
 * The purpose of the conversation will be to inform a major bid to the BIG Lottery UK fund to resource a programme of capacity building for people furthest from decision making to engage in SDGs and Open Government.

Intended outcomes
More people have the tools, confidence and resources to overcome the barriers to their participation in the decisions that affect them.

Rationale

 * The Opengovpioneers project opened up engagement with equalities groups, but found a much more intensive capacity building exercise is needed to engage those furthest from the decisions that affect them in using opengov as a way to improve their lives.
 * The Sustainable Development Goals is strongly equality focused and provides a useful (but untested) framework for organising engagement themes with those furthest from decisions.
 * The Open Government methodology, based on securing better transparency, increased participation and clearer accountability is powerful technique but needs to be adapted to those not familiar with the associated language and structures.

Outputs
A proposal is being developed by network members as an option to deliver:
 * An open concept paper on why we need to engage people furthest from decision making into plans around SDGs and Open Government, published and discussed online by the SDG and Open government networks across the UK
 * A series of engagement meetings with key equality groups to develop interest and introduce open government approaches to SDGs
 * A summit held in February to bring together the lead equalities organisations interested to design a major funding proposal building on existing networks and practice
 * Funding proposal developed by a consortium of equality partners and a bid facilitator submitted to Big Lottery Fund UK

Approach
A consortium of equalities orgs led by a key equality network in each UK home nation, back by an online wiki to document and plan progress.

There is an opportunity for the opengovpioneers project to host an initial engagement event, that can be used to develop a proposal to BIG UK.