Dunfermline was granted the status of city as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022. This historical milestone opens up opportunities for Dunfermline to reflect on its past, strengthen its community in the present and lay the foundations for a brighter future.
During the past year, the Electoral Reform Society, Fife Council and the Scottish Government worked with the local community to devise the plans for the city’s future through a mini-public, the New City Assembly. The participants, selected by sortition, learned together, deliberated and made suggestions to the Council for how Dunfermline should evolve in this new era of its history.
LSE Consulting's Education, Youth and Civic Engagement (EYCE) Hub was commissioned to conduct a three-pronged evaluation of the Dunfermline New City Assembly, including an Ecological Evaluation, a Formative Evaluation, and a Summative Final Evaluation.
- The ecological evaluation situated the Assembly within Dunfermline’s civic and institutional landscape. This included an analysis of its fit with the local ecology of participation, the theories underlying its design, the democratic capabilities built by the process, and stakeholder perspectives on its legitimacy and sustainability.
- The second phase (formative evaluation) involved close collaboration between the research and implementation teams throughout the assembly weekends. Using observation and informal conversations with participants, stakeholders, and facilitators, the teams worked together in real time to improve the process as it unfolded, grounded in mutual trust and shared goals.
- The final phase, through to the final evaluation report, assessed the quality of the deliberative process, its impact on participants and on policy, and the conditions for its long-term sustainability. It also explored the broader uses and scalability of 'ultra-local' (locally rooted) deliberative assemblies as a model for democratic innovation in Scotland and beyond.
This project reflects the EYCE Hub’s commitment to rigorous, applied research that informs democratic innovation and strengthens civic engagement.