Inaugural Meeting of Our Convention

Work to establish a Convention for Scotland’s Future is now under way, with its first meeting planned to take place on St. Andrew’s Day, Saturday 30 November 2024 at the Greyfriars Charteris Centre in Edinburgh.   Current information and the application form for individual participants are here.  

Following initial Planning Assemblies held in Stirling in February 2024 and online in June 2024, attended by representatives of IFS member organisations, a seven-person Convention Project Planning Team has been put in place to make arrangements for this inaugural event.

Mission Statement

The following draft mission statement outlines the proposed aims of our Convention:

 “Our aim is to provide a public forum which unites the whole of society with regular discussion and open debate, free from party politics, on matters of  critical importance to the nation, and with a clear focus on Scotland’s future and the achievement of meaningful self-determination.”

Those taking part in the Convention will be invited to consider this draft, with a view to arriving at a final version by the close of the inaugural meeting.

Programme for the Inaugural Meeting

The programme, current at 20 September, can be found here. 

The main topics are: 

• Why and where are the UK and Scotland failing?
• followed by three main discussion topics
  • Modern Governance for Scotland – Direct Democracy andDemocratic Decentralisation
  • Land Reform and Land Taxation
  • Reform of Energy Generation and Supply

Convention Participants

We are planning for there to be 120 participants in our Convention, comprising 70 individuals from around Scotland and 50 representatives of civil organisations with a similar geographical spread. There will also be some room for observers to attend. No elected politicians will be involved at this stage. Participants will be welcome at the Convention whatever view they may currently hold on the question of self-determination for Scotland.

Individual Members – current thinking

The 70 individual members of our National Convention will comprise

• three from each of Scotland’s eight electoral regions (24)

• one from each of the three island council areas (3)

• other volunteers to be found through publicity in media and elsewhere (43)

To be eligible, individual members must be aged 16 or over, be a permanent resident in Scotland and have lived in Scotland for more than five years.

Civil Organisations – current thinking

To be eligible to be invited to our Convention, a civil organisation must be headquartered in Scotland.  Since many national and professional bodies already have their voices heard, the majority of those invited will be local organisations.  The envisaged mix is:

• national bodies, such as unions, pastoral, care, land reform, professional, where we will attempt to find umbrella bodies (10)

• local bodies, with five each from Scotland’s eight electoral regions (40)

For the 30 November meeting of the Convention, the aim will be for a significant proportion of the organisations to reflect the three broad topics of the day – Modern Governance, Land Reform and Taxation, and Energy.

Further updates on progress will be available on this page and through our network of member organisations.