How parliaments organise public engagement services: Brazil, Ghana and Scotland

11 February 2026

Speakers: Enock Adomah (Administrator for the Department of Public Engagement, Parliament of Ghana); Sally Coyne (Head of Public Engagement Services Office, Scottish Parliament); Rodolfo Vaz (Coordinator of Digital Solutions for Citizens, Chamber of Deputies, Brazil)

Chair:  Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds and Chair of IPEN)

Details: This IPEN in-conversation seminar will explore how parliaments organise public engagement services. The seminar is a direct response to a request by one of our new members, who is currently involved in a re-development of their public engagement services.

Public engagement is understood in many different ways across parliaments, with some putting more emphasis on education, others on participation and others still on communications; or a combination of these. This results in very different types of services supporting public engagement activity. This can matter in the way public engagement relates to other activities, such as parliamentary business.

Public engagement services also vary very considerably in size across parliaments. Some parliaments may have one small team that needs to attend to every public engagement need, perhaps keeping everything well integrated and connected – to the detriment of capacity to undertake a high number of activities.

Other parliaments have separate services that address different aspects of public engagement, being able to provide a high number (and often more complex) set of activities – but perhaps resulting more in a culture of silos, where each service does their own thing.

In conversation with Cristina Leston-Bandeira, we will hear from representatives from the parliaments of Brazil, Ghana and Scotland – three different types of parliaments that have organised their public engagement services in different ways.

The in-conversation format will enable us to examine how each parliament has organised their public engagement services, the reasons for this and how effective these structures are in facilitating meaningful parliamentary public engagement services.

The seminar will end with a Q&A and discussion.

More information

This online seminar will take place in MS Teams and is open to members of the International Parliament Engagement Network (IPEN).

Find out more about the network.

Images

1. Parliament House (State House) – Parliament of Ghana. Photo by Wgsohne. CC BY-SA.
2. Palácio do Congresso Nacional, Brasília, Brazil. Photo by Cristina Leston-Bandeira.
3. Exterior view of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Photo courtesy of the Scottish Parliament.