From Freddos to Frank’s Law: An Assessment of the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions System
Introduction
This post provides an overview of our latest academic paper, From Freddos to Frank’s Law: An Assessment of the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions System. The paper is published in the journal Scottish Affairs. The published copy is available here and an open access version (Accepted Manuscript) is available here. The full citation is:
Murray, K., Blackburn, L.H. and Mackenzie, L. (2026) ‘From Freddos to Frank’s Law: An Assessment of the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions System’, Scottish Affairs, 35(3), pp. 402–423
Background to the petitions system
The opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 saw the establishment of a public petitions system, aimed at strengthening the relationship between the public and the Parliament. Since 1999 the Public Petitions Committee has received over 2,200 admissible petitions covering a vast range of subjects.
Some petitions have led to significant legislative change. For example, a 2014 petition on transvaginal mesh eventually led to the Transvaginal Mesh Removal (Cost Reimbursement) (Scotland) Act, 2022. Similarly, a petition to extend free personal care to adults aged under 65 also prompted legislative change (Frank’s law).
Most petitions, however, either do not succeed in their aims or are simply rejected (not lodged for further consideration). Over 1,300 petitions were rejected in parliamentary Session 6 (May 2021 to April 2026).
Our interest in the petitions system
Our interest here was prompted by our own experiences with the Public Petitions Committee.
In June 2021 we lodged a petition ‘calling on the Scottish Parliament ‘to urge the Scottish Government to require Police Scotland, the Crown Office and the Scottish Court Service to record accurately the sex of people charged with or convicted of rape or attempted rape.’
The Committee closed the petition over four years later, in December 2025. This made it the joint longest-running petition in Session 6, excluding those inherited from previous sessions.
To better understand our experience here, we looked at how the public petitions system works and how it has changed over time drawing on a range of secondary sources. These include parliamentary publications (Scottish Parliament Annual Statistics, committee reports, correspondence, evaluations and data published by the Parliament) and academic literature. We also constructed a dataset based on records of 2,208 petitions formally lodged, from the first petition lodged on 14 June 1999 to 1 December 2025.1 2 3
Our key findings are summarised below.
Key Findings
Public engagement
Public engagement with the petitions system has fallen over time. Engagement was highest in the early years of the Scottish Parliament, with 629 petitions lodged in Session 1 (1999-2003), most likely reflecting the optimism associated with its establishment. Numbers remained reasonably steady until around 2008/9.
Engagement was at its lowest in Sessions 4 and 5 (with 217 and 257 petitions lodged respectively between 2011 and 2021). Some recovery is evident from 2019/20 onward, with 345 petitions lodged in Session 6.
Who uses the petition system?
The Committee does not collect demographic data on petitioners, making it impossible to assess who is making use of the system. Older evaluations (see here and here) found petitioners to be disproportionately older, male, middle-class, and educated to degree level.
This issue is not unique to the Petitions Committee. In 2022 the Equality and Human Rights Commission stated that, to the best of its knowledge, neither the Parliament nor its Committees collected equality data on those they engage with. What is striking here, is that the Petitions Committee previously collected equality data, but no longer does so.
The demise of equality monitoring
In 2004 (Session 2) the Committee introduced an equality monitoring form for petitioners.4 This was discontinued in Session 4.5 Following a 2015 evaluation, the Session 4 Committee Legacy Paper recommended ‘relevant demographic information should be sought from petitioners on an ongoing basis’. This was not taken forward.
Sex
Our own analysis suggests the sex balance of petitioners has improved, with around 47% of individual petitions submitted by women in Session 6, compared to under a quarter (23%) in Session 1.6 In the absence of demographic data, it was not possible to assess any other characteristics.
Political insiders
Whilst aimed at connecting the Parliament with the public, the petitions system remains open to those with established access to policy and lawmakers, including trade unions, political parties, large charities, and local authorities.7
Engagement by those with lobbying access has mostly fallen away, although there is still some activity, for example, by trades unions.8 Whether the Parliament intended the system to be used in this way, occupying ‘time which might be used to consider petitions from other parts of society’ deserves further consideration.9
Non-Scottish residents
Petitions can be submitted to the Scottish Parliament from anywhere in the world. For example, media reports (here and here) highlighted three petitions calling for the decriminalisation of adult consensual incest from an Australian resident.10
A lack of data makes it impossible to assess the number of non-resident applications and, relatedly, the parliamentary time spent on such cases.
Operation of the Committee
Length of consideration
Despite a lower volume, our own analysis cautiously suggests that petitions remain under consideration for longer, compared to the early years of the Scottish Parliament.11
An 2006 evaluation of the petitions system by Professor Christopher Carman covering the period from 1999 to 2006 reported that ‘the average number of days a petition is open and considered by the Parliament is 268 days’.
Our analysis indicates that the average period of consideration in Session 6 was 434 calendar days. This is around 1.6 times higher than the earlier period, despite a lower volume of petitions.
Referrals to specialist committees
Very few petitions are now referred to subject Committees in the wider parliament. In Session 6, the Committee referred just 3% of petitions to specialist subject committees, compared to 36% in Session 1. We think this raises questions about the Committee’s own capacity for scrutiny and specialist input. It may also help to explain the longer consideration time noted above.
Meeting in private
The proportion of Committee meetings held partly or wholly in private has increased significantly, from just 4% in Session 1, to 73% in Session 6.
Make Freddos 10p again: rejected petitions and lack of right to appeal
Unlike the UK Government and Welsh Government petitions system (see here and here), information on rejected petitions is not published by the Scottish Parliament. This is despite repeat recommendations to do so (see here and here).
We accessed a list of rejected petitions via Freedom of Information, which can be accessed here. This shows that the Committee rejected over 1,300 petitions in Session 6, ranging from serious proposals to the comical, including ‘Make Freddos 10p again’, ‘Make Chewbaka [sic] the national animal of Scotland’ and ‘Tell Stephen Kerr to stop his bashing of the table during PM’S questions’.
There is no appeals mechanism for rejected petitioners.
Missing data
At the petition level, the workings of the Committee are generally transparent. Most documentation is published, including responses from third parties, such as government or public bodies.
The Committee does not, however, publish its own correspondence. This means there is no way of examining how requests for information are made or how quickly responses are received, or indeed, if they are simply ignored. It is also not possible to see how reasons for closing a petition are explained to petitioners.
At the Committee level, it is much harder to evaluate its work. Data on petitioner demographics, average petition duration, inadmissible/rejected petitions, and change over time is either publicly unavailable or requires interrogation of individual records and/or quantitative data skills to generate. As noted above, the petitions system remains open to those with ready access to parliamentarians, as well as non-Scottish residents. A lack of data on engagement makes it hard to assess whether this level of openness is the best use of limited parliamentary resources.
Information on rejected petitions remains unavailable, despite calls to publish this (see here and here). Decision-making here is likely to be guided by clerks and the Convener. A lack of data makes it impossible to ascertain how that control is exerted. The lack of any form of appeal system puts decisions on inadmissibility, as well as formal Committee decision-making, beyond formal scrutiny or challenge. That more of the Committee’s work is now held in private adds to this overall picture.
Conclusion
The Petitions Committee undertakes scrutiny across an extraordinary range of subjects. The work is resource intensive, involving discussions between parliamentary staff and petitioners, research across a myriad of subjects, contacting and following up on enquiries to Ministers and other public bodies, legal enquiries, records management, interactions with other committees and publication of annual and other reports. Since the start of Session 6, the Committee sought a SPICe briefing and initial response from government for all admissible petitions.
It is clear that some petitions have led to significant and important policy or legislative change. In our own case, the material extracted at various stages proved valuable in compelling organisations to explain their actions and part of a process that ultimately led to a positive outcome.
Yet beyond individual petition records, it is hard to scrutinise the work of the Committee overall, and assess whether the heavy use of parliamentary resources delivers value, or if a more efficient system is possible.
Our own findings here suggest slower petition handling, despite a smaller absolute number being considered, fewer referrals to other Committees, a relatively high proportion of submitted petitions being rejected, and more work done in private sessions. Whether any of this, not least the greater use of private sessions, reflects wider cultural trends in the Parliament is a further question. Our findings also raise questions about the demise of equality monitoring, the use of the petitions system by registered lobbyists, transparency, and the handling of inadmissible petitions.
The 2006 evaluation of the petitions system by Professor Carman observed that ‘finding the proper balance between effectiveness and efficiency is not an easy task’. Without reliable and accessible data on the working of the Committee, that task is made much harder.
We believe that for as long as the Parliament continues to invest in a resource-intensive petitions system, it should be far more straightforward to assess its benefits.
Notes
- Parliamentary records indicate that no further petitions were lodged in Session 6 after this date ↩︎
- The dataset is based on two sources. These are a spreadsheet listing petitions considered in Session 6, and detailed Historic Petitions records, both published by the Scottish Parliament. As noted, the final dataset (after minor tidying) consists of 2,208 petitions. ↩︎
- Parliamentary records indicate that no further petitions were lodged in Session 6 after this date. ↩︎
- See Public Petitions Committee Convenor Michael McMahon evidence to the Equalities Committee, 12 December 2006 (col. 2065). ↩︎
- Session 4 Annual Reports show examples of petitions that are seen as ‘mainstreaming’ equalities issues, thereby replacing the petitioner with the subject matter as the focus. ↩︎
- Figures are based on the most likely sex of primary petitioners, as indicated by name, title, and/or references in the petition literature. The analysis is limited to petitions submitted by individuals, with either one or two named petitioners of the same sex (N=1,336). Petitions are the primary unit of analysis, meaning that multiple petitions submitted by the same person are c counted as separate items, to account for the cumulative demand on parliamentary resources. ↩︎
- Until April 2004 MSPs could and did submit petitions. Of the fourteen petitions submitted by MSPs, Scottish Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs, in coalition government at the time, accounted for half (PE00240, PE00524, PE00543, PE00627, PE00665, PE00689, PE00772). SNP MSP Christine Grahame accounted for a further five (PE00628, PE00642, PE00664, PE00754, PE00753). ↩︎
- For example, Session 6 saw two petitions lodged on behalf of Trades Unions (PE2200, PE2120). This compares to 22 petitions submitted by Trades Unions in Session 1, and ten in Session 2, and seven in Session 3. ↩︎
- See Bochel, 2012. ↩︎
- See PE01599, PE01614 and PE01681. In each case, the petition was quickly closed. Nonetheless, the Committee expended time and resources in doing so, generating two SPICe briefings, brief consideration at three Committee meetings, and administrative work. ↩︎
- We compare our figures to the evaluation undertaken by Professor Christopher Carman, published in 2006. We understood his reported figures to refer to calendar days rather than sitting days, although without clarification in the text, we cannot be absolutely certain. The author did not respond to a request for clarification. ↩︎