The complex questions on payments and participation
/This article was featured in the SCDC Weekly - 16th September 2026
A blog and upcoming webinar are exploring the relationship between payments and participation, helping to answer the surprisingly complex question: "Should people be paid for their participation?"
On the face of it, the answer might seem straightforward. If someone contributes their time, expertise and experience, surely, they should be paid? Yet anyone involved in co-production or other forms of participation knows that the reality is far more nuanced than that.
Payment might help remove barriers, value expertise and possibly share power more fairly. At the same time, volunteering can create opportunities for independence, challenge, solidarity and civic action that might be harder to maintain when participation becomes a financial transaction.
Perhaps the most important lesson emerging from practice across Scotland is that this is rarely a simple choice between one or the other.
Instead, we need to think carefully about how we all value participation, ensuring shared decisions are made, and collaborative agreement reached on what kind of approach best supports meaningful involvement in each context.
Read the full blog here with some final webinar places available - 22 September, 1pm-2pm.