The Governance Group has a number of active members, a full list is shown below.

Current focus

LINK’s Manifesto and advocacy for Holyrood elections, 2026

We are currently working on our manifesto for the next Scottish election. It will set out the key policies and actions that the next Scottish Government must undertake to address the nature and climate emergencies, and will be available online from mid-September. Member organisation manifestos will appear via a link here too.

Environmental Governance in Scotland and wider UK, especially post-Brexit

We monitor and assess the progress of Environmental Standards Scotland (and provide support and advice to other groups/members on ESS matters), as well as monitoring the implementation in Scotland of the EU environmental principles.

We seek to influence the implementation of UK-wide post-Brexit arrangement affecting the environment, such as the UK Internal Market Act and Common Frameworks. Much of this is done in partnership with sister LINKs and the Green Alliance.

We press the Scottish Government to introduce, as promised, a Human Right to a Healthy Environment (including full substantive and procedural rights), via its planned Human Rights (Scotland) Bill.

Lloyd Austin

Rachael Fairbairn

Dan Paris

Other areas the group work on include:

We monitor and seek to influence the implementation in Scotland of the Aarhus Convention on access to information; access to justice in environmental matters; public participation in decision-making. We seek to ensure better, or preferably full, compliance with the Convention.

We monitor and seek to improve governance structures in Scotland for environment and land or sea management, following the principles set out in our Governance Matters report that reviewed the legislative, executive, judicial and civil branches of government in Scotland over the years since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. We will monitor the Scottish Government’s delivery of environmental outcomes against policy objectives, and seek to reduce the gap between rhetoric and reality.

Other governance matters as and when they arise either through events such as referendums or proposed legislation.