IJB Lived Experience Voting Rights – Key Information

Lived experience, unpaid carer, and third sector representatives on IJBs will get voting rights from September 2026.

The Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 provides the legislative framework for health and social care integration. It set out the requirement for Integration Authorities to include carer and lived experience representatives on their Integration Joint Boards (IJBs).

Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) oversee local planning, commissioning, and delivery of a range of integrated health and social care services in their areas. They bring together the local council and NHS board to jointly make decisions about these services. Council and NHS members get to vote when making these decisions.

A range of other groups are represented on IJBs, but they have historically not had voting rights, meaning that they can contribute to discussions but do not have formal decision making power.

What’s Changing?

In February 2026, the Scottish Parliament passed the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Integration Joint Boards) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2025.

The amendment order updates earlier rules about who is allowed to vote on IJBs by extending voting rights to unpaid carer, service user, and third sector representatives. These are people who represent their communities and provide lived experience insight about accessing and providing health and social care services.

Unpaid carer, service user, and third sector representatives will be able to vote on decisions made by the IJB. This means that they will have a strengthened say in decision making, rather than just an advisory role.

The order also includes a number of practical changes to support the expansion of voting rights. These include:

• Updating the definition of “voting member” in the original legislation to include unpaid carer, service user, and third sector representatives.
• Enabling those members to appoint a proxy who can vote if they can’t attend a meeting.
• And smaller technical changes to things like resignation rules to fit the new voting rights.

These changes will come into force on 1 September 2026.

Why is this important?

The amendment order will shift IJBs toward a more inclusive decision-making model where community and lived experience voices now have a formal vote on decisions, not just influence. The voting group will now be larger, more diverse, and more representative of lived experience perspectives.

We will continue to update this page. Learn more about how the ALLIANCE is supporting the introduction of voting rights for IJB Lived Experience Members.