"I actually harbour a wee love for the idea of a citizen's second chamber where they can sit for a year, salaried."
I like the idea but have some reservations. Mainly, the highly motivated ideologues that are in so many areas (the 'coal face' of policy capture) & I think this would end up being swamped by such people. For me, it need to be a properly representative i.e. not full of fairly privileged & highly educated (degree level plus) people who are less likely to be the targets of some perhaps well intended but ill judged legislation. There's a lot of talk of 'lived experience' & 'diversity & inclusion' but there's still too few working class people getting their voices heard.
I think that more needs to be done to accommodate those who are swamped with responsibilities & who struggle to make time to speak up for themselves & those they care for, due to lack of support or a structure set up for those without the burden of caring responsibility. Making it harder for those people to actually engage with such processes means they don't get listened to.
I do think you need the targeted expertise in addition, but I dislike the very 'professional feminist' elite clique that's dominating the upper end of the women's third sector orgs. The 'intersectional gender architecture' & 'gender beacon' bollox is the epitome of that. I loathe things that are over intellectualised to the point it makes no sense.
Sorry, off on a rant-y tangent there!