Vigil veterans Ken Steel, left, and Lewis Livingston with their John Major and Sir Michael Forsyth cut-out

WE were both involved in ''The Vigil for a Scottish Parliament'' on Regent Road in Edinburgh which was mounted from the day after the 1992 General Election till the day after the 1997 referendum.

During that time, over 100 temporary vigils were also held throughout the length and breadth of Scotland. In the five years, we talked politics with thousands of ordinary people and the following is a synopsis of some of the most popular views that we heard.

p The administrative arrangements/standing orders must be as simple as possible. Many people feel intellectually intimidated by the current arrangements at Westminster.

The multitude of committees, strange procedures (such as ''I spy a stranger'' or talking out a Bill), and the relationship between the House of Lords and the House of Commons leaves many of us totally confused about exactly how these procedures work. Rather than blaming the system, it is tempting to give up and leave running the country to professional politicians.

Obviously this attitude is not good in a nation that wants to encourage citizens to participate in democratic procedures and radical steps must be taken to change it. Tinkering round the edges of the current systems will not work.

One small example of what we mean is; why should the MPs address each other as The Honourable such and such. Is not ''Mr Salmond'', ''Mr Wallace'', or ''Mr Dewar'' adequate identification? Obviously what is important is what the MPs do, not what they call each other, but nevertheless small changes like this will help to create a climate of a user-friendly Parliament rather than a replica of Westminster. It is fair to say that by far the most common comment we heard at the vigils was along the lines of ''the last thing we want is another Westminster''.

p People are not inspired to participate in the democratic process if the only response they get is a standard letter from the Scottish Office telling them their views have been noted. Another of the most common remarks we heard was that ''it is a waste of time to try to change anything as politicians will inevitably do what they like''.

We found this a most depressing sentiment in a so-called democratic nation. To encourage people to participate we would suggest:

1 The Parliament's agenda should be published well in advance. This will enable interested groups to organise and put in submissions to the relevant committee.

2 All meetings should be open to the public and all papers, agendas, minutes etc, should be placed in the public domain as soon as they are produced. This would enable interested groups to follow events, to know if submissions from the public had been considered, and to understand how decisions have been reached.

3 Commercial confidentiality should not be acceptable as a valid reason for withholding access to information from the public. The public perception is that too often this is used as a feeble excuse to enable the Government to conceal information that it would prefer us not to know. It is, after all, public money that is funding the commerce so the public has a right to know how it is spent.

4 Most of the population who are in paid employment have to account for their time to a boss and many people wondered why MPs should be any different. Currently there is a common view that many Scottish MPs are invisible people except for the month before a General Election and every fourth Saturday in a local surgery.

MPs should follow the example of many businesses and produce an annual report detailing the amount of business they have dealt with in the previous year.

An important part of this report would be full details on how they had spent their time - hours spent on the floor of the House, hours spent in committee, details of all meetings they had attended, etc.

p People accept that it is impossible to ban lobbying and indeed this would not be desirable. A Parliament which is not open to lobbying is not an open Parliament. Who could define the line between lobbying and campaigning?

And in general, while the first is viewed with suspicion, the latter is considered an important part of a mature democratic society.

What is vital is that the current climate of secrecy is swept away. All documents and submissions, whether solicited or unsolicited, which the Government or the Opposition receive should be available for public inspection and full information should be available on all meetings/briefings that MPs attend and any hospitality they accept.

These comments have also been sent to ''The Consultative Group on a Scottish Parliament'' which was recently set up by the Scottish Office, and we would like to encourage as many people as possible to express their views on the sort of Parliament they want.

That way we are more likely to get an institution whose administrative arrangements reflect the wishes of the electorate right from the start. This is surely too big an issue to let apathy triumph.