IS Strategic Framework 2020-2022 · 2020. 12. 2. · Improvement Service: Strategic Framework 2020-2022 Page 5 Our approach. We are flexible and agile. We are creative in developing

The ‘go to’ organisation for Local Government improvement in Scotland

Improvement ServiceStrategic Framework 2020-22

Improvement Service: Strategic Framework 2020-2022

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ForewordWe are pleased to present the Improvement Service’s two-year strategic framework for the period 2020-2022. This has been developed from active engagement, listening and learning. Local Government and our wider stakeholders have told us what challenges and priorities they face now, and in the future.

Testing times lie ahead, and Local Government is in the middle of it, responding to real and immediate needs while leading the way to re-build after Covid-19. Covid-19 has intensified the range of challenges already faced by Local Government.

Despite the adversity, we have all witnessed examples of creativity, commitment and kindness by people, by organisations, and by communities. We have seen innovation and volunteering on a scale not seen in over 50 years.

We all have a responsibility to build on these many positive developments, using them as a catalyst to focus on truly transformative, truly sustainable change and improvement.

We understand Local Government. We know Local Government needs an open, honest and accountable organisation to support their journey. We are committed to inspire trust and act with integrity in all that we do.

Not only have we listened but we have carefully considered what developments and responses will be necessary to address these challenges and priorities effectively.

Our Strategic Framework is outward-looking and forward thinking. It sets out our vision, purpose and values, and our key priorities for the next two years. It addresses how we will work with the Local Government family to ensure we are aligned constantly to their priorities while ensuring we meet ours. For the first time, we set out our core values, which will at all times underpin our response and shape and influence our approach.

We will ensure our expertise, experience and capacity is fully aligned to support Local Government and our broader stakeholder base address their challenges and priorities head-on. We will strengthen our approach to evaluating the impact of what we do and of the contribution we make.

Our Strategic Framework sets out high-level commitments for our three core offers in Transformation, Performance and Improvement, Data and Intelligence and Digital Public Services. These are unequivocally linked and interdependent. Our Framework will guide everything we do. It will provide the basis for our annual business plans and our self-assessment and improvement planning across the next two years. These documents will detail how we will deliver our Strategic Framework priorities.

We will work to support Local Government to respond, recover and renew. We will be with them to navigate through this journey, fully consistent with our ethos of promoting transformational change and improvement.

Our unequivocal focus over the next two years is to continue to be recognised as the ‘go-to’ organisation for Local Government improvement in Scotland.

Councillor Alison EvisonChair, Improvement Service Board

Dr Sarah GadsdenChief Executive, Improvement Service


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Contents

Foreword 2Our vision and purpose 4Our values 6Key Drivers 7Our priorities for the next two years 8How we are organised 12How we will work with our partners 18Measuring our impact, our contribution, our added value 22What this means for our people and resources 23Our Board 24


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Our vision and purposeOur vision

To be an agile organisation that supports and mobilises resources for our partners to manage the challenges they face in improving outcomes and reducing inequalities.

Our purposeThe Improvement Service was established in 2005 as the national improvement organisation for Local Government in Scotland. We are a company limited by guarantee, with 34 members – COSLA, Solace and Scotland’s 32 local authorities. We were established to deliver improvement support that would help Councils to provide effective community leadership, strong local governance and deliver high quality, efficient local services.

We are the ‘go to organisation’ for Local Government improvement in Scotland. Our purpose is to:

• Provide leadership to Local Government and the wider system on improvement and transformation;

• Develop capability and capacity for improvement within Local Government;• Deliver national improvement programmes for Local Government and partners and support

councils to improve at a local level;• Provide research, data and intelligence to inform Local Government’s policy-making and

decision-making and to drive improvement;• Deliver national shared service applications and technology platforms; and• Broker additional resources from outwith the sector to support the delivery of Local

Government’s priorities.

We take forward our purpose by providing a range of Transformational Change, Performance and Improvement Support, Data and Intelligence Services and Digital Public Services.

We ensure that all the work we deliver is firmly focused on achieving our vision and purpose, and on adding value for Local Authorities, for the Local Government family and for our broader group of diverse stakeholders.

Our Board

Highly skilled and experienced representation from our partner organisations COSLA and SOLACE make up the Improvement Service Board. Board members are well placed to ensure that our work is strategically aligned with our partners’ needs and priorities. They also play a key role in ensuring that our resources are effectively deployed against priorities and that we continue to operate as a responsive, relevant and resilient business.

https://www.improvementservice.org.uk


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Our approachWe are flexible and agile. We are creative in developing responses to challenges. We tackle issues by experimenting, learning, adapting and by collaborating.

We are able to capitalise on our independence, our impartiality and our status as a non-profit organisation.

We have a strong base of transferable experience as proven influencers and experts in improvement, transformation, data and intelligence and in delivering digital public services nationally. We care about doing the right thing and that we are trusted. Rightly, we take pride in our success and achievements, and in those of Local Authorities, Local Government and our wider partners.

We

Share our own andothers’ experiences

Collaborate by design

Help local political leaders become more informed and effective

Deliver digital services end-to-end

Broker additionalresources

We are

Independent and impartial

A centre of expertise in data andintelligence

A proven influencer and expert in improvement and transformation

Responsive andagile

A cost-effective,non-profitorganisation


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Our valuesOur shared values describe what is important to us about how we work. These values will, at all times, underpin our response and shape and influence our approach.

Wellbeing and growth

Equality and diversity

Innovation and creativity

Leadership and collaboration

Accountability and integrity

Equality

Fairness

Respect

Diversity

InnovativeCreative

Forward thinking

EnthusiasticCaring

SupportiveKind

Respectful

Open HonestAccountable

Trust

Integrity

Collective leadershipCollaborate

We believe that by embedding equality, diversity, fairness and respect in all that we do we will help create more successful communities. We adopt a collective leadership approach at all levels and collaborate with others to do meaningful work that drives change and improvement. We are innovative, creative and forward thinking. We are enthusiastic about new ideas, new technology and new contributions that will help deliver improved outcomes. We care about increasing wellbeing and supporting the growth and learning of everyone, and of organisations. We are respectful, supportive and kind and encourage flexibility and a healthy work-life balance. We are open, honest and accountable. We inspire trust and have integrity in all that we do.


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Key DriversThe operating context of Scottish Local Government continues to be challenging and is evolving at pace, not least due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. The key drivers for our strategic priorities are summarised below.

Political Drivers The political environment within which we operate includes the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government, COSLA’s Blueprint for Local Government and the forthcoming Scottish Government and Local Government elections in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Economic Drivers

Local Government is facing significant financial challenges, with COSLA estimating financial pressures for 2020/21 in the region of £360m (once all additional funding announced to date is taken into account). This creates immediate and long-term implications for Local Authorities, including their ability to manage the financial impacts of the pandemic and deliver essential services, and councils are adopting a range of strategies to cope including use of reserves and reprofiling debt.

Societal Drivers The pandemic is impacting on society, with socio-economic disadvantage and inequality of outcomes widening. At the same time, there has been an increase in sense of community and volunteering. A post-Covid world is likely to look and feel very different, which will have an impact on Local Government.

Technological Drivers

A post-Covid world is likely to result in more contactless interfaces and interactions, a strengthened digital infrastructure with greater use of digital services, increased risk of digital exclusion, increased use of data and intelligence to inform decision-making and service delivery, and increased reliance on Artificial Intelligence and robotics. The refresh of Scotland’s Digital Strategy will influence and inform how we further develop our digital public services.

Legislative/Regulatory Drivers

Key legislative drivers include the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) Bill, and other Bills proceeding through the current Parliament, including the Budget Bill, Domestic Abuse Bill and Incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCEC) Bill. Local Government will also be subject to ongoing inspection and regulation from the Accounts Commission, Education Scotland, Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Housing Regulator, and will need to adapt to new approaches to inspection/regulation due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Environmental Drivers

Ambitious climate change targets have been set for Scotland, with many Local Authorities also declaring a climate change emergency. Local Authorities are also looking at recovery and renewal through an environmental and sustainability lens.


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Our priorities for the next two yearsIn addition to scanning our operative environment, we have listened attentively to Local Authorities and the wider Local Government family to understand their priorities and the type of improvement support that will be crucial over the next two years. The impact of Covid-19 is acting as a catalyst for a renewed focus on re-thinking and re-imagining public service delivery in ways even more radical than thought possible. We have reflected on this, and about where we believe our energy, effort and capacity should be focused to maintain and maximise alignment.

Our prioritiesOur priorities for targeting support for councils and their partners across the next two years are outlined below. Whilst described separately, they are clearly linked and interdependent.

We will support Local Government to live with Covid-19We are all living in unprecedented and uncertain times with Covid-19.Over the lifetime of this Strategic Framework, we will support Local Government and councils with their Covid-19 response and recovery. This will include publishing research, briefings, thought pieces and data dashboards. We will play an active role in the national Covid-19 Data and Intelligence Network. We will work with partners to create definitive national datasets of distinct property types to support the Covid-19 response. We will also support Local Government and partners to capture learning and share knowledge gained from their response to the pandemic through facilitated self-assessment, the development of case studies, virtual peer learning networks and online collaboration enabled by the Knowledge Hub.

We will support councils and partners to deliver secure and sustainable digital services, ensuring services are accessible when local offices are closed due to Covid-19 restrictions. This will include working with Scottish Government and Local Government to provide online application processes for grant applications and exploring how our digital assets can be deployed for data matching purposes to assist investigations into potential instances of fraudulent claims. We will support elected members as they respond to Covid-19, by providing online coaching support for senior members, delivering an online political mentoring programme and producing guidance to support political groups to work remotely. We will produce guidance to help the Local Government workforce to work remotely and host online events.

We will support Local Government to re-build post Covid-19 We will support Local Government and councils as they transition from response and recovery to renewal, leveraging the transformation and learning that has been occurring. This will include supporting the redesign and reconfiguration of services in ways that are truly transformative, sustainable and digital, involve a renewed focus on prevention, are designed around the needs of people and communities and generate financial and efficiency savings.


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We will assist councils to think about the future and explore scenarios and possibilities of what that might look like, given the pandemic and Brexit. We will support councils as they plan for and develop their workplaces for the future, which will include working with the Scottish Local Government Digital Office, the Society of Personnel and Development Scotland and COSLA to deliver a collaborative Modern Workplace initiative. We will support the strengthening of local democracy and deliver development opportunities for elected members as they navigate the changing landscape. We will provide councils with data and intelligence that will help them transition to recovery and renewal, and partner with others as we do this, such as Public Health Scotland. We will undertake a range of research and provide thought leadership in priority areas that will support Scottish Local Government to build back better.

We will support Local Government’s contribution to the delivery of Scotland’s National Performance Framework

Working with Local Government and councils to build long-term sustainable economic recovery and employability which has wellbeing at its core. We will engage with, and listen to, Scotland’s business community and work with Scottish and Local Government to evolve an employability system which is flexible, person-centred and more straightforward for citizens to navigate.

Providing practical support to councils in relation to the improvement agenda around climate change and environmental sustainability, key factors in public health. ‘Locking-in’ some of the environmental benefits emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic will be important, giving people options they need to plan confidently for happier and healthier lives.

Working with Local Government and councils to address socio-economic disadvantage and inequality of outcomes, strengthen community resilience and protect vulnerable groups. This includes work on tackling violence against women and girls, improving outcomes in money advice and supporting the implementation of the Fairer Scotland Duty.

Working with COSLA, Solace and Public Health Scotland to ensure all policy levers are used to address poverty’s root causes, building better life chances for all children and young people.

Supporting councils to deliver effective Early Learning and Childcare Expansion.


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Supporting integration authorities and councils to improve the delivery of health and social care services, working collaboratively with other national improvement bodies.

Working with COSLA and Public Health Scotland to support Local Government adopt an evidence-based approach towards delivering improvement and reducing inequalities across the social determinants of public health.

We will support Local Government, working with their communities and partners, to deliver place-based approachesPlace is the combined social, economic and physical characteristics of a location that combine to create or undermine health and wellbeing, reduce or increase carbon emissions and support a wellbeing economy that serves people and planet. At national, regional and local scale, place-based approaches consider the unintended consequences of interventions in one aspect of a place on the place as a whole. In doing so, place-based working maximises the positive impact of long-term preventative interventions to shape people’s behavior patterns, improve their outcomes and protect our planet.

We will partner with Public Health Scotland to support councils and their partners to find new ways of working across national and local, and sectoral and disciplinary boundaries. This will include supporting them to work and plan together, and with communities, to improve the lives of people, support inclusive economies and improve health and wellbeing through the creation of more successful places. It will also involve collaborating on the links between planning, place and public health as part of the whole system approach to delivering Scotland’s public health priorities.

We will support Local Government and councils to take forward Scottish Government’s ambition for 20- minute neighbourhoods, where people can meet most of their daily requirements without the need for a private car.

We will prioritise our focus on the social determinants of health under the remit of Local Government including pulling on our own expertise in areas such as economic development, employability, planning and child poverty. Nationally, we will set up a collaborative group to progress the whole system nature of this work. Locally, we will facilitate iterative collaborative sessions between councils and their partners building capacity to assess the impact of place policy and decision making on outcomes that promote health and wellbeing.

We will support policy and decision making processes that prioritise linked place and wellbeing outcomes.


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P

LACE AND WELLBEING OUTCOMES

NAT

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AND BUILT

ENVIRONMENT - COMMUNITY ACTIVITY - ECONOM

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Trav

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Public Transport -

MOVEMENT - Tra�c and ParkingBu

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- Natural Space - SPACE - Play + Recreation

Servic

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Am

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Safe - CIVIC - Identity and BelongingInflu

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- STEWARDSHIP - Care +

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Social determinants of health and wellbeing in our

places

PEOPLE


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How we are organisedOur three core offers on Transformation Performance and Improvement, Data and Intelligence and Digital Public Services have been designed to support the delivery of our four strategic priorities. Though distinct and described separately, each of our three core offers is unequivocally linked and interdependent. Corporate and Business Services provides support across all core offers.

Our strategic framework will inform our annual business plans and drive our self- assessment and improvement planning across the next two years. Our annual Business Plan provides detailed deliverables for the year ahead, aligned to our strategic priorities.

Data & Intelligence

Transformation,Performance &Improvement

DigitalPublicServices

Corp

orate and Business Services

https://www.improvementservice.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/18097/business-plan-2020-final.pdf


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Over the next two years, we will further develop and enhance our organisational capabilities and core offers. We will identify skills gaps that will be addressed through training and the formation of strategic partnerships with bodies who have skills, tools, expertise, capacity and networks in areas that we currently do not, and which would benefit Local Government. We will explore opportunities for undertaking joint programmes of work, facilitating skills transfer and promoting and using improvement methodologies developed by others. Our core offers will form part of multi-agency teams, delivering targeted and tailored support and services to councils and their partners. Access to ideas, experience and collaborative learning has never been more important. We will seek to establish international alliances with other public service bodies, improvement organisations and innovators to share practice, learn from each other and identify pioneering improvement methodologies and approaches that we do not currently use. We will develop a strategic partnership with Public Health Scotland, which will set out how we will work together strategically and operationally in support of Scotland’s public health priorities. This will include exploring opportunities for secondments, joint posts, joint programmes of work and maximising the use of Public Health Scotland’s data capabilities to support the work of Local Government.

We will work with others at the cutting edge of supporting new ideas in public service reform that can deliver more effective solutions and improve long-term sustainable outcomes. This will include developing partnerships with other innovators, such as iESE, who deliver transformation and service improvement programmes to local authorities, and NESTA, the Innovation Foundation, who use their expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

We will learn from, and build strong relationships with, academia and think tanks in Scotland, UK and globally. This will include partnering with the Social Policy Research Exchange (SPRE) to broker access for Local Government to academics and researchers in higher education. We will seek to work with Research Data Scotland, which has been established to enable access to and linkage of data about people, places and businesses for research in the public good.

We will strengthen strategic alliances with other improvement bodies, including Healthcare Improvement Scotland, the Care Inspectorate, NHS National Shared Services, NHS Education for Scotland and Public Health Scotland, to deliver collaborative improvement support to integration authorities.

We will continue to develop strategic relationships with audit and inspection bodies and explore opportunities to work together for the benefit of Local Government. We will ensure our three core offers address and respond to key themes emerging from audit and inspection work over the next two years.


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Transformation, Performance and ImprovementOur Transformation, Performance and Improvement offer is focused on driving improvement and transformation in the design and delivery of local public services to ensure that they meet the often complex and multi-faceted needs of citizens, are efficient and effective, and improve outcomes.

Our core transformation, performance and improvement offer comprises a number of key components including change management, organisational development, self-assessment, improvement planning and knowledge management. Our targeted transformational change and improvement programmes, aligned to national outcomes, utilise the support available through this core offer. The breadth of improvement work we are involved in across policy areas enables us to strategically join-up agendas and deliver a more holistic approach to improvement, for the benefit of Local Government and communities. It enables us to challenge silo-based working in the wider system, recognising that improving outcomes is contingent on many service areas and partners working in consort. It also enables us to consider the unintended consequences of interventions in one aspect of a place on the place as a whole.

Our focus across the next two years will be to provide councils and local partnerships with access to a wider range of transformational change and improvement tools, frameworks and support to innovate, redesign and reconfigure local services. Some of these will be delivered in partnership with other organisations such as iESE and NESTA. We will advocate innovative and new ways of supporting councils to improve their performance, efficiency and effectiveness to respond to the significant financial challenges post Covid-19, learning from international alliances we are establishing. We will support councils and local partnerships to develop the skills and capacity necessary to improve performance, redesign services and achieve improved outcomes. We will work with elected members to co-design and deliver high quality and cost-effective training and development opportunities, including ensuring appropriate support is in place for those who are elected in the 2022 Local Government elections.

Key to our success will be developing a multi-skilled workforce, equipped and confident in using a range of improvement approaches and methodologies including self-assessment and improvement planning, systems thinking, the Scottish Approach to Service Design, designing and evaluating ‘tests of change’ and rapid improvement events and systematically measuring the impact of interventions on improving performance and longer-term sustainable outcomes.


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Data and IntelligenceOur Data and Intelligence offer brings together our work on spatial information, the Local Government Benchmarking Framework and research. For all outcomes, data and intelligence is essential to understand where we have been, where we are, where we need to get to, and to evaluate ‘what works’, using it to inform decision-making that leads to improvement. Without data and intelligence, it would all be based on guesswork.

Our core data and intelligence offer currently includes managing the One Scotland and National Street Gazetteers and Tellme Scotland, and delivering the Spatial Hub, which is an online resource that provides a single point of access to quality assured Local Authority spatial data. We represent Local Government’s interests in the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement, which enables Scottish public services to access and use Ordnance Survey geospatial data products. We deliver the Local Government Benchmarking Framework on behalf of Solace and COSLA, provide a range of visualisation tools and undertake research and analysis.

Over the next two years, we will consolidate our data and intelligence offer, to support councils and partners to improve their approach to data management, data sharing and data analytics / visualisation. We will support the development of national data standards and work with subject experts to define standards for individual datasets. We will seek to expand our work on providing a single point of access to Local Authority spatial data to other Local Authority datasets.

We will support councils and partners to improve the quality, accuracy and use of Local Government and other data, to inform decision-making and intelligence-led service redesign. We will ensure that councils and partners have access to high quality data, research and intelligence, refining and developing tools to make available data more accessible and useful to local decision makers ‘on the ground’.

We will continue to strengthen and develop our own, and councils’, data capabilities and skills as we learn from industry best practice and emerging trends in data and analytics. In particular, we will explore how council’s geospatial capability can be used more widely and intelligently to inform local decision-making.

We will work with analysts from Public Health Scotland and Scottish Government, within the confines of data sharing legal constraints, to support councils and their partners to glean new insights from data to assist with the delivery of local and national priorities.

We will explore opportunities with Scottish Government and Local Government for the Spatial Hub and Tellme Scotland to play a role in the transition to a new digital planning system for Scotland, which is due to be in place within the next five years.

We will work with COSLA, Solace and the Scottish Local Government Digital Office to explore the feasibility of developing a platform for Local Government to manage data returns and access


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interactive data dashboards. This would enable Local Government to derive a richer insight from its investment in data, helping to inform and influence policy-making and decision-making, as well as drive improvement. It would also reduce the effort required to collate and provide data within councils and improve the quality of data collected in order to increase the value of the data for Local Government, and improve trust in Local Government data and decision-making.


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Digital Public ServicesOur Digital Public Services provides a platform to support councils and partners to deliver innovative, high quality and secure digital public services, achieve efficiency savings, provide sustainable frontline local services and contribute to better customer experiences.

We have an already established reputation for delivering innovative digital public services end- to-end, ones enjoying a growing footprint, locally and nationally. A particular focus over theframework’s period will be on enhancing our solid reputation as a centre of expertise in identity management and the delivery of national shared service applications and technology platforms. This will include expanding the reach of our Digital Public Services beyond Local Government and health, supporting citizens, and particularly our most vulnerable citizens, to access a wide range of online public services securely.

We will work in collaboration with COSLA, Scottish Government and the Scottish Local Government Digital Office to develop a refreshed Digital Strategy for Scotland involving wide consultation on it. We will play a key role in the strategy’s delivery over the next two years, working alongside our partners in the Local Government family.

We operate and manage a portfolio of high-profile national shared service applications and technology platforms. We will ensure that these are strategically and operationally aligned, including to the standards set by regulators and accreditation bodies. Our technology platforms are positioned directly in support of Councils’ own service transformation and improvement plans. We will develop a strategic partnership with Transport Scotland, a key partner in the delivery of the National Entitlement Card Scheme. We will maintain positive relationships with the supplier community.

We will actively listen to our service users and to the business community when re-configuring orre-designing services. We will continue to use privacy-by-design principles in our approach, and we will seek independent feedback from organisations and individuals with expertise in the areas of privacy, ethics and consumer interests.

Online public services are here to stay. Our offers directly support digital service delivery; however, we recognise digital inclusion is as important. We will ensure our offers maintain a sharp focuson the impact of digital exclusion. We will continue to ensure that we provide an inclusive identity solution fit for the 21st Century by developing approaches to allow an individual’s identity to be established in ways that are secure and sympathetic, including for the digitally excluded.


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How we will work with our partnersThe Local Government familyWe are rightly proud of our role as the national improvement organisation for Local Government in Scotland.

We have strong partnerships in place across the Local Government family - many formal, some informal – all of which will help us deliver our strategic priorities

Many Local Governmentprofessional associations


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Our partnership with COSLAIn March 2020, and for the first time, we entered into a formal Partnership Agreement with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), agreeing a joint vision:

To work collaboratively to support Local Government make communities better and more equal places to live.

We will work with COSLA to align our longer-term strategic planning cycles from 2022/23. We are committed to working with COSLA, in the interest of our members and their priorities and where collaborative gain will be derived for Local Government. We will:

Focus on Local Government’s key priorities at a national level

Ensure resources are delivering best value

Support councils to improve at a local level

Connect evidence, policy, performance and decision-making

Support national shared services

Ensure effective governance and scrutiny

mailto:https://www.cosla.gov.uk?subject=


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Over the next two years, the IS and COSLA will:

work systematically to support the delivery of Scottish Local Government’s key priorities, helping achieve the shared outcomes in the National Performance Framework;

work in consort to lever additional funding into Scottish Local Government and optimise its use;

work together, and with elected members, to co-design, develop and deliver support to enable elected members to fulfil their roles effectively;

communicate jointly with elected members where appropriate, for example, issuing jointly badged Elected Member Briefing Notes;

coordinate and share intelligence from meetings with individual local authorities to help nurture relationships with elected members and senior officers in ways that are mutually beneficial;

develop improved approaches for shared working with other Local Government Professional Associations;

and, generate efficiencies and economies of scale from common back-office operations, functions and policies.

We host the Scottish Local Government Digital Office on Scottish Local Government’s behalf, and we are a key partner in the Local Government Digital Partnership and a member of the Digital Executive Partnership Board. We have a formal partnership agreement in place with the Local Government Digital Office, which sets out how we will work together over the next year to support digital transformation within Local Government.

We will continue to work closely with COSLA, Solace and other Local Government professional associations to support Local Government’s contribution to the delivery of Scotland’s National Performance Framework. This will include our national work on single policy areas such as Early Learning and Childcare Expansion, Child Poverty, Economic Development, Employability, Climate Change, Violence against Women and Girls, as well as on the broader themes of place and public health.


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We will continue to deliver and develop the Local Government Benchmarking Framework for COSLA and Solace. This will include supporting councils to work in family groups across a range of service and policy areas to support service redesign and improved performance.

We will continue to collaborate with the SEEMiS Group to deliver ground-breaking digital public services for parents with school-age children.

We will continue to work with Scotland Excel to build councils’ skills and capacities in approaches and methodologies that will support them to deliver and manage transformation and improvement. and explore other opportunities to work together in support of the delivery of our strategic priorities.

We will provide tailored and bespoke support for individual Councils, using our Account Management service to match specific needs to our offers, our capabilities and our expertise. We will also explore opportunities for seconding IS people into councils for defined periods. As well as upskilling our people, it will enable us to better understand the challenges of delivery at a local level and in different policy areas.

We will provide support to councils who are working together at a regional level to pursue shared outcomes, mutual benefit and increase the resilience of public services in future.

We are fully committed to ensuring our contribution over the next two years adds value to the Local Government family in these unprecedented times.

Key partners and stakeholdersWe operate in an environment comprising a diverse range of stakeholders. We recognise that delivering whole system transformational change, effective public services and improved outcomes is contingent on partnership working. We believe we have an important role to play in the overall landscape of an integrated public service improvement ecosystem, where each partner brings their unique and distinct strengths to the fore.

We will maintain current, and forge new collaborations, that will support the delivery of our strategic priorities. We will actively develop connections and utilise them. We will actively explore opportunities for joint working with partners, including joint programmes that ensure the widest range of improvement resources are locally accessible on an integrated basis.

We will work closely with Scottish Government and other grant funders, ensuring that we maintain our focus on delivering jointly agreed priorities that will support the delivery of our strategic priorities and benefit Local Government and wider society.

We will continue to engage with the specialist media and work closely with COSLA and Council communication colleagues to see if we can better engage with the local and national media to raise the profile of the transformational work delivered by Local Government.

Consistent with our values of Accountability and Integrity, we are committed to being open, honest and accountable, inspiring trust and having integrity in all that we do.


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Measuring our impact, our contribution, our added value

We are acutely aware of how important it is to understand and evaluate that our programmes and services, activities and contribution are adding value and creating lasting impact.

Our contribution comes in many forms, including facilitating councils and partners to achieve impact by coordinating, collaborating and sharing, making exact attribution challenging. We also recognise that the time lags between activity and impact can, at times, be lengthy.

Our performance management framework enables us to report on operational progress, activity and impact across all our programmes and services. We will also report on a small number of key corporate performance indicators.

We will continue to strengthen our approach to evaluating the impact of what we do and the contribution we make to national outcomes. This will support us to make evidence-based decisions as to what we need to do to improve our performance. Our approach to evaluation will be proportionate, striking a reasonable balance between ‘doing’ and ‘proving’.

We will continue to draw – formally and informally - upon the voice, perspective and feedback of those with whom we work and serve, and of those who use our services, using it to assess the degree to which our support and our contribution has been valuable.

Our Account Management service is an important mechanism for strengthening our relationships and communications with councils. It helps us gather feedback on the value we have added as well as on the areas where we should improve.

We will use evidence from the work of audit and inspection bodies to better understand the broader impact of our contribution.


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What this means for our people and resources

Our PeopleWe aim to recruit and retain the right people with the right skills who are adaptable, empowered, kept motivated and challenged and provided with the opportunity to develop and grow. This approach is supported by a workforce development and resourcing plan that will evolve to meet the challenges we face over the coming years. A key priority over the next two years is to facilitate greater multi-skilling of our people, to strengthen our resilience, build our capacity and enable us to provide a multi-disciplinary and holistic improvement response.

Our people embrace collaboration, leveraging opportunities to transfer and trade experience, skills, expertise and capacity, wherever it resides.

We exploit digital to deliver real business value while reducing operating costs. We aim to provide the right tools and the right work environment to get the very best from our people. We have developed a range of flexible and mobile working practices and delivered a definitive shift towards the paperless office. We will continue to build on this approach over the next two years as we re-define our working environment and office requirements.

Our ResourcesWe manage our finances and resources well, and we will continue to align these to our strategic priorities. We recognise the significant financial challenges facing Local Government over the coming period, due to the impact of Covid-19 and the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. We will implement our business development and growth strategy and consider ways to further diversify our funding base and explore additional income generation opportunities in support of our strategic priorities. This will include re-procuring our IS Associates Framework and opening this up to the Local Government family. We will always seek to augment our own resources with our partnership arrangements and with other public service improvement agencies, for the benefit of Local Government.


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Our Board

Cllr Alison EvisonChairImprovement Service Board

Dr Sarah GadsdenChief ExecutiveImprovement Service

Cllr Malcolm BellShetland IslandsCouncil

Cllr Neil BennyStirling Council

Aubrey Fawcett Chief ExecutiveInverclyde Council

Steve Grimmond Chief ExecutiveFife Council

Cllr Graham HoustonStirling Council

Angela ScottChief ExecutiveAberdeen City Council

Joyce White, OBEChief ExecutiveWest Dunbartonshire Council

The ‘go to’ organisation for Local Government improvement in Scotland

01506 [email protected] CourtLivingstonEH54 6AX

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IS Strategic Framework 2020-2022 · 2020. 12. 2. · Improvement Service: Strategic Framework 2020-2022 Page 5 Our approach. We are flexible and agile. We are creative in developing