IS Strategic Framework responds to local government challenges and ambitions

Our Chair, Councillor Shona Morrison, writes about the new IS Strategic Framework and how it aims to respond to local government challenges and ambitions.

Local government is facing unprecedented challenges, as councils deal with a range of issues from Covid recovery and the cost of living crisis to difficult choices about spending priorities and uncertainty around the future shape and role of local government itself.

The Improvement Service has an important role to play in supporting local authorities through these challenges while continuing to deliver sector-led improvement through our improvement architecture, products and services. We recently published our new?Strategic Framework, which will shape the direction of the organisation and how we support local government improvement over the next four years, until 2027.

The development of our Strategic Framework was a collaborative process. Improvement Service staff, through the Extended Leadership Team, developed their own ideas about what the organisation’s key drivers should be, in consultation with colleagues and key stakeholders. This excellent work was built upon by the Senior Leadership Team and the Board to produce the final document. Though ‘final document’ is perhaps something of a misnomer: the Strategic Framework is a digital document that can be adapted as we respond to new and unexpected challenges, rather than setting our strategic direction in stone.

If the last few years have shown us anything, it is that it is impossible to predict the challenges that we might face in future. What we can do is ensure that we remain a flexible, innovative and responsive organisation, able to adapt to support local authorities through whatever issues they encounter.

In order to achieve these aims, the Improvement Service has identified four Strategic Priorities which will guide our work between now and 2027:

• We will assist local authorities to transform and transition to new models of service delivery?As the world in which we all operate changes, the Improvement Service will support the design and configuration of services in ways that are truly transformative, sustainable and digital, focus on prevention, are designed around the needs of people and communities, and generate financial savings.
• We will support local government to deliver sector-led improvement in a range of policy and service areas?The Improvement Service has a critical role to play in supporting individual local authorities with their own improvement journeys, through the range of products, services and support highlighted in our core improvement architecture.??We equally have an important contribution to make in supporting the sector as a whole to improve in critical policy and service areas.
• We will provide leadership and facilitate collaboration to enable a more preventative, integrated approach to tackling poverty and inequality?The effects of the pandemic and the current cost of living crisis are having a negative impact on the life chances and opportunities of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. Our work on a range of projects from Local Child Poverty Action Reports to economic development and employability leaves us uniquely placed to work with local government to tackle poverty and inequality.
• We will support local government to deliver digital and data enabled transformation?Digital solutions will become increasingly important in the coming years, as recognised by Scotland’s Digital Strategy. The Improvement Service has a record of delivering national shared digital services, as well as providing the high-quality data and intelligence which are essential in enabling transformation.

These are ambitious aims, but they are also essential if councils are to address current challenges and transition to a model of service delivery that is fit for purpose in the 21st century. The Improvement Service will be there every step of the way supporting local government to not only face its challenges but also to make improvements wherever possible.