Digital
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Why our team blogs
26th June 2026 by deborahamzil
Claire Robertson, Senior Content Designer in Social Security Scotland guest blogs about the value of blogging. On the 2 year (ish) anniversary of our Social Security Scotland content design blog, I thought it would be useful to reflect on the value of blogging and how it has helped our team. What do other teams think...
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Technology Assurance Framework – what we learned from Major Digital Project Reviews in 2025-26
24th June 2026 by Stewart Hamilton
Guest blog by Anneke Davie, Audit and Assurance Insights team, Digital Assurance Office. In 2025-26, 45 major digital project reviews were completed under the Technology Assurance Framework (TAF). These reviews generated 345 recommendations for improvement. These recommendations have been analysed to identify common challenges and are shared to support others to deliver more successful projects. This blog...
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Building joined-up digital public services in Scotland
18th June 2026 by Stewart Hamilton
Blog post by Isaac Smith, Deputy Director for Digital Components and Infrastructure. Over the past few years, Scotland has made significant progress in delivering digital infrastructure to support public services. As more of these services are made available there is an increasing need to manage them as a holistic suite of products rather than focusing on individual services. This shift towards more connected services aligns closely with the Scottish Government’s Public Service Reform Strategy (PSR), which emphasises the need for services to be more...
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Boost creativity and collaboration: The power of pair writing
18th June 2026 by deborahamzil
Morven MacAllister, a content designer in Social Security Scotland blogs about pair writing and its benefits. What is pair writing? Content designers create content for everyone. We make complex services and systems easy to use and complex language easy to understand. We help users complete tasks and help teams design tasks for a user to...
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What is data.gov.scot and why are we doing it?
3rd June 2026 by deborahamzil
This blog post has been written by the Open Data team in the Data Division of the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate. We are building data.gov.scot, a new service to make it easier to find, access and reuse Scotland’s data. This is the first in a series of blog posts which we’ll be releasing over the...
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Improving data access for ethical research and innovation
23rd March 2026 by deborahamzil
Blog post by Chris Bergin, Strategic Data Policy Adviser, in the Scottish Government’s Digital Citizen Division. Today marks the publication of an Operational Framework to support the secure and ethical use of public sector data, by Scotland’s innovators and researchers. Scotland’s public sector personal data is a rich resource, that if used in ethical, transparent...
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Supply25: supplier assurance and supply chain management fit for the twenty-first century!
18th March 2026 by deborahamzil
Lee Rutherford, Sam Ernstzen and Mark McKenny in the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate and CivTech 9.5 co-sponsors blog about addressing the challenges of procurement. Across Scotland, the public sector navigates hundreds of thousands of procurements every year. These range from quick, routine purchases to major, highly complex projects, and the private sector faces a similarly...
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Communications and engagement – insights from the Technology Assurance Framework
4th March 2026 by Stewart Hamilton
Guest blog by Anneka Davie, Continuous Improvement team, Digital Assurance Office. The Digital Assurance Office (DAO), who administer the Technology Assurance Framework (TAF), share the lessons learned from major digital project reviews to support others to deliver more successful projects. By analysing the recommendations from our major digital project reviews, we can identify common challenges. In...
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Introducing the Scottish Government’s Data for Research: Change Management Board
3rd March 2026 by Stewart Hamilton
Blog by Helen Davidson, Communications and Engagement Manager, ADR Scotland. In November 2025, the Scottish Government established the Data for Research: Change Management Board, marking an important step toward streamlining how Scotland manages, shares and uses administrative data for public good research. Chaired by the Chief Statistician Alastair McAlpine, the Board is in line with the Vision for Public Sector Data in Scotland and the recently launched Digital Strategy centred around Scotland’s ambition to harness data responsibly and effectively...
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Help shape Scotland’s Open Data future – Imagining success in 2036
17th February 2026 by Stewart Hamilton
I’m Martin Macfie, and I lead the Open Data team in the Data Division of the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate. We’re inviting you to take part in a short workshop to help shape a bold, future-focused message for open data in Scotland. What we’ve been working on Since publishing the independent report on open data...