Digital
Refreshing Scotland’s Digital Strategy: Process blog part 1 (of a few)
January 27, 2025 by deborahamzil 3 Comments | Category Digital, digital outcomes, local government, Scotland's Digital Strategy
Blog post by Becca Fairless, head of digital strategy and policy, Scottish Government.
In 2021 we launched our Joint Digital Strategy for Scotland – A Changing Nation – how Scotland will thrive in a digital world. For the first time it brought together the work on digital transformation happening in local authorities with the work we’re delivering in the Scottish Government.
In May 2024 we published a progress update: Scotland’s Digital Strategy – Progress report published . And now it is time to refresh our strategic planning for 2025.
My team and I have spent the last few months planning how we should deliver this refresh. One of the key things we’re keen to do is make the process transparent, providing regular updates at key points. So this is the blog-along (welcome!). Watch out for guest posts from team local government too – this is a joint effort.
The theory
A lot of ink has been spilled on defining ‘strategy’, and even more about what makes a strategy a good one. It’s a bit of a rabbit hole.
One thing that’s uncontroversial; a strategy is more than a plan. We need a simple framing of a long-term objective or vision and a clear articulation of the overall approach. Only then can we start to build out the detailed plans and tactics needed to deliver digital outcomes for Scotland.
What’s more, the best strategies enable ruthless prioritisation and are designed together with all the key parties involved in delivery. That way the things that the strategy aims to bring about are shared responsibilities of all parties.
What does that mean for our refresh?
We’re starting with all that was great about the vision we set out in 2021, and working with our colleagues in local government to shape the refresh together.
Strategies are also sensitive to the context in which they’re written. A strategy written four years ago is designed to deliver outcomes into a set of likely possible futures as seen from 2021. But four years later, the likely set of possible futures has changed. So too must our strategy.
Our strategy needs to be updated to respond to its new context; to reflect emerging tech trends and be shaped to tackle the challenges we’re currently facing across the public sector with increased demand on services, higher user expectations of digital and increased pressure on public spending.
There were lessons to be learned from 2021 too. Looking at best practice internationally, it is clear there are improvements that we can make. We want to:
- be clearer about the difference between the ambition and vision, and the detailed implementation plans.
- focus on a smaller number of core deliverables in the medium term and set out specifically what outcomes we expect these to drive in terms of improvements for the people of Scotland.
- publish our success measures up front, so it is clear when we have been successful or not.
- be clearer in our partnership working with local government about who is responsible for delivering what. This means acknowledging where work is genuinely being taken forward as a joint project, and where it is separate but parallel working towards the same overall goal.
We’re just starting out. We will be writing a series of blog posts here giving updates on our progress. You can also keep up to date on what we are doing by subscribing to our Digital Scotland stakeholder newsletter which we publish six times a year.
Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, COSLA and Digital Office for Scottish Local Government are working together to refresh our joint Digital Strategy for Scotland.
Tags: digital, digital public services, local government collaboration, scottish government
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Really welcome the update and the intent to work in the open. Thank you.
“We need a simple framing of a long-term objective or vision and a clear articulation of the overall approach.”
Much of this piece I enjoyed since it chimed with my own experience of strategic planning. But apart from use of the word vision, to my mind only appropriate in religious tracts, you’ve used objective (which means something very different ~ think smart objectives) where you should’ve used aim or even better, aims. I look forward to reading your review of the previous strategy, and seeing that reflected in the new one. When in doubt about the stages of plan-making (is there really any difference between a strategy and a plan?) it may be useful to follow the stages advocated by Sir Patrick Geddes, especially by locking key players into participation at the survey stage, something which should encourage greater buy-in latterly.
Thanks for reaching out. Yes perhaps aims is better – aspiration or ambition would have worked too. What I do know is that it is super important to have a clear understanding of the long-term ambition. Ideally we’d be able to frame this in a sentence or two. It should be easy to remember.
You can expect to hear more from us shortly about the approach we’re taking to engagement.