Digital

Refreshing Scotland’s Digital Strategy, part 4: collaboration and engagement

August 20, 2025 by deborahamzil No Comments | Category Consultation, Design, Digital Public Services, Digital Strategy for Scotland, Engagement, local government, Scottish Government

Blog post by Becca Fairless, Head of Digital Strategy and Policy, Scottish Government 

Welcome to the fourth edition of our blog-along as we work with our colleagues in local government to refresh the Digital Strategy for Scotland. 

Last time Sam Hill, one of the designers who supported our engagement effort, blogged about the theory of design and how we applied it to the complex problem of refreshing our national digital strategy. I thought it might be helpful to circle back and explain a little about what the rationale was for bringing in design in the first place. 

I said in my first blog that a strategy is more than just a plan, or words on a page – it should set out both where we are going and the detailed plans and tactics we need to execute to get there. It’s the ‘we’ in this phrase that I want to reflect on now though. The key issue here was about how to involve interested parties in the development of the strategy in a way that felt meaningful, led to a shared understanding of our collective priorities and – as a result – to a strategy that is co-owned and delivered. At the same time we needed a balanced approach. This is a refresh not a rewrite and we consulted broadly in 2020. 

We all know that too often ‘stakeholder engagement’ by officials in government (at all levels) can feel tokenistic; interested parties are, or might be present without really engaging, we lean too heavily on the views of those in positions of authority, and documents and plans are nodded through without any robust conversation or challenge. And if ‘the strategy is delivery’ then this is a problem.  

Reflecting on our process in 2021, including the consultation, and our progress is delivering the key commitments, we knew that we had to try something different. Our national digital strategy is too important to rush, and up-front engagement too important to neglect. We needed to take the time to get the right people from across government in the room and not just to consider a narrow set of edits to the 2021 strategy.  

Sam’s insightful blog sets out in detail how we deployed design principles to make this happen.  

Did it work? There were challenges; making sense and spotting the links in such a large amount of insight from participants is definitely one of them. We didn’t land everything perfectly. I would also reflect that some of those who participated in our workshops found them challenging; genuine engagement, rather than nodding things through is hard work, and can feel more like a compromise for everyone in the end.  

What did I learn? People are experts in their field but, no one person has all the answers. It’s only by bringing people together and facilitating a collaborative process that we as policy-makers and strategists can benefit from this expertise. 

Would I do it again? While this engagement added colour and a depth of understanding we didn’t previously have it’s interesting that the end state is quite similar to what we had envisioned at the beginning. I don’t think we’d have arrived at a significantly different end state if we hadn’t run this design-led engagement. Although I only know this after the fact – and hindsight is a wonderful thing… 

So Yes. Engaging this way was an investment for all of us involved. But I hope that putting the effort in up front to listening and trying to build consensus will pay off in terms of collective ownership and contribute to the building momentum for delivery.  

If you’re interested in finding out more about our work on the strategy refresh, please reach out to us at DigitalStrategy@gov.scot. 

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: Collaboration, local government, scottish government

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