{"id":5780,"date":"2026-01-19T14:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T14:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/?p=5780"},"modified":"2026-01-19T14:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T14:52:09","slug":"reflections-on-futurescots-digital-scotland-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2026\/01\/19\/reflections-on-futurescots-digital-scotland-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on FutureScot’s Digital Scotland conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Becca Fairless, Head of Digital Strategy and Policy in the Scottish Government blogs about launching our refreshed joint Digital Strategy for Scotland at a recent digital conference. <\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of \u00a0last year we published our refreshed\u00a0Vision<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0digital in Scotland alongside our joint\u00a0Delivery Plan for Sustainable Digital Public Services<\/a>. We launched this at FutureScot’s Digital Scotland event which took place in November 2025 at Edinburgh\u2019s EICC \u2013 with the Minister for Public Finance Mr McKee, Digital Office for Scottish Local Government\u2019s Chief Digital Officer Martyn Wallace and Scottish Government\u2019s Chief Digital Officer Geoff Huggins.<\/p>\n

It was a good day. We had some interesting questions from the audience and plenty of engagement from those who visited the Scottish Digital Academy stand in the exhibition area. Lots of you want to know more about the plan and how we will deliver it. It\u2019s always great to get out and talk to people who are delivering digital in the wider public sector or in the industry.<\/p>\n

This year we enjoyed a change of format \u2013 rather than give a Ministerial speech, Mr\u00a0 McKee participated in a fireside chat with Alison McLaughlin who chaired the day. During this, the Minister reflected that the Delivery Plan for Public Services demonstrates our commitment to working across the whole public sector because it isn\u2019t just about what the Scottish Government is delivering or working on with the agencies, and that it sets out very clearly what Local Government will also deliver.<\/p>\n

The Minister reflected on the importance of treating public sector data as a national asset to help deliver these ambitions, so that data allows us to tackle the big complex challenges that we face. Mr McKee also reflected that there is no point in putting systems in place to make data and digital more joined-up if we do not also make sure that our staff have the capability and confidence to understand how to interpret the insights that are generated to make it easier to deliver digital public services.<\/p>\n

Your feedback\u00a0suggests\u00a0that this reflective format\u00a0was very well received which gives us\u00a0food for thought\u00a0in how\u00a0Ministers and others could engage at similar digital-themed conferences in the future.<\/p>\n

Throughout the day, there were a series of panels and masterclasses, some of which involved speakers from both the Scottish Government and Local Government. One of the main talking points that emerged from these was the importance of having a strategy that\u2019s not simply collaborative in its ambition but explicitly articulates partnership working as critical to its delivery plan for digital public services. Theo Blackwell MBE, one of the speakers at Digital Scotland, summed this up well saying that the refreshed strategy \u201cmakes the important shift to bridge central and local government. This is a UK first, in this level of detail\u201d.<\/p>\n

Partnership working was a recurring theme at the conference, and colleagues also referred to the need to overcome silos and work collaboratively across sectors and government.<\/p>\n

The event closed with a joint session with the Danish Ambassador for the UK Christina Miskowiak Beckvard, and the Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government Joe Griffin. They participated in a fireside chat with a wide variety of questions from the audience.<\/p>\n

You can read more about our collaborative work on the refreshed Strategy in the blogging we\u2019ve done over the past year: refreshing the Digital Strategy for Scotland blog post series<\/a>. Do look out for more blog\u00a0posts here\u00a0as we deliver the actions set out in the plan.<\/p>\n

You can\u00a0get in touch with\u00a0us at\u00a0digitalstrategy@gov.scot<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Becca Fairless, Head of Digital Strategy and Policy in the Scottish Government blogs about launching our refreshed joint Digital Strategy for Scotland at a recent digital conference. At the end of \u00a0last year we published our refreshed\u00a0Vision\u00a0for\u00a0digital in Scotland alongside our joint\u00a0Delivery Plan for Sustainable Digital Public Services. We launched this at FutureScot’s Digital Scotland…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,493,471,490],"tags":[476,54,240,95],"class_list":["post-5780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital","category-digital-strategy-for-scotland","category-local-government","category-scottish-government","tag-collaboration","tag-digital-public-services","tag-local-government","tag-scottish-government"],"yoast_head":"\nReflections on FutureScot's Digital Scotland conference - Digital<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/digital\/2026\/01\/19\/reflections-on-futurescots-digital-scotland-conference\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reflections on FutureScot's Digital Scotland conference - Digital\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Becca Fairless, Head of Digital Strategy and Policy in the Scottish Government blogs about launching our refreshed joint Digital Strategy for Scotland at a recent digital conference. 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