A series of digital measures around greater provision of tech skills, supporting people back to work, connecting more communities and boosting the economy have been outlined in the new programme for government.
Scottish Government ministers have highlighted the need to support the green and digital transitions, boosting productivity and creating clearer pathways into well paid and sustainable jobs.
In the new document, published yesterday, the government will over the next five years offer targeted support for the country’s four innovation priorities: the energy transition, health and life sciences, advanced manufacturing, and data and digital technologies.
It will be backed by further investment in digital connectivity, transport and local regeneration – including improvements to mobile and broadband coverage.
And in what amounts potentially to the biggest shake-up of public services in the era of devolution, the programme commits to radically changing the way public services operate.
In a section on ‘Delivering a stronger NHS and Public Services’, the document outlines plans to design digital services with a ‘tell us once’ approach, including the development of digital and data platforms and shared data definitions and datasets.
This will be backed by a ‘consolidation of functions, such as estates and procurement, to establish a whole
system approach’, and a new ScotGov App released this Autumn which is intended to be a common platform for citizens to engage with multiple services without having to use multiple logins and websites.
The ePass licensing platform will continue to be expanded according to the plan. It added: “Increasing the pace of the roll-out of the ePass common licensing programme – an existing model of taking a function, such as payments or casework, and standardising to reduce cost to deliver and improve speed of delivery, quality and user experience.’
And CivTech – the Scottish Government’s innovation accelerator programme – will continue to be used to improve the delivery of public services, expanding the availability of self-service and automated solutions.
The document states: “We have the opportunity across this Parliament to make lasting reform which empowers
areas, fully utilises our collective strengths, and improves outcomes for people. As we deliver these changes people in Scotland will notice clear improvements in their lives and in their experience of public services.
“We will have more modern public services, with new technologies and ways of working which make them more accessible and more responsive. National priorities will be delivered right across the country, and communities can be
empowered to bring new life into the places they love.”
Part of the drive for improved public services will focus on reducing demand. Much as ‘early intervention’ and ‘prevention’ has long been discussed, the programme commits to a ‘decisive shift towards early intervention across public services through the development of a Scottish Prevention Investment Framework’.
‘Services designed in and for the 20th century must adapt to the realities of the 21st century,’ the document says, adding that it is time to ‘rewire the state’ to ensure services fit around people, rather than expecting them to ‘fit around a static system’.
Health was also a major focus. Alongside a commitment from the First Minister that the 14 territorial health boards will be replaced by two ‘strategic health boards’, in the biggest overhaul of the NHS in living memory, the national MyCare app for health and social care will also continue to be developed.
Launched earlier this year, the app promises to be the ‘most comprehensive health and social care app in the UK once fully rolled out’. It will enable the online management of prescriptions, booking of appointments and receiving letters about care and will be complemented by a new ‘digital health and care record’ for every person in Scotland.
The programme adds: “We will accelerate the adoption of proven innovations and bring transformational technologies into everyday use, for example using digital technology to support people in preventing type 2 diabetes.
“We will maximise the use of Virtual Wards, so people can receive high-quality care from the comfort of their own home.”
In a section on ‘decluttering the public sector’, there emerge the first signs of major structural changes to the way government operates. In Scotland, which has more than 130 bodies, around 22 per cent of all working people are employed in the public sector, compared to 17 per cent in England, 24 per cent in Wales and 26 per cent in Northern Ireland.
The public sector workforce grew by 56,000 (11%) from 2017 to 2024. As a share of the workforce, public sector employment in Scotland has grown by a larger fraction since 2017 (by 2.5 percentage points, from 19.6% to 22.1%) than in any other part of the UK with the exception of Wales.
Despite the tens of thousands of additional public sector workers – and pay deals rising faster than in the rest of the UK – measured output per worker stayed flat and health productivity fell after 2020, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
In the programme for government, a ‘rationalisation’ of public bodies is included as part of a shift towards full-scale public sector reform.
It states: “At a time of tight public finances and in pursuit of maximising spend on people, a starting point for delivery must be how we maximise service efficiency and agility to make them work for people, businesses, and communities.
“Scotland currently has more than 130 public bodies, all doing important work but often with overlapping and duplicating functions, too often making them less efficient than they could be and more difficult to navigate for the people they serve.
“Over this Parliament, we will embark on an ambitious programme of rationalisation of these bodies to ensure they deliver excellent services for people in the most efficient way possible.
“We will also act, across all areas of Government to remove barriers to delivery, simplify the way Government works, and speed up decision-making, all with the purpose of ensuring we deliver tangible improvements in people’s lives as swiftly as possible.”
Much of the focus for health is to provide more community, GP walk-in and home-based services, with the new Health and Care Improving Flow Plan, announced earlier this week.
Digitising the justice system is also a major focus of the plan, which adds: “We will continue to work with justice partners to create a more efficient, accessible and user-centred justice system, including improving information sharing, reducing duplication, taking a trauma-informed approach and delivering seamless digital services that
improve outcomes for victims, witnesses and court users.”
Reducing violence against women and girls (VAWG) is also a major priority for government in the course of this parliament. Ministers will commit to developing an approach to technology-facilitated VAWG, conducting research on survivors’ experiences of tech-enabled abuse in daily life.
It adds: “We will also bolster investment in the technology-facilitated VAWG knowledge exchange network, and work with UK and international partners to seek the regulation of online platforms to prevent VAWG that happens online.”
