Home

What We Do

Products

Services

Research

News

Events

About the Improvement Service

The Improvement Service (IS) is the national improvement organisation for local government in Scotland.

Our purpose is to help councils and their partners to improve the health, quality of life and opportunities of all people in Scotland through community leadership, strong local governance and the delivery of high quality, efficient local services.

Download a copy of the

IS Business Plan 17/18

Download a copy of the

Strategic Framework

Support for Councils

Through a series of principles, the IS works to promote improvement in local government and among its partners to support them improve outcomes and reduce the outcome gaps within populations and within areas.

Support for Community Planning Partnerships

The IS delivers a range of products and services that support CPPs to build their capacity to deliver the public service reform agenda.

Support for Elected Members

The IS has a non-partisan role to support all elected members in Scotland.

Data and Analysis

Viewstat

Welfare Reform Dashboard

Digital Public Services

Tellmescotland

Knowledge Management and Collaboration

Knowledge Hub

Innovation Exchange

Learning and Development

Performance Measurement and Indicators

Consultancy and Facilitation

Change Management

Learning and Skills

Performance Management and

Improvement

Research

Research Programme

Latest Publication

A review of the impact of 2016-17 local authority budget cuts on the provision of money advice services which are funded and/or delivered by local authorities.

Research

We produce a small number of independent research pieces or publications each year, which are listed below. This is in addition to our programme and project-specific publications which can be found on the relevant pages within our Products and Services sections.

Latest Publications

Instrumental Music Services: Results from the IMS Survey May-July 2016

Place-based Approaches to Joint Planning, Resourcing and Delivery: an overview of current practice in Scotland

News

As well as news from the Improvement Service other news relevant to local government improvement in Scotland. is also published. The Improvement Service welcomes contributions from Scottish local authorities and partner organisations. If you have a story you would like to share, contact us.

Newsletters

The Improvement Services produces a series of newsletters on a range of subjects, including myaccount, elected members, tellmescotland as well as the main IS newsletter. Subscribe on this page.

Subscribe to the Improvement Service

See past issues of the IS newsletter

Events

Find out about all the events and activities organised by the Improvement Service or of interest to Scottish local authorities here. If you would like to add an event to this calendar, please contact info@improvementservice.org.uk

You can quickly browse events from the calendar opposite, or go to the events page for full details of all events.

Economic Development - working with councils to improve the impact of their economic development actitivies

SLAED Indicators Framework 2016-17

The SLAED Indicators Data Return Template and Guidance Document for 2016-17 are now available to download.

The SLAED Indicators Framework Report for 2015/16 is also available.

The Economic Outcomes Programme (EOP) was established in 2012 with funding from Scottish Government and the Improvement Service. The original programme ran for two years with a focus on providing support to councils and partners to embed the key messages of the Scottish Local Authorities’ Economic Development Improvement Guide.

The second stage of the EOP is an evolution from the initial phase of work based on a review of the success of the original programme. The second phase will focus on undertaking detailed impact assessments of the current ‘economic footprint’ of councils/partnerships. From the ‘footprint’ analysis, a report will be produced for each area summarising current economic impact and setting out a range of ways that the impact could be enhanced. This will be accompanied by facilitated workshop discussions with the leadership teams from each council/partnership. The prime focus of these sessions will be to identify opportunities for further enhancing economic impact. This will result in fairly short, focused economic improvement plans, setting out key actions, timescales and responsibilities.

Following an initial piloting of the EOP2 methodology in Autumn 2014, the programme will be rolled out to all 32 Community Planning Partnerships over a two year period.

The EOP is funded by the 32 Scottish councils, the Scottish Government and the Improvement Service.

More information

Download this EOP Local Authority Briefing delivered by Andrew Noble.

Download this NHS Seninar 'Applying economic leverage to tackle inequality - the role of the public sector', delivered by Andrew Noble on Friday 15 April 2016.

Download the EOP Update Report, June 2016.

Download this presentation on EOP2 delivered by Andrew Noble, Economic Outcomes Programme Manager, at the SLAED Annual Conference on 27 February 2015.

EOP briefing presented to SOLACE, August 2015

Advisory Board

The programme is overseen by an Advisory Board, which is chaired by SOLACE and includes senior representatives from Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland, the Federation of Small Businesses and academia. More information on the EOP Board and Agendas/Minutes of previous meetings are available in the Project Board section.