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.
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.
The IS delivers a range of products and services that support CPPs to build their capacity to deliver the public service reform agenda.
The IS has a non-partisan role to support all elected members in Scotland.
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.
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.
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
Newsletter
See past issues of the IS newsletter
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.
Improvserv on Twitter
Improvement Service a winner at the Scottish Transport Awards
The National Entitlement Card (NEC) migration project was named winner of the 'Excellence in Technology and Innovation' award at this year's Scottish Transport Awards.
The project saw the replacement of almost one million NEC cards ahead of their expiration on 31 December 2016.
Using Data Hub, the IS' free address validation service, local authorities were able to identify the most accurate and up-to-date address and person records for their customers and ensure that cards were sent to the correct addresses.
Fiona Gray, Data Hub Project Manager, said, “We are delighted to win the Excellence and Technology and Innovation Award this year. We need to also acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the council staff across all authorities who worked with us on this project. They worked tirelessly to ensure National Entitlement Cards were sent to the correct customer at the correct address, with the help of our Data Hub. On the back of this project, we are currently developing an online Data Hub to extend its application wider in pursuit of accurate and good quality. It will be available to councils later this year – watch this space!”
The 15th annual Scottish Transport Awards ceremony was attended by more than 370 industry professionals from Scotland’s transport sector. The Awards recognise excellence, innovation and progress across all areas of transport in Scotland.
