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.
What We Do
Contact
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.
We do this by providing a range of products and providing advisory services including consultation and facilitation, learning and skills, performance management and improvement, and research. You can find out more about all our products and services by visiting the Products and Services sections of this site.
Five year strategy
In November 2015, we published our strategic framework and development priorities for the next five years. The framework gives our reading of the challenges local government and local services will face over the five-year period and sets out the support that the IS and other partners want to provide to help councils and Community Planning Partnerships deal with them.
Download a copy of our Strategic Framework.
From 2015-2020, our priorities are to:
- Support a step change in productivity and efficiency
- Support the delivery of improved outcomes
- Support thinking about future resilience and sustainability
Our work is focused in seven key areas to support these priorities:
- We will continually improve our products and services
- We will drive collaborative working
- We will broker and mobilise resources
- We will provide practical support
- We will support the development of sustainable strategic options
- We will improve research and analytical support
- We will support the development of the next generation of political and executive leaders
Our actions in each of these areas will be defined more specifically each year in our annual business plan.
Download the 2017-18 Business Plan.
How we are funded
Our detailed spending plans are fully integrated and aligned to our business plan for the coming year. In 2015/16 we received £1.656m Revenue Support Grant to fund our core programmes and £4.6m to deliver the myaccount programme and services. We also secured a number of specific grants.
We also generate additional funding and resourcing and set a priority target of bringing in £750,000 for 2015/16.
Our 2015-16 financial statements are now available: Download the 2015-16 statutory financial statements
How we are governed
The Improvement Service is a partnership between the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE). It is a company limited by guarantee. The Improvement Service is governed by a Board of Directors which meets quarterly and this is chaired by Councillor David O’Neill, President of COSLA. Current board members are:
- Councillor David O’Neill, President, COSLA
- Councillor Rob Murray, Angus Council
- Councillor Malcolm Bell, Shetland Islands Council
- Colin Mair, Chief Executive, Improvement Service
- Elma Murray, Chief Executive, North Ayrshire Council
- Keith Winter, Executive Director of Enterprise & Environment, Fife Council
- Angela Leitch, Chief Executive, East Lothian Council
- Steve Grimmond, Chief Executive, Fife Council
