What makes us unique?
We are the improvement arm of Scottish local government and a key member of the local government family, focused on supporting local government to deliver sector-led improvement. We are a trusted, supportive, dependable and responsive partner who understands local government and the challenges it is facing. Improvement support for local government is at the heart of everything that we do, and we deliver our work with honesty and integrity.
We are open and transparent about what we do, and accountable to local government.
We are leaders in improvement, and our innovative and creative work across transformational change, performance and improvement, data and intelligence, and digital public services means that we are uniquely placed to support local government make communities better and more equal places to live.
We provide services to local authorities and their partners on a not-for-profit basis motivated by purely public policy objectives, supporting them to improve the quality and efficiency of the public services for which they are responsible.
We have a well proven and highly regarded improvement architecture embedded across a number of programmes, which can be deployed and flexed to support sector-led improvement across different policy and service areas.
We have expertise in delivering national shared services and technology platforms and national improvement programmes for local government and their partners in key policy and outcome areas.
We are creative and agile in developing responses to challenges and we care about doing the right thing. We tackle issues by experimenting, learning, adapting and collaborating. We have developed a range of flexible and mobile working practices and can deliver products/services in person or remotely.
The work we do is far reaching. We are collaborative by nature and work closely with a wide range of partners including local and national government, Community Planning partners, national agencies, audit and inspection bodies, third sector organisations and Ordnance Survey. Our partnerships are important to us, and we strive to be an honest, transparent and accountable partner.
Our independence, impartiality and our status as a not-for-profit company enables us to access a wide range of grant funding and commercial income.
Our people are our biggest asset, many of whom have first-hand experience of working in local authorities or wider public services. We embrace collaboration, leveraging opportunities to transfer and trade experience, skills, expertise and capacity, wherever it resides.
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Strategic Framework 2023-27
Download a PDF version of the IS Strategic Framework.
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IS Annual Report 2023
A round-up of IS activities, key achievements and performance throughout 2023.
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Our Approach to Net Zero
This statement sets out the guiding principles to our approach to net zero.
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Data and Intelligence Strategy
This four-year strategy sets out our vision and purpose for our work on data and intelligence, how we will deliver this and what we aspire to achieve.