The 'go to' organisation for Local Government improvement in Scotland

The programme aims to improve Scotland’s wellbeing and reduce inequalities through changing our collective approaches to the places where we live, work and play, enabling partnership-based, wide-ranging action at a local level, while addressing the health of our planet. This is achieved through three activities: local project action, local learning cohort and national leadership cohort.

The programme supports local authorities, health boards, and their partners to consider ‘place’ in a comprehensive and consistent way, whilst delivering on interventions and a range of national ambitions and key government policy aspirations including 20-minute neighbourhoods, the review of Scotland’s Town Centre Action Plan and Scotland’s Public Health Priorities. For more information about the programme, download our programme summary.

The Shaping Places for Wellbeing Implementation diagram shows:

• what we as a programme bring as support (inputs),
• what we are producing to enable our approach to be replicated (outputs)
• the lasting system change we look to deliver (outcomes impact) for the Programme.

Seven Project Towns (Alloa, Ayr, Clydebank, Dalkeith, Fraserburgh, Dunoon and Rutherglen) are supported by Project Leads to facilitate the opportunity for people to come together to think, learn and plan in a  way that considers the collective impact of their decisions on a place and those who use it. Community Link Leads within the Project Towns bring the voice of those experiencing inequality into these decision-making processes.

Research and evidence tells us the characteristics we need to get right in a place to enable those using it to thrive. These characteristics, known as the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes provide a consistent and comprehensive Scotland-wide set of outcomes for all our places. The Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme is anchored in bringing the delivery of these outcomes into decision-making.

More information and context to the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes can be found in this briefing paper and on our Place and Wellbeing Outcomes webpage.

Find out more about the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme in this Argyll and Bute podcast, where our Programme Lead Irene Beautyman discusses what the Programme is aiming to achieve, the need for place-based collaborative working and how data drives the Programme’s approach.