The Scottish Government

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

BACKGROUND

The Integrated Service Delivery and Governance Modelling project (the modelling project) aimed to test the most viable and appropriate models of integrated public service delivery. The project ran for 12 months from August 2005 to August 2006. It was co-funded by the Executive, COSLA, SOLACE and the Improvement Service.

The Modelling project formed part of a series of Public Service Reform discussion events where senior leaders from a range of public service organisations were brought together and given the time and space to consider how they might develop and enable new and innovative ways of working.

The modelling project was designed around facilitated workshop discussions with participants from frontline public services:

• examining the potential for further integration of Scotland's front line public services
• exploring the conditions under which innovations in sustainable integration might flourish
• encouraging public service practitioners to develop relevant ideas for service integration.

Discussion focused on barriers and enablers to better public service integration and a better understanding was reached of how constraints on deepened collaboration could be reduced or removed. Project participants generated ideas based on their knowledge and experience and investigated the governance implications of emerging models, which were tested for viability and validity against the five agreed principles of public service reform (Scottish Executive, 2006) [1].

The project was originally intended to comprise 3 rounds of data collection:

• Round 1 - 25 facilitated workshops at which participants considered the principles of effective integration and barriers and enablers to integration
• Round 2 - 18 facilitated workshops at which participants were asked to generate potential service innovations. This round focused primarily on the managerial, organisational and delivery systems and implications for further front line service integration.
• Round 3 - was to have consisted of a further round of workshops exploring governance implications for front line service integration. However, this round of data collection did not take place as governance issues are now being discussed at the Public Service Reform Dialogue events currently taking place across Scotland and are also being considered at a strategic level, by a number of other policy areas in the Executive.

The summary below therefore relates to data from the first two rounds of the modelling project, generated through 43 facilitated workshops with over 150 leadership level participants from a broad cross section of Scotland's public services, central and local government and agencies. Participants represented the wide composition of Scotland's local authorities, with representatives from cities, from larger and smaller local authorities and from rural areas and the islands.

Since the modelling project was initiated, the Reform Support Team [2] has been established within the Public Service Reform and Efficiency Group within the Scottish Executive. The team will provide support to local authorities, and other public sector organisations, who are in the process of devising innovative projects and finding new ways of working that seek to effect a transformational change to service delivery by making a significant contribution to the five key principles of public service reform outlined in Transforming Public Services: The Next Phase of Reform (Scottish Executive, 2006).

1. Transforming Public Services: The Next Phase of Reform (Scottish Executive, 2006).

2. C ontact details will be available in Appendix A of the full version of this report.

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