Improvement Service for the Scottish Local Government
Improvement Service is devoted to improving the efficiency, quality and accountability of public services in Scotland through learning, sharing knowledge and delivering improvement solutions.
It aims to support continuous improvement by building on the expertise within local authorities and working in partnership with stakeholders in the public, private and voluntary sectors. The core objectives are to:
- promote a learning culture and support collaborative working across local authorities and partners;
- build capacity within local government to improve the skills of officers and elected members;
- promote good practice across Scottish local government;
- promote the use of knowledge management within local authorities to support sharing and learning, e-governance and business re-design;
- identify good practice and learning from outside Scotland and other areas of the public, private and voluntary sector to share with Scottish local government.
Improvement Service is a partnership between the Scottish Executive, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE). It is a Company limited by guarantee with a budget of £4.5m over three years, provided by the Scottish Executive.
Improvement service aims to deliver its core objectives through a number of inter-related programmes:
- Best value
- Customer first
- Efficient government and performance management
- Elected members development
- Knowledge management
- Management development
- Preparation for 2007
- Planning and development
- Partnership and joint venture
Each of these programmes is led by a member of the IS team. However, no strand of work stands alone. All work carried out will feed into the knowledge management programme. Through the sharing of good practice identified or developed; use of communities of practice; and provision of a range of e-learning and online tools, we will support improvement in delivering Best Value service to local citizens as well as providing training and support to elected members and officers in the changeover to 2007.
For more information, please visit: www.improvementservice.org.uk
