Scottish Leaders Forum Conference 2023

NOW IS THE TIME: LEADING TOGETHER TO SECURE THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC SERVICES IN SCOTLAND

SLF Co-Chairs Jane O’Donnell (Chief Executive, COSLA) and Louise Macdonald (DG Communities, Scottish Government) were pleased to welcome over a hundred delegates to this year’s conference, which took place on Wednesday 1 November at COSLA Conference Centre, Verity House, Edinburgh. 

Drawing together senior leaders from Scotland’s public services, we wanted to create a collaborative and purposeful space for members to collectively explore the key challenges that face our country and communities, with a specific focus on what it takes to drive Public Service Reform. The theme of this year’s conference spoke to our shared ambition to progress a ten-year programme of Public Service Reform, what this means for public service leaders and crucially how we lead.  

Reflecting on an insightful, inspiring, and energising day, the Co-Chairs were struck by the powerful contributions from our speakers and the brilliant public service leaders in the room. Highlights included: 

• Professor Graeme Roy, Chair of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, set out the nature and scale of fiscal and demographic pressures and the necessity to fundamentally reconsider what we collectively do and how we do it. Professor Roy’s session was widely referred to in discussions throughout the day. 
• Two in-depth discussion sessions provided an opportunity for our members to: further explore what we need to do differently as a leadership collective to create the conditions for reform and achieve the NPF, what behaviours we should expect of each other as partners, and what is it that we collectively need from the SLF to support our leadership.  
• Greg Colgan, Chief Executive of Dundee City Council, introduced the new Chief Constable Jo Farrell, who assumed her office with Police Scotland on 9 October 2023. She shared her personal reflections on taking up the post and her approach to leading the police force, including the need to be bold and brave in our leadership as we face individual and collective challenges – from fiscal sustainability to equalities. 
• Cllr Shona Morrison, COSLA President, emphasised the significance of the Verity House Agreement and how it requires all of us to change how we operate, so that we work better in partnership and ensure we focus our collective efforts on improving outcomes for the people of Scotland and through a lens of place. 
• Sara Thiam, Chief Executive of Prosper (formerly SCDI), welcomed Dr Poonam Malik of Strathclyde University and the Co-Chair of New Deal for Business Group, whose address emphasised the importance of creativity, innovation and partnership across all elements of the public service system, including private sector collaboration, and highlighted the kinds of leadership behaviours and practice that help to achieve that ‘whole system’ approach to accelerate the transition from where we are now, to where we need to be across a range of long term, societal, economic and environmental challenges. 
• John-Paul Marks, Permanent Secretary, hosted a ‘Fireside chat’ between Shona Robison, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, and Cllr Steven Heddle, COSLA Vice President, who provided reflections on the proceedings of the day and the key policy and leadership challenges ahead. 
• Finally – the thought-provoking and inspiring discussions over the course of the day were live captured in a visual record by the brilliant artists collective from More Than Minutes (picture included above). 

The SLF is where Scotland’s senior leaders come together with purpose, to connect, to learn and to collaborate. This is a space where we want leaders to make and lead the change that ensures the future sustainability of our public services and improves the wellbeing of Scotland’s people and places. We want to strengthen and improve the SLF offer; we want to learn from those of you already doing this work and we want to hear your views on what’s needed to support leadership skills and practice. If you’d like to know more about our future vision, or you have resources and/or ideas to help us bring this fully to life – please get in touch: ScottishLeadersForum@gov.scot 

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Conference 2022: LEADING TOGETHER TO IMPROVE OUTCOMES FOR EVERYONE IN SCOTLAND

We were delighted to welcome so many of you to the Scottish Police Headquarters in Tulliallan in October 2022, for our first in-person conference since October 2019. Over 120 members took part in what was a genuinely inspiring and thought provoking day and it was wonderful to see so many of you. Special thanks to our colleagues at Police Scotland who provided the venue and lunch and who did a great job of supporting us with the logistics of delivering on the day. A truly collaborative effort. Thank you.

Highlights included:  

• First Minister Nicola Sturgeon emphasising the ongoing need to build on our collective commitment to public service and to deliver for Scotland’s people and places, working collaboratively to remove barriers and deliver person-centred, frontline services.
• Discussions on leading through the pandemic from a Local Government perspective, and exploring how we best improve outcomes in the current fiscal context. 
• Moving and powerful accounts from those with lived experience of some of today’s biggest challenges, including poverty and fleeing war. 
• An insight into the SLF Scottish Leadership Academy, and its approach to building a values-based collaborative vision for leading Scotland with confidence and optimism through challenging times.
• COSLA Vice President, Steven Heddle, Permanent Secretary John-Paul Marks and Deputy First Minister, John Swinney reflecting on key leadership and policy challenges.
• The opportunity to participate in collaborative sessions on child poverty and place based approaches, the national drugs mission, the future of scrutiny, Covid recovery and to take part in dialogue walks.