Governing the City State - Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate ...

safer and stronger - helping communities to flourish, becoming stronger, safer places to live,offering improved opportunities and a better quality of life;smarter - expanding opportunities to succeed from nurture through to lifelong learningensuring higher and more widely shared achievements;greener - improving Scotland's natural and built environment and the sustainable use andenjoyment of it;As part of its focus on outcomes and performance, the Scottish Government established aprogram called Scotland Performs that publicly “measures and reports on theScottish Government's progress towards its Purpose of creating a more successful country,with opportunities for all to flourish through increasing sustainable economic growth”. 114The United Kingdom’s National School of Government notes, however, that ScotlandPerforms was “as much about alignment as it was about detail. It was about creating amultifunctional organisation, ‘by making sure we all had something in common to pointat.” 115 That said, its benefits also lie in the fact that it brings a sharp focus onto performanceand service delivery: Scotland Performs is growing in stature and increasingly, it is attractingMinisterial focus as it holds performance to account very clearly – “Ministers are now asking‘what does this mean for Scotland Performs?” 116Perhaps the most significant element of this performance focused framework is that:the ‘line of sight’ from purpose down to delivery and back has been made explicit. At present,it is easy to map how the fifteen national outcomes cluster around five strategic objectives, allsitting beneath the overarching purpose. Forty-five national indicators measure how Scotlandis performing in achieving those outcomes. 117This precision and clarity of purpose was “quite revolutionary” because the previousadministration had “identified 450 commitments for delivery based largely on inputs”. 118Reforming the Scottish Civil ServiceThe Scottish Government undertook major reform of its civil service to give effect to itsapproach. It abolished traditional departments and created public service structures alignedwith the key objectives described above. 119 It created a Strategic Board of the Civil Servicecomprising Directors-General each leading work on one strategic priority, thereby focusingperformance of the Civil Service in line with the Cabinet’s agenda. A “series of Directorateswas formed, with each Director supported and line managed by a Director General to ensure114 Scottish Government (2010d) Scotland Performs http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms115 National School of Government (2009a) p.2.116 National School of Government (2009a) p14.117 National School of Government (2009a) p13.118 National School of Government (2009b) The Scottish Government: Line of Sight – A Case Study by the National School ofGovernment on Scotland’s Outcomes Based Approach to Governmenthttp://virtual.nationalschool.gov.uk/StrategyExchange/Documents/Scottish%20Government%20-%20the%20line%20of%20sight.ppt#388,26,Slide119 Scottish Government (2010e) Background http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/backgroundGoverning the City State: 77