{"id":481809,"date":"2025-10-08T02:32:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/481809\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T02:32:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:32:16","slug":"ministers-and-councils-at-risk-of-breaking-the-promise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/481809\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers and councils at risk of breaking The Promise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Audit Scotland<\/a> has warned that The Promise<\/a> \u2014 the Scottish Government<\/a>\u2019s landmark pledge to transform care for vulnerable children \u2014 is at risk of being broken due to a lack of leadership.\n<\/p>\n

\n The watchdog said initial planning by ministers and COSLA \u201cdid not give sufficient thought to the work that would be needed to deliver its aims over a ten-year period \u2013 including the resources required, and how success would be defined and measured.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis has meant that public bodies across Scotland were not given a strong foundation to deliver on the care review ambitions, and work since then has been slow,\u201d the report states.\n<\/p>\n

\n The Promise \u2013 the ten-year commitment to transform the experiences of children and young people in or on the edges of care \u2013 was made in 2020 by the then First Minister<\/a> Nicola Sturgeon<\/a> in response to the Independent Care Review that was announced at SNP<\/a> conference in 2016.\n<\/p>\n

\n It was intended to transform the care system to \u201censure that Scotland\u2019s children and young people grow up feeling loved, safe, and respected, so that they can realise their full potential”.\n<\/p>\n

\n But halfway to the 2030 deadline, Scotland\u2019s public sector watchdog says key national plans still lack clarity, governance is \u201ccomplex\u201d, and accountability remains \u201cchallenging\u201d, with actions taken to address problems \u201cinsufficient\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

\n There are also concerns over funding. The government announced a \u00a3500 million Whole Family Wellbeing Fund in 2022\/23 to help deliver The Promise, but the report says it is unclear how this amount was calculated, and only \u00a3148m has been spent.\n<\/p>\n

\n Meanwhile, longstanding problems with inconsistent recording, limited data sharing and missing information mean ministers cannot say with confidence whether reforms are improving the lives of Scotland\u2019s 11,842 looked-after children.\n<\/p>\n

\n Audit Scotland has given ministers and COSLA six months to act.\n<\/p>\n

\n Its recommendations include identifying where resources should be targeted nationally and locally, clarifying roles and responsibilities, reviewing governance structures, aligning data projects, and evaluating whether the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund is sufficient.\n<\/p>\n

\n It also says the Scottish Government must \u201cprovide clearer reporting on spending on care experience and support to delivery bodies on priorities and areas to focus funding on how best to deliver The Promise.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The Audit Scotland report highlights widespread confusion over the roles of the Scottish Government, The Promise Scotland, the Oversight Board and the Independent Strategic Advisor.\n<\/p>\n

\n It says these entities were \u201cnot clearly distinguished or defined from the outset \u2013 including how they relate to each other, and their respective governance and accountability arrangements”.\n<\/p>\n

\n It describes \u201ca confusing policy and legislative environment\u201d which \u201cis not enabling public bodies to deliver The Promise”.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe landscape surrounding The Promise is complex,\u201d the report warns. \u201cComplex governance arrangements mean collective responsibility and accountability is challenging, and actions to address this have been insufficient.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n The Promise was first made by Nicola Sturgeon in 2020(Image: PA)\n<\/p>\n

\n The Scottish Government established new structures, including a cabinet sub-committee and a central civil service team, but Audit Scotland said \u201csome stakeholders are less clear on how these new arrangements are supporting delivery of The Promise.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Children\u2019s Services Planning Partnerships \u2013 which bring together councils, health boards and other agencies locally \u2013 are not formally held accountable for their role in delivering the reforms, and approaches vary significantly across the country.\n<\/p>\n

\n The national plans setting out how the reforms are to be delivered have also been inadequate.\n<\/p>\n

\n The first plan, Plan 21\u201324, \u201cwas not delivered in full\u201d. The second, Plan 24\u201330, \u201chas not given the clarity needed by individual bodies and sectors\u201d and has been published in a format \u201cwhich organisations have found challenging to navigate.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere has not been a consistent and shared understanding of what delivering The Promise would look like, and how this would be achieved, by 2030,\u201d the report says.\n<\/p>\n

\n Detailed \u201croute maps\u201d explaining what different sectors need to do will not be available until the end of 2025 \u2013 almost six years after ministers made their pledge.\n<\/p>\n

\n The report finds that ministers were \u201cslow to develop a framework to measure progress\u201d. A national monitoring framework was only finalised in December 2024, and key work to assess whether care-experienced people \u201cfeel the impact of change\u201d will not be ready until late 2025.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAvailable data is not sufficient to assess if services are improving the lives of care-experienced people at a national level,\u201d the audit says.\n<\/p>\n

\n The absence of this assessment is described as \u201ca significant delivery risk\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cGiven the substantial and complex programme of work identified, without an evidence-based assessment of resource requirements, it will be difficult for the Scottish Government, local government, and partners to prioritise investment to deliver The Promise by 2030,\u201d the report warns.\n<\/p>\n

\n Local authorities spent \u00a31.2 billion on care experience in 2023\/24, a 1.2% increase in real terms since 2017\/18. But funding is \u201cdifficult to quantify and track\u201d, and \u201cthe short-term and complex nature of multiple disparate funding streams is a barrier to effective use of resources.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Audit Scotland says there remains \u201cstrong commitment\u201d across the sector to delivering change by 2030. But it warns: \u201cFurther development of plans and a monitoring framework are due at the end of 2025. These must provide a catalyst for greater pace and momentum.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n In a joint statement, the Scottish Government, COSLA, Solace, The Promise Scotland and the Independent Strategic Advisor for The Promise said they were taking the report \u201cseriously\u201d and were \u201cfully committed to the shared goal of ensuring that all of Scotland\u2019s children grow up loved, safe and respected.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n They said: \u201cKeeping the promise will transform the lives of Scotland\u2019s families, children, young people in care and care experienced adults, now and for generations to come. It is an ambitious, long-term change programme requiring unprecedented levels of collaboration across different systems, organisations and sectors.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe unified commitment around the promise is vitally important, and reflected in the unusual step of issuing a joint response to this report.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cScotland has a responsibility to all those to whom the promise was made, to ensure that the pace of change is increased and delivery is felt in people\u2019s lives, every day. This requires person and family-centred approaches to how Scotland provides care and support.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Scottish Labour<\/a> spokesperson for Children and Young People Martin Whitfield said the \u201cdamning report lays bare the SNP\u2019s shameful failure to deliver on its promises to young people in Scotland\u2019s care system”.\n<\/p>\n

\n He added: \u201cThe Scottish Government has a responsibility to do right by these children, but it is clear there has been a lack of leadership and delivery under the SNP.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Scottish Conservative shadow minister for children and young people Roz McCall said: \u201cThis is an absolutely damning verdict on one of the SNP\u2019s flagship policies.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt is five years on since Nicola Sturgeon launched The Promise to huge fanfare, but progress is moving at a snail\u2019s pace.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe report exposes that delivering The Promise for Scotland\u2019s most vulnerable young people has simply not been a priority for the SNP.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cTheir plans lack any detail, and it is astonishing that there was never any assessment put in place to define if the policy had been a success or not.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cSNP ministers are also presiding over chronic under-funding of what is needed to meet their ambitions, despite claiming \u00a3500 million would be spent in relation to this.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe Promise was supposed to make a real difference for vulnerable young people, but in typical SNP fashion, they have monumentally failed to deliver on their warm rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audit Scotland has warned that The Promise \u2014 the Scottish Government\u2019s landmark pledge to transform care for vulnerable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-481809","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115336206299244122","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}