Scotland’s wellbeing tool is the National Performance Framework (NPF). It sets out an overall vision for Scotland and ‘aims to create a more successful country, with opportunities for all to flourish through increased wellbeing and sustainable and inclusive economic growth.’1 It is intended to promote ‘partnership working by making organisations jointly responsible for planning and spending to achieve shared National Outcomes’ contained within the NPF.
However, this report and the research that informs it demonstrate that the NPF is being underused, and failing to shape government policy as it could and should. Here, Dr French hones in on the Scottish picture, and sets out six steps that the Scottish Government could take to allow the National Performance Framework to achieve its potential:
- Complete the journey from a National Performance Framework to Scotland’s Wellbeing Framework
- Make the NPF the lynchpin of a renewed Scottish Public Service Reform Programme
- Reframe accountability and scrutiny relationships around the revised NPF
- Introduce new duties for public bodies - in return for new powers
- Use the revised NPF as a tool for direct democracy
- Review the NPF's integration, not just its content
- Contact: Dr Max French ([email protected]) or Stuart Mackinnon ([email protected])