When the Scottish Government responds to committee pre-Budget recommendations, it often highlights strategic approaches it has taken, or is intending to take, to address the committee’s concerns.
This might include strategies, frameworks, plans and planned legislative approaches. We’ve highlighted in the past, however, not all these initiatives come to pass, and when they do, there is a lack of data available on outcomes.
This blog explores how strategic documents might be defined, and looks at three case studies and how these illustrate the variation in the Scottish Government’s approach to setting out its strategic plans.
A complimentary blog has also been published, which considers three health-related strategy documents to explore how these strategic documents discuss prevention in the context of health (and social care).
Context: Finance Committee scrutiny
The Finance and Public Administration Committee has heard concerns around the number of live strategies the Scottish Government has in place. In April 2025 evidence on the Scottish Budget process in practice, Professor Mairi Spowage of the Fraser of Allander Institute said:
We have said, and many people have noted, that there are lots of strategy documents and it is not always clear how they align with one another or the extent to which they provide a strategic direction for policy making. That includes the NPF [National Performance Framework] and the national strategy for economic transformation, as well as the annual, more political documents such as the programme for government, aligned with the budget documents. It is difficult to see whether they all hang together.
Committee convener Kenneth Gibson mused, in response:
Maybe the Government will produce a strategy document to bring together all the strategy documents.
The Committee had already asked, in its report on pre-Budget Scrutiny 2025-26, that the Scottish Government conduct “an exercise across portfolios to identify the number of ‘live’ strategies it has in place, to provide a baseline for numbers to be monitored and reduced wherever possible”, and report on this by June 2025. Its report into the Scottish Budget process in practice, published on 19 June 2025, reiterated this request.
The Scottish Government wrote to the Committee of 22 August 2025, listing the total number of live strategies at the time as being 100.
Our analysis approach
In line with one of the key themes across committees’ pre-Budget scrutiny of accountability, our focus in the analysis for this blog was on strategic approaches. The aim was to identify the top-level and overarching approaches which the Scottish Government had identified as the means through which it would deliver its priorities.
We began our analysis by looking through the Scottish Government’s response letters to pre-Budget scrutiny in the first four years of Session 6 of the Scottish Parliament (so, for the Scottish Budgets 2022-23 to 2025-26). We pulled out any reference to a strategy, framework, action plan, or strategic programme, as well as any anticipated pieces of legislation which were referenced by the Scottish Government.
We excluded policies, funding packages, programmes which related to spending allocations or procurement, and references to reviews, action/working groups, task forces, or commissions (including the Government’s response to the recommendations of such groups).
Although this was a qualitative exercise and should be seen as illustrative, we identified close to 80 approaches presented by the Government as setting (or being intended to set) a strategic approach. Only 30 of these appear on the Government’s list of live strategies in August 2025. This is likely to reflect both the winding up or replacement of some strategies, but also a variance in how “strategy” is defined.
It raises the question of what criteria are used by the Government when determining whether a document is a strategy. Best Start, Bright Futures, the Government’s plan for tackling child poverty, for instance, is not on its list of strategies, despite it representing the Government setting out “a vision for Scotland, the changes that are needed to achieve this, and the actions [it] will take with partners to deliver that change”.
Legislative direction
As well as using strategies and frameworks, the Scottish Government uses legislation to set the strategic context for delivering its priorities. A past example would be the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, which introduced a framework for a new strategic approach to supporting Scotland’s Island populations.
It is notable that earlier in Session 6, the Government referenced certain anticipated pieces of legislation, and reviews of statutory documentation which would support the delivery of its priorities, which have since been delayed or abandoned.
Anticipated legislation to enshrine the UN Charter of Human Rights and European Social and Cultural Rights in Scottish legislation has now been postponed until after the election.
The National Performance Framework (NPF) is another oft-cited strategic approach, but the statutory review of the National Outcomes due in 2024 was first delayed, then left unimplemented upon the Government’s decision to more radically overhaul the NPF approach. The Government recently wrote to committees sharing a proposed new draft model for the NPF, with the aim being to gather and use stakeholder feedback to prepare a final proposal for the next government to consider following the election.
Defining different strategic documents
The Government’s letter to the Finance and Public Administration Committee does not explain, alongside its list of live strategies, what criteria it uses when defining a strategy.
The Collins Dictionary explains that a strategy is “a general plan or set of plans intended to achieve something, especially over a long period”. Exact descriptors vary, but an overview of definitions from our research suggests that:
- A vision is the ultimate goal an organisation wishes to reach – it is the destination.
- A strategy provides the framework and direction for planning towards specific aims. It is how the destination will be reached.
- A framework might also set out loose guidelines to meet those aims, and a roadmap might provide an overview of all available options.
- A strategic plan or action plan sets out a specific and executable approach to achieving the aims of a strategy.
This is where language becomes confusing. In its list, the Government includes documents which use all these terms, and more, in their titles. Conversely, there are several documents which use these terms that have been highlighted by the Government in pre-Budget responses this session that do NOT appear on the Government’s list. So how do these documents differ?
The Marine science and innovation strategy, launched in January 2024, is not on the Government’s list of live strategies. Rather, the 2022 Blue Economy Vision which predates and overarches said strategy, is listed.
The Scottish Government evaluation action plan (2024) is not on the live strategies list, which could be expected given that the title does not introduce it as a strategy. The Faith and belief engagement strategy (2023), by contrast, is on the list. Both documents, despite being called different things and being clearly classified differently, have a lot in common. Both set out a “vision” and what the Government aims to achieve, along with an outline delivery plan. Interestingly though, it is the strategy rather than the action plan which has more clarity on timelines and detail on the intended review process, a feature which might be more typical of an action plan.
Case studies
Housing to 2040
Housing to 2040 (2021) is described as “Scotland’s first ever long-term national housing strategy” and was referenced in responses to the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee pre-Budget reports for both 2022-23 and 2023-24. It does not, however, appear on the Government’s list of live strategies, and the strategy page does not set out any detail on evaluation of the strategy to date.
A layperson looking at the strategy might wish to understand progress against long term goals in the strategy. To understand whether the aims of the strategy are being met, they would have to explore the route map within the strategy, identify which policy actions these relate to, and then identify which statistics to consult. For example, in the Housing to 2040 Route Map, the Government sets out aims to deliver 100,000 affordable homes, of which at least 70% would be social housing, in the 10 years up to 2032.
Looking at delivery statistics might seem a logical way to track progress. However, that wouldn’t tell the full policy story. Within months of the strategy launching, the Government revised its targets up to 110,000 affordable homes by 2032. More recently, the Government launched its Housing Emergency Action Plan in September 2025. In this, the Government confirms that:
Housing to 2040 remains our overarching strategy that sets out a vision and roadmap to ensuring everyone has a safe, good quality and affordable home by 2040.
This case study highlights the challenges of understanding the evolution of long-term strategies, particularly for those who are less familiar or up to date with the relevant policy area. When an overarching strategic document remains static, it becomes disconnected from subsequent changes to priorities and plans. In this case, there is a landing page for the strategy containing supporting documents, but there are no updates or links to more recent policy shifts. The Government’s confirmation that Housing to 2040 remains its overarching strategy is hard to reconcile with the reality that aspects of the document are out of date, and the strategy does not feature on the list provided to the FPA Committee.
Medium Term-Financial Strategy
The most mentioned strategy across pre-Budget letters that also appears on the Government’s list of live strategies is the Medium Term-Financial Strategy (MTFS), which is refreshed every 1-2 years. The most recent publication, released in June 2025, was the seventh iteration of the strategy. The current strategy, however, presents differently from other Scottish Government strategies – rather than setting out a vision, aims and a delivery plan, it focuses more on setting out economic context, priorities and funding measures. In many cases, it highlights the role of other strategies in meeting aims. As is the case with other strategies we’ve looked at, there is little evaluation of the impact of previous iterations, but it does set out activities which have contributed to current priorities since the last MTFS in 2023.
As we noted in our blog following the most recent MTFS release, the Fraser of Allander Institute’s reaction was that:
The previous editions appeared to be a strategic document, but in the past has more often than not felt like a political statement, more aimed at managing expectations of what might be funded than in setting out a credible central scenario.
Although the most recent iteration had progressed more towards the Scottish Government’s aim of using the MTFS to set out its strategic spending approach, the extent to which the document represents a strategy could be questioned.
COVID-19 recovery strategy
In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Scottish Government published the Covid recovery strategy. The October 2021 strategy, which was referenced by the Government in several pre-Budget responses, sets out a vision for recovery, and demonstrates an evidence base for setting three priority outcomes. It goes on to set actions under each priority, which describe some planning work at both a service and strategic level, but for the most part state planned funding commitments. Finally, it explains how these outcomes will be delivered with partners, and timescales. The strategy is clear that it’s an 18-month plan, though some actions run “to spring 2023 and beyond”.
The strategy was delivered with oversight of a programme board, and a report was published in July 2024. Whilst this does not directly set out achievements against the actions in the strategy delivery plan, it does explain the changing context created by the cost-of-living crisis, and the board concludes that “the majority of actions were understood to be progressing as planned or were completed.”
The report explains that an outcome framework and dashboard was used to illustrate the outcomes that contributed to the three long-term outcomes articulated in the strategy. There is a focus on reflection and learning, with the Government acknowledging that:
The development of the dashboard demonstrated that it is difficult to go from high level outcomes to having a suite of measures that all are agreed on and can be reported on frequently. Despite the success in developing the framework, this work identified the difficulties of measuring outcomes, rather than outputs.
The recommendations in the report set out how the Government can build on the lessons learned and proposed next steps to support the reform agenda going forward. One of the more tangible recommendations referenced the 2023 Verity House Agreement commitment between the Scottish Government and COSLA to jointly develop an outcome framework. To date, this commitment has not been delivered upon.
Unpicking the strategic landscape
From our analysis, there are four key takeaways:
- The language used around strategic documents can be ambiguous. In theory, one might assume a hierarchy, with overarching visions broken down into multiple strategies, supported by detailed action plans. However, a lack of consistency means it may be challenging for committees to understand clearly where specific documents fit within the Government’s strategic approach.
- When the Government references a document to explain its approach, having an expectation of what the intent of that document is will help committees to understand what features to expect, and the extent to which it can be used as an accountability tool. A broad vision, whilst inspiring, may be challenging to scrutinise, particularly where it sets out a long-term approach. Committees are likely to find more tangible evidence of impact at the strategic or delivery plan level.
- Even when strategies are long term, and by their nature likely to evolve, strategic documents can remain static. Like most time capsules, the information and priorities within soon fall out of date. This can make it challenging to both understand delivery progress and be clear on current priorities. Finding ways to keep strategies connected to policy updates and reviews, in the way one can track changes to legislation, would support both committee and public understanding of how the Scottish Government is keeping long term strategies relevant and maintaining accountability.
- When considering when a strategy is or is not a strategy, the COVID-19 recovery strategy shows the value of setting out a clear vision, with evidenced goals and time-specified actions, but also of having a clear accountability structure and space to reflect and build on lessons learned upon completion. These are the features committees may look for when a strategy is presented as the Scottish Government’s answer to what it is doing to address concerns raised.
Defining and categorising strategic documents more clearly, using a common language between the Government and Parliament, could help committees to better understand where strategies fit into the accountability process. Clarifying where overarching policy and legislation fits into the strategic landscape, and how strategies evolve over time, would further this aim and give committees a clearer picture of the actions the Government is taking.
Not only could this make the Government’s highlighting of such documents more meaningful, it might also support the Government in its aim of rationalising its number of live strategies.
Ailsa Burn-Murdoch, Senior Researcher, SPICe