Meeting of the Parliament 11 June 2026 [Last updated 19:16]
I am delighted to open this afternoon’s debate on public service reform, which I believe will be the defining task of this session of Parliament.
Public service reform is about delivering our vision of a Scotland where citizens enjoy excellent public services that meet their individual needs and where the staff who provide those services feel valued and are empowered to make a difference to people’s lives. It is a vision rooted in what we believe about public services, which is that they are critical to delivering a fairer future with opportunities for all, that they are an asset and an investment, and that they must be protected for the future by wise investment. That vision is enabled by more joined-up and integrated services, with greater investment in prevention, that are delivered efficiently. Those principles were set out by the Christie commission and are embedded in our public service reform strategy, which was published last year.
Public service reform is at the heart of this Administration. We are not making marginal changes; we must reimagine the state as an enabler, which means rewiring our public services system to deliver on that vision. That means listening to and working with communities, those who rely on services, and the workforce in order to make changes and improve service delivery.
I have high hopes for today’s debate and hope that I will not be disappointed. We will not deliver the scale of change that we need without some consensus across the chamber and, although the Government is brimming with ideas for innovations to transform public services, we recognise that we do not have an exclusive hold on good ideas. I look forward to hearing from Opposition spokespeople about their perspectives on public service reform and, importantly, about where we can work together. I also look forward to hearing from back-bench colleagues, who have a wide range of experience and perspectives, about where they see opportunities to make Scotland’s public services preventative, joined-up and excellent, because that is what the people of Scotland deserve.
We have already shown what is possible. More than £300 million has been saved through more efficient procurement in the past two years and we are projecting savings of more than £50 million through the rationalisation of estates—13 core Scottish Government buildings have been closed in the past three years and there are more to follow. There is an extensive automation programme, with more than 140 automations having been implemented, delivering more than £15 million in cost avoidance. There has been a rationalisation of the public sector landscape with the formation of Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, the regionalisation of colleges and, more recently, the launch of Public Services Delivery Scotland. Legislation has empowered communities to acquire public assets and we have passed the world-leading Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Act 2026.
We have also introduced a wide range of effective preventative initiatives, including childsmile, the Caledonian system for addressing domestic abuse, minimum unit pricing of alcohol and family nurse partnerships, to name but a few. We have seen the roll-out of digital services, including the ScotAccount app, which expands people’s access to essential services via a single sign-in process and now has 750,000 users, and ScotPayments, which supports organisations across the public sector to make faster, safer payments. This summer, we will launch the Scottish Government’s mygov.scot app, which will allow people in Scotland to conveniently access a range of public services from their own devices.