E062: Scotland’s National Performance Framework

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we are again with another episode of a world of work podcast. What are we speaking about today? Jane, well, today we've got a guest in, oh yes.

And we are talking to Leslie from the Scottish Government, all about the Scottish National Performance Framework, which is a really great example of something we talked about earlier around sustainable development goals, when we talked about responsible business and we talked about some of the things that societies are doing, we thought it'd be really good to speak to an actual person from an actual government that is trying to do some of this and move away from GDP as a single measure and look towards measures of well being. Talk to Leslie.

As Jane said, we wanted to explore what nations are doing in relation to changing the way that they focus on outcomes. And so we're speaking to Leslie, and what we're speaking about is the National Performance Framework. Now the National Performance Framework is a set of outcomes, essentially that Scotland is aiming towards. So Scotland as a nation has gone through a sort of consultative process and has identified a series of 11 outcomes, but they think create a basket of desirable outcomes that will help define what a successful nation is. So they have these 11 outcomes, and the feeling is that if Scotland achieves against these 11 objectives, if you will, or directional objectives, then Scotland will be doing well. And this is really about broadening away from some of the more traditional measures of success at a national level, as well as about moving away from targets towards actual outcomes. So the NPF, as it's referred to as a combination of these outcomes and also a purpose and a set of values as well. So I guess if I just start off, I can share the purpose, and then Jen can take you through some of the outcomes, and then maybe I'll round up a few, and we can close off with a value. So what's the purpose? Then, when we think of the NPF, well, the purpose is to focus on creating a more successful country with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish through increased well being and sustainable and inclusive economic growth. So that really broadens out some of those traditional definitions. As I said, there are 11 outcomes. Jane, do you want to take us through some of these outcomes? Yeah, so I'm going to take you through the first few

outcomes, and I'm going to just explain a little bit about what that might include. And include. And also it's important, I think, to understand that what they've done is they've also tried to map these against the sustainable development goals that we talked about earlier episodes from the United Nations. Yeah, and that's to try and get some sense of consistency around what I guess the world thinks, are important measures of a country, nation, societal success. Okay, so in no particular order, I'm going to read these out. And the first is human rights, which covers things like people being treated with dignity and respect from public services as an indicator. And it also covers things like access to justice and public quality of public services, then we've got culture. And they're looking at things like how people are engaging in cultural events or places of culture, and also employment within that sector. The things they look at to identify if they are moving forward the third is environment. And for this moment, they are looking at indicators like visits to the outdoors, hugely important in Scotland, it's a massive part of their their culture, yeah. And it's a beautiful country to come and see that environment.

Yes. Instantly, on a complete aside, did you know voted Most, most best holiday destination of 2020 in the world? No, but I believe it, yeah. And they've also, I think it's really important to understand that the environment, the environment, the way they look at that, is not just things like visit to the outdoors and the connection with the communities, but also things like marine environment, biodiversity and waste generation, right? The fourth is health, and here's the things that you probably would most likely expect around health, it's got a combination of things like work related, ill health, quality of experience, of care, but also things like journeys by active travel, right? So there's, it's really, I think it's really good example to just pull on that one for a moment to explain that these things cover multiple areas, so journeys by active travel will also have an impact on the environment, absolutely. But they're using these indicators because they think they are the primary indicator for that particular outcome, yeah, and then fair work and business, I love being in there. We didn't talk to enough about that, about that, and that's looking at things like pay gap. We've talked about that before, contractually secure work, which are really big on in Scotland, which we've also done an episode. On the gig economy, which would be useful to understand around that. And then the last one I'm going to give you there is education. And this they're looking at things like education attainment, the confidence of children and young people, also the resilience of children and young people, and things like the skills process of the population and skills shortage vacancies as well. So really looking all the way through the life cycle education, which is great. Do you want to take over from here and take us through the last few

Yeah, I'll run through the last one. So up next, we've got a national outcome around children, which is great. And some of the indicators here are around a child, well being and happiness. You know, happiness is a powerful world, a powerful word. There are indicators around children's voices. You know, children have positive relationships, versus quality of children's services. That kind of stuff fits under children. Next up, then as an outcome, we have communities. So here we've got things like loneliness, perception to local crime rates, community land ownership, things like social capital, having access to green and blue spaces. So again, there's some of those cross outcome measurements in the indicators, and that's communities. Next up, we've got poverty. So some indicators here include things like wealth inequality, the cost of living, unmanageable debt, food insecurity. Up next then international so Scotland is very much an international nation. So some of the things in here are Scotland's reputation, trust in public organizations, contribution of development support to other nations. So there's a bit about altruism and supporting there, as well as things like international networks. And then the last one is where a lot of these, a lot of these types of measures often start, which is the economy, which is clearly important to all other things as well, and within the national outcome of economy. Some of the indicators are productivity, which Scotland does have a bit of a challenge with. Scottish productivity is lower than the UK as a whole, which is in turn, lower than several other countries or many other countries. Other measures are things like economic growth, natural capital, spend on research and development, and again, income inequality and things like that appears here. So those are the the outcomes. I'll just run through them again really quickly. So we've got human rights, culture, environment, health, fair, work and business, education, children, communities, poverty, international and economy. And the view is that if Scotland gets these things right, then it'll lead to a better set of lived experiences and a better outcome for Scotland as a country and for people within Scotland. But it's not just about these outcomes. There's also a view that Scotland wants to get there in the right way. So it's not just about getting there at all costs,

but there's a piece around the values as well that Scotland wants to embodies it's trying to get there. Do you want to talk about those for a

second? Jane, yeah. So there's a state, they have a statement similar to their purpose that sits and I think it's really interesting that there's a graphic we'll share online. And I think it's interesting that value sits equal in the center of the plan to purpose. And I think I don't know, I feel like that's quite important, yeah. And it's like it underpins the purpose. And it's we are a society which treats all our people with kindness, dignity and compassion, respects the rule of law and acts in an open and transparent way. Great it is. And I don't like, you know, it's really easy to be uncomfortable, for me, to be cynical about all this stuff, yeah, but having, you know, awareness of countries that don't have things like this in place and aren't, you know, you have to start somewhere. And maybe, maybe they're not far down the path yet. Maybe they still got a long way to figure out how to measure and decide how to underpin it with all their services and all of those things. But I think it's pretty impressive to just put it out there, yeah, and say, Hey, this is how we would like to do it, and this is where we want to get to. And it is not, it is it completely refutes the concept that wealth and income are the things that provide a measure of success, right? It is saying life is so much more pluralistic, so much more complicated, systemic and systemic and different things will be important for different people, and therefore we can't have one measure. We have to look at lots of different things, because if you look at these, some of these affect some people far more than others, but they all matter to everyone in some way.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, why don't we speak to somebody who actually knows a bit more about this? Yes, okay, so here we are in the main part of this podcast, and we're having a conversation today with Leslie, as we mentioned, from the Scottish Government, and we're going to be speaking about Scotland's national performance framework. Before we do that, though, Leslie, would you be able to introduce yourself to the audience and say a bit about yourself and

your background? I certainly can. So I'm Leslie Thompson. I've been doing this job which is all about engaging people in the National Performance Framework. Work for about 18 months now, but I've been in the civil service for longer, probably than I would want to care to admit I don't regret a minute of it, and the job that I have at the moment is is great, and I'm really enjoying it. That's excellent. And

it seems like we've got exactly the right person to speak to about the National Performance Framework, given that that's your job. Well, indeed, indeed you talk. So it looks like we got lucky. If we maybe start at the beginning, would you be able to explain to the audience what the National Performance Framework is?

National Performance Framework is essentially Scotland's Wellbeing Framework. And probably, as we go on in the conversation, we'll dig into that a little bit more. But the whole idea of the national performance framework is that it's a vision for Scotland, where Scotland wants to be, where Scotland wants to get to, and it's also a way for us to measure how well we're doing on that journey, and the

types of things that are in there. I mean loosely, what broad categories do you think are in there? Well, we'll look at it in more detail, in more detail in a bit. But so it's

made up. National Performance Framework is kind of made up of essentially four main components. So we have the national outcomes, which are the specific areas that we want to work on, and they support the overall purpose of the national performance framework. And that talks about inclusive and sustainable economic growth and wellbeing, and that's where we want to get to as a country, and that purpose and those outcomes are supported by values which are a bit more about the how we get to those national outcomes. And sitting underneath all of that, we have national indicators, and they're the data, the data points that give us a kind of snapshot of how well we're doing in reaching those national outcomes.

Yeah, okay, so it it feels like sort of playing that back, that what you've got is a high level set of ways you want Scotland to be in the future that you've pulled together into a framework that's aspirational at the time.

Just pulled together, yeah, I mean very, very aspirational. And still is aspirational, and it's probably going to be aspirational for for some years to come. So the whole idea of the thing is that that we want to kind of pursue an all of what we talk about in all of Scotland approach. So we want everybody in Scotland to be involved in us working towards those national outcomes. Yeah, yeah. And it's the, it's the framework that defines what success for Scotland is,

yeah, yeah, effectively. And it's a new, I suppose it's a new definition of what is what a country's success looks like? Yeah,

because something we speak about, sometimes, in some of the things that we touch on, is about GDP being an indicator that's maybe one dimensional and not necessarily as helpful as having a basket of measures. And I guess we'll come on to that. You mentioned that this has been something that Scotland's been looking at for a while. Can you say that? Say a little bit about why? Why you've ended up with having a national performance framework? What's the sort of motivation behind deciding to measure these things and to find them

so our current permanent secretary, Leslie Evans, talks about the booker world that we live in. Probably come across certain complex, ambiguous, that's

that's the one I always forget what the A stands for, but that's obviously the context that we're in. And we started thinking quite a few years ago about how we can, how we can basically do government in that space, because it's difficult. And we published, published the MPF first in 2007 and it's changed quite a lot over the years. And what we have now, we have something that we refreshed in June 2018 that is actually quite different from what we started out with, but it has evolved to be more of that well being framework. So it was originally, it was very much as thinking about this, the working in an outcomes focused way, so trying to get all the parts of government in Scotland, all the parts of public services in Scotland, to think about the outcomes that we all want to be working towards, and to try to get people Moving away from thinking just about targets, inputs and outputs, so not concentrating so much and well, you know, success is all about the length of waiting lists for hospitals and the numbers of bobbies on the beat, all that sort of stuff. So that was the kind of general aim. And this recent iteration of the National Performance Framework is kind of, it brought together a lot of kind of strands of other work that was going on as well. So I think, you know, the Sustainable Development Goals, again, something that Scottish Government was very, very clear that we were very much in favor of those. In fact, yeah, and. Um, Scottish Government was one of the first countries in the world to actually sign up to the UN Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 and something that we wanted to do with this new national performance framework was to make sure that the sustainable development goals were integrated into the the NPF, so that we're all working towards the same goals, and we're still actually working out right now how the two things fit together. So that's that's been challenging. I think we originally thought that with this new, refreshed NPF, we could basically just say to people, if you're working towards the national outcomes, you're kind of ticking your Sustainable Development Goal boxes as well, but we've kind of since discovered that the alignment that we thought we'd done is maybe not as good as it could be, right? Okay, so we're still kind of asking people to think about both, right? So in Scotland, although the NPF is how we have localized our commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals. I think it's important to have both things in mind. And

I was going to just ask before we get into some of the detail, I'd like to explore some of the detail in a minute. But before we do that, was it difficult, in your opinion, to get, I guess, the national population of the government to a stage where they were in favor of this basket of diverse goals, or was that, did it just seem like a natural thing to do?

I wasn't. I wasn't personally involved that part of the process. So I'm sure, I'm sure there were difficulties. But it's one of these things where it's very difficult to argue against the whole idea, I think of outcomes focused working, yeah. And also, obviously, the stuff that we have in the National Performance Framework, people are not going to argue that, you know, the fact that we have values and there's is a bad thing, but it's, it's had cross party support across the board and parliament, civil society, we've found, has been very kind of bought into how we we can put this thing together when we refresh the NPF in 2018 that involved quite an extensive consultation process, and that included us talking to experts, talking to practitioners, talking to academics, talking to real people. Yes, we do sometimes talk to real people. I know we were out on the street. We had street stalls. We were actually talking to people about what they wanted Scotland to be. So all of that kind of went into the mix. And we also had quite a lot of data from previous Scottish Government consultations as well, and it was the overall principle of the thing. And the thing about the national outcomes, the National indicators, all of that stuff, I don't think anybody's ever really been against that. What has proved to be most difficult has been the detail, of course, actually, we previously had 16 outcomes. We now have 11 outcomes. There are people who are still a little bit upset that their outcome was dropped. Yeah, of course. So still, still, you know, people still will not look me in the eye of murder because, you know, and things like, I'm not. I'm not actually supposed to have a favorite outcome, so I'll get in trouble for saying this, but you love them all equally. I do. Well, it's funny. You should say that, because I was going to point out that my favorite one, don't tell anybody, is the children and young people's outcome, because we have, we have the L word in there. And so that was really, really controversial, yeah, and that came down to the last minute and before publication, we didn't think for a while it was gonna that the L word was actually gonna appear in there, because I think there was this the civil service view of, well, what's the civil service got to do with ensuring that children grow up loved, yeah? But that it is, it is. I mean, the reason that it's in there is because some of the work that we did during the consultation was actually with the Children's parliament, yeah. So we had children involved at that stage as well, and they were very clear, yeah, they wanted it in there. That's great. So at the end of the day, loved is in there. And the

joy of having things like children's parliament, right? Because you can't argue with the kids themselves. No, it's interesting. You talk about things like the L word and the use of that, because it strikes me that this feels quite trailblazing, and one of the things we quite often talk about with our listeners is around like the challenges of creating something new, and how hard it is to be that person or be that group of people. Do you? Do you find it quite challenging being on something that's quite different from the rest of your colleagues and stuff? Or actually, that is it quite is it quite exciting to go in and go, this is a bigger vision.

I personally find it quite exciting, and I think I'm sure there is. We're quite a small team, but I think the rest of the team would probably agree with that. I. Um, it is challenging, because if we're going to make it work, it means big shift in the way that we do things in government. We work within a very complex system, and there are lots of bits of the system that need to change in order for this, outcomes focused working to be a reality. And there are vested interests at play. There are people's fiefdoms at play. You know, there's, there's all of this. I know it's not supposed to be, but it's, it certainly isn't with a big P and a little P, for sure, but it's, for me, it's the right kind of challenge, I think. And as I say, I don't, I don't think anybody's against it in principle, yeah, it's just, I read a comment recently about people. It's not, it's not change that people are scared of. It's change being done to them. Yeah. So our challenge at the moment, I think, is to try ensure that we bring about that change, but bring people with us, yeah, and for, certainly, for the civil service, who, as a collective, has been used to doing things the same way for a long time. It's quite hard, but people are people. I don't really want to do it. It's just, you know, making that a reality with all the big stuff that we've got going on at the moment as well. It's one of these things, people you don't want to be bothering me with the National Performance Framework. I've got this big Brexit thing, whereas, obviously our view is that, well, if we were, if we're all working in the way that we should be, then Brexit should just be part of that mix. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Should we? Should we jump on and speak about the performance framework in a little bit more detail? Sure. So in terms of, in terms of what's in there, if we run through or why don't you talk us through it in more detail? So we've talked about children and young people being one of adults. Okay?

We have the economy in there, yeah, we have communities in there. We have human rights and there we have children and young people. We have health, we have the environment, yeah, there's an education one. Yeah, culture is in there. International poverty, poverty, outcome, you're quite right. So it's all, all the big things that you would expect, yeah.

And then within these, so the National Performance Framework and within these says, These are the domains that Scotland is interested in successful in and then, then it sort of defines what success looks like in relation to them. So I guess if we look at something, if we start with international, we could say that it's defined here as we're open, connected and make a positive contribution internationally. So there's a statement like that in relation to each one of the outcomes that you're aiming for, yeah, or that we're aiming for, I should say, okay, yeah. So that very high societal level, yeah, yeah.

But that's really powerful, right? I mean, I'm thinking about other countries I've lived in over the last couple of decades, and I think there's something really powerful about saying these are statements that we believe in as a country. And you know, you don't need to know all the detail, but that's the direction of travel. Yeah, these

are the good things that we want to achieve. It feels like, feels like a sort of guiding, guiding set of principles for what good looks like for a country and what, what you want the country to be in the future. But

it also manages expectations brilliantly for people, you know, this is the direction your country is going in, so you can be ready for that and be comfortable with that.

Yeah. So what you mentioned earlier, the purpose and the value, would you be able to share that? So

the purpose is, I suppose, is just the overall statement of intent about where we're heading. So a big, a big deal, actually, for us with this version of the National Performance Framework, is that well being is explicitly mentioned in there. It wasn't before, before we just talked about sustainable and inclusive economic growth. We've actually put in there now that actually our purpose. And we're not just talking about Scottish Government's purpose. We're talking more about, well, the purpose of the National Performance Framework is to ensure that all of Scotland is becomes more successful. Everybody in Scotland has an opportunity to flourish, but it's actually about increasing people's well being. And it's not just about ensuring that the economy grows and is sustainable. So that that was quite a big change as well. That was put well being explicitly in there. And the values, again, as they were new to this, to this refreshed NPF, and again, that was something that came through the consultation process. Our stakeholders were fairly clear that they felt, yeah, you know, it was, it's great that you're saying the work you're doing and the direction of travel, but we actually think you really should say something about how you're going to get there. So this is not about getting to these national outcomes at all costs. We will get there, but these are the values which we want to employ on that journey. And again, these values are not just about Scottish Government values. So we're not saying the Scottish Government will treat people with kindness, dignity and compassion, but this is about a Scotland. And where everybody treats each other with kindness, dignity and compassion, respects the rule of law and acts in an open and transparent way. So there's another, there's another word in there, actually, that's been quite controversial. So the kindness word, yeah, so the L, the L word and the key word, human. So that's a lot of discussion still going on around what that actually means.

I guess, defining kindness at a societal tricky, but I think, I think people can probably relate to it. It's quite a relatable word, which is powerful, and those words right, kindness, dignity, compassion, respect for the rule of law, openness and transparency. I mean, that's pretty powerful as a set of values. It's,

again, I'm not allowed to have a favorite part of the national performance framework, but my favorite part of the National Performance Framework the values, I love the values, especially kindness, yeah, just, I think it's brilliant. Well, I totally just, I

think, you know, going back to the idea that you guys are doing so it's a bit different from really a lot of other I mean, no other country has a statement

like and I think, I think just because you can't define it yet doesn't mean you shouldn't. There's lots of people in my life I

can't define it doesn't mean I don't want them. Just means I've got to figure that out. Perfect. You might never get there, right? And nice,

that's the thing. I've sat in so many meetings and, oh, we don't know what that means. So we can't put it in. Can't want that, because we can't tell you how to get there. We

figure that out together. And if you don't put your ideas out, how can other people help you with them and help you refine them and turn them into the right thing for everybody? And you spoke earlier about, you know, taking people along the journey, aspects you know, listening to young young young people around Scotland and that co creation aspect, or participatory design aspects of things, it seems essential to create something and put it out there if you're going to going to make some progress with

it. I was at an event just last Friday that's looking at how we can be kinder in procurement, which was absolutely fascinating, but it was an interesting example of where a discussion that starts off with kindness can get you into some really, really interesting, practical territory. So the conversation, actually, during the event, the word kindness didn't really come up at all, but we got into the territory where we were kind of talking about, well, actually, the problems that we need to fix in procurement are really not about processes. They're actually about relationships and how people work together. So there's, there's a lot of really, and it's not, it's not an area that I know very much about, and I think procurement numbers, money scares me a bit. There was some hand flapping. I do, I do, like a hand flap. But they're doing some really interesting stuff. Our procurement colleagues here in Scottish Government are doing some interesting stuff. And procurement people across public services in Scotland are doing some really interesting stuff. And it's kind of sits within that, that thing about, well, it's about relationships and how we develop relationships, and it's not just about processes that you follow to do things. So it's great, really cool. We

should have that conversation about HR, how can we all be kind of kindness? Yes, that's my, that's my. I

feel it's five. I would love to hear how that goes, because we're starting to think about how we apply the values of the national performance framework within the Scottish Government, because that's not something we've done yet. So we have, we have civil service values, which the whole of the silver selfish assets. So, you know, with openness, integrity, honesty, all that kind of stuff, but the actual, the specific values that we have in the MPF, we haven't really thought about very much, and

aligning those sounds like a interesting exercise. If you're expecting or looking to a country to align those into their behaviors, it feels like role modeling and absorbing them yourselves. Yeah. So Kinder HR will probably need to come into that discussion. Interesting. That's a fun topic. Flying. I love that conversation. Love the kind of stuff. It's great.

So if we, if we, if we step back a little bit and think about these, these national outcomes, we've got 11 of them, and you've said that for each one, you've got some indicators of success that are sort of measures of how you're doing, and you've also got a link from them to the Sustainable Development Goals, yeah, if we run through so for each one, roughly how many indicators of Success are there? Do you know?

Well, some of the outcomes, some of the indicators, actually sit under more than one outcome. Now, in total, there are 81 national indicators. Now I say there are 81 there are 81 outlined, but we have 11 of those. 81 have yet to be defined, which is actually quite interesting, because it shows that we have kind of taken, again, we've taken a different approach to how we've looked at what we measure. So what would have tended to happen before with government is that we would have looked to see what data we already had, what we're already measuring, yes, and we would have used use that data purposes. We. What we've tried to do here is we've tried to work out what is important to measure, what we need to measure, and then we have gone out to see if the data already exists. And in some cases, it doesn't. So might get, Oh God, no one. I've got a favorite national indicator now as well. So we've got one there that's about public services treating people with dignity and respect, right? Okay, so that's something we've said we want to measure, because that's an indicator of how well we're doing actually, in several of the national outcomes. So it doesn't just sit under, under one of the outcomes. It's quite important for a few of them. And at the moment, we don't know how to measure that, of course. So there are a lot of very clever people, analysts, statisticians, social researchers, scratching their heads a little bit about how we do that. We have made a commitment that we will have all of the indicators defined by, I think, the middle of this year, so that that's getting more urgent, but that's been a really interesting discussion. There's

interesting discussions around all of us, just for listeners, just a couple of things to be aware of the types of things that are on here. So for example, if we look at economy, we've got a national indicator that says productivity, we've got one that says natural capital, one that says carbon footprint. If we look at a national outcome of poverty, we've got an indicator that says relative poverty after housing costs. And there's another one that talks about food insecurity or unmanageable debt. Those are, you know, those are some of the indicators of how Scotland is doing in relation to in poverty. And if we look at the environment, just a couple more, it's got visits to the outdoors. Is a good one that's on there. And likewise, energy from renewable sources. So, so these are clearly, you know, well structured indicators of how Scotland's doing in relation to to these outcomes, which is, which is excellent. And when you look then at getting this all together and measuring the success of Scotland, how do you think Scotland's doing now, oh, that's you got a favorite answer

to that very well, then that's that's my that's my favorite answer. I think it's probably worth saying that the National indicators, the 81 that we have, will give us a snapshot, and they're only part of the picture. So those are the kinds of data that we report on our website. So we have a website, and it's updated on a pretty much a daily basis, so the information is always up to date, and that is the data that that we have for the 81 indicators. But what we're not saying is that this is the only data that's important, yeah. So what we want to do kind of going forward, is we want to think more about the qualitative data that we can use to support this. So, you know, that will probably be coming in the case of, you know, sort of stories, case studies, qualitative chat about that, because

it's something, again, that we're struggling a little bit because we're quite fond of numbers. Yeah, and yeah, civil service, and this is

full of numbers, but I'm learning research at the moment, because I think one of the really interesting things is that you you without understanding the detail and the nuance in the context of someone, that number me doesn't mean anything. So someone says, I feel eight up 10, you know? Yeah, what's you know, today, we've got X 1000 pounds in the bank. But unless and accountants have it, right? Yeah, they have a context, an accountancy spreadsheet, and they'll have to give you all the background. I'm an accountant, by the way, context, but when we

sometimes do surveys, or when we collect data around things like visits to the countryside or visit to the outdoors, what are we getting from that in terms of how meaningful those results were and the impact that they might Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, I'm a massive, massive learning, slow learning, qualitative geek. Should be exciting to see this come to life with other Yeah, other material as well. Yeah,

that's the aim. So that's, I suppose, that I just wanted to, kind of to flag that up, because I don't want people thinking that it is just about those, those 81 indicators, but as to how we're doing. So in May last year, we published something called Scotland's well being, yeah, which is basically just that kind of snapshot. And it used data from the 81 indicators, but it did also draw on data from other sources as well, and I think the picture is mixed, which I guess won't surprise people, really, there are some areas where we're doing quite well and some areas that we're not doing so well. So for example, we're doing quite well around educational attainment and ensuring that there's not such a huge gap in educational attainment between people who live in low income areas and people who live in less deprived areas. So that gap is kind of reducing. There's also sort of around emissions and stuff. We do quite well, but I think kind of, as far as inequalities are concerned, we still have quite a long way to go, and some of that kind of area. So it's it's a very it's a mixed picture, but it's helpful looking at like that, because hopefully something like that report, and also the data, more generally, gives people who are involved in developing policy and services something to work from, yeah, so that we can say, right? Because the report made no attempt to suggest what we needed to do on any of these things. It's more just, you know, we're presenting the data, and then it's the people who develop the policies who can work with that data and hopefully solve some of the big, intractable issues that we have in Scotland. But yeah, so that's very sorry. It's probably a very civil service thing to say, but it's a mixed it's a mixed bag as expected. I think, yeah, and I think, I think

one of the things that I we find quite a lot with performance management in organizations as well is that people get hung up on indicators as being results or outcomes. They're not. They're meant to settle us. Okay, you tried this. It's a steering get us closer. And so there's something really powerful about using it much more as a as a sort of, you know, indicate, literally, an indicator of which way to go in the future. How

do you prioritize what's important? Um, so let's jump on and think a little bit about people in civil society and mainly, I guess, for our audiences, people in organizations as well. How can people get a bit more involved in this? What sort of feedback you have from people about the NPF from the world of business? How are people engaged? How are they taking part? What role do you think they should have in this type of

thing. Well, I'll put my hand up and say that we haven't really done a lot of engagement with with business to date. We would like to, and we will. That's a big thing actually, on our engagement plan this year is to think about how we do that. I mean, I'm pretty sure there'll be a lot of organizations out there that are, you know, doing their bit without knowing that they're doing, to be honest. Because, you know, none of, none of this stuff is necessarily rocket science. I mean, it's about responsibilities and good business. And I suspect that there's a greater awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals, I think possibly within the business community then, then of the National Performance Framework. But as far as being able to get involved, I mean, I will, I will point to our website. We have a website, and that's our first kind of port of call. And there are ways there that you can kind of contact us. We don't really know at the moment what our engagement is going to kind of look like, so in a very civil service way, we might have a forum or a group, and we'll bring people in from various sectors into that group, but we haven't really made any big decisions on that yet. So really, really open to a to any kind of conversations, actually, at this point. But I would think probably the website is the place to go to start just people making themselves aware that the thing actually exists, I think is probably going to be a big step. And could you share the website? Just, I

will share the website. And it's quite it's quite an easy one. It's just national performance.gov, dot Scot, right? That sounds easy, and lots of data on there also ways to get involved, and also some case studies of how people have started to use the national performance framework to kind of shape their work. But what? And this is just kind of popped into my mind now, and this was a discussion that came out of the procurement event that I was at the other week. So I think my perception is that voluntary organizations and the third sector generally is maybe a bit further on with some of this thinking. And it just occurred to me that maybe there's an opportunity there for organizations if they're interested in really digging into some of this stuff, I don't know if there's an opportunity to kind of pair up maybe with a voluntary organization and maybe do a bit of kind of, you know, sharing of knowledge and experience and stuff. But again, that's just something that's kind of literally, like popped into my head right now, but that's something that we might explore and see if there are ways to kind of build a bit of a framework around that, yeah, because, as the third sector keep telling us, I mean, they generally love the National Performance Framework, which is great because it talks our language, yeah, because obviously the language of voluntary organizations is kind of more about This relationship stuff. So I think there's probably a lot of experience there that other organizations can draw on. It's experience that we're trying to draw on at the moment. So we're doing quite a lot of work with voluntary organizations around how they have been using the national performance framework. So and I think I'm sure most. Businesses recognize that this is the general direction of travel that we're going in, and that in order, I guess, and it's not an area that I know very much about, but in order for businesses to kind of survive, they have to kind of really have awareness of this sort of stuff and be thinking about social responsibility and how they can connect into the bigger picture. Yeah, you know, it's as we talk about the the NPF as being not only a good thing to do or the right thing to do, is actually a necessary thing to do for sustainability in the future. Yeah, I'd

agree. And certainly within the sort of language of responsible business, you hear phrases like the triple bottom line, getting the environmental and social impact as well as a profit purpose, feels like sort of accepted within certain realms of business. And I think it would be excellent to see a business almost do a mini impact assessment based on financial performance. Yep, something like that would just be fascinating to see. And I'm not really yet a believer that organizations need to do good in all domains, but certainly trying to minimize the harm that they do as organizations across each one of these national outcome areas, feels like a good ambition for organizations. And

I also think, I think there is something incredibly powerful about organizations looking at how they are already doing and serving our framework and sending it back to their employers. I would be really proud if my organization was contributing to this in some way. And it would be absolutely, you know, whether it's about a sustainable economy, whether it's about just creating good jobs, whatever it is, yeah, you know, I sit on a board of a small sports organization, and I can already see there are four things on here that we are continuing to and I want to be able to go back to them and say, you should be really proud, but we're part of the bigger picture. We're making our society a better

place. And I think, I think, you know, in the world where we're beginning to understand how important purposeful work is, yeah, I think that's huge. Yeah, definitely. All right. Well,

I think we're just about out of time. Just before we finish up, could you, um, can you can you repeat that website again, just so people know it's national performance.gov.

Dot Scott, right. And I'm also more than happy if anybody wants to email me directly as well, more than happy to do that. I'm just Leslie dot Thompson at gov dot Scott, great. And if their business is out there that want to engage in this, it feels like

that's a good Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. Like, say it's businesses we want to talk to this year. It's on our plan, and I'm sure there's a lot of good stuff going on out there that we don't know about. So if people know of stuff, get in touch and tell us, and we'll invite you in to the hallowed ground that is Andrew's house and not all for you, tea and coffee. We should only tell listeners we're actually in Andrews house recording this remote,

which is great, all right. Well, I think it's just time to say thank you very much. That was excellent. Yeah, massive. Thank you for me. Um, I've heard notes. Yeah, me too. Thank you very much for having me. You

all right, so that was our conversation with Leslie, and you're back in the room with us. What did you think? Jane, yeah, you know,

as I think I said at the beginning, it's really easy to be thinking about all this stuff, but what I really enjoyed talking to Leslie about was the real, meaningful challenges of an organization trying to figure out how to move this piece of work forward, and to do it well and meaningfully and within the values. And I think that will resonate with a huge number of change managers, a huge number of people who work in HR, and pretty much anyone who's ever tried to shift the direction of an organization. Yeah, it

was impressive for me to hear her say that Scotland was one of the first countries to sign up to the 2015, sustainable development goals, and also the seven Scotland's only country in the world, I believe she said that is trying to do this type of thing in terms of measuring success. So it's pretty inspirational, really. And I guess a lot of people probably don't know about that. So great to hear about the journey of getting here and the challenges they face. And let's see where we go. Maybe we should check back in there in a couple of years. Yeah, let's

do that. All right, thanks, everyone until next time. Bye.