Open Government action plan 2021 to 2025: commitment progress report - summaries

April to June 2025

Overview of action plan progress and key updates from each of the 5 commitments from April to June 2025.

Commitment 1: fiscal openness and transparency

Overview

Mixed progress has been made around the fiscal openness and transparecy commitment's three aims since the March 2025 update.

Key updates

Benchmarking our fiscal openness and transparency

Status remains Amber as we intend to recommence this work in the Summer.

Improving the accessibility of our fiscal data and information

Portal status has turned Red as the work has been paused due to technical system and resource capabilities; Procurement MIS remains green with further continuation of rollout and demonstration of dashboards; Open Budget status remains Green.

Improving participation and engagement on the public finances

Status for Infrastructure moves from Amber to Green with progress made on evaluation and focus groups; Tax remains Green with further progress in tax literacy research and planning for tax conference.

Commitment 2: health and social care

Overview

The health and social care commitment remains on schedule.

Key updates

Getting It Right For Everyone (GIRFE)

Co-design delivery and evaluation is now complete on the Getting It Right For Everyone (GIRFE) pathfinder programme.

National Care Service Advisory Board

The delivery focus in the reporting period has been on setting up the National Care Service Advisory Board, with a specific participation workstream to ensure people with experience of receiving and delivering social care support have opportunities to get involved in decisions that affect or are important to them.

Guidance

Work on the update of guidance and materials to support future projects is ongoing.

Commitment 3: open data

Overview

Progress across the data and digital commitment continues to build momentum with a growing focus on improving stakeholder and public engagement. This is a key aspect of building capacity and capability in how users access and consume data, which can deliver better outcomes for people and communities.

Key updates

Completion of Open Data Policy Discovery

We have completed a series of activities where we have explored and investigated the opportunities from the recommendations from the Open Data Blueprint report. We have collaborated with a range of external stakeholders as part of the discovery to understand what we should focus on going forward.

Improving Scottish Government’s open data publishing service

As part of an Agile alpha we have built prototypes which are focused on addressing the high priority user needs identified during the discovery. These prototypes are helping us test different ideas and explore new approaches of making data available. We are involving users and data publishers through all stages of development and evaluation. We are running usability sessions during June and July 2025 to understand what works and what doesn’t for our users.

Scottish AI Register

Additional use cases have been added to the Scottish AI Register and work is taking place to update the governance module as well as promoting the Register’s use amongst UK and international governments.

Data Transformation Framework

The Data Transformation Framework continues to evolve with updated guidance being developed. The sixth cohort of the Data Maturity Programme is launching in June, with participants including NHS health boards and local authorities.

CivTech project supporting public participation

The CivTech project exploring how technology can support high-quality, scalable public participation in decision-making has developed a minimum viable product that integrates many widely used engagement tools into flexible workflows. It has been used to support the Scottish AI Alliance public engagement panel deliberation, and scale it beyond their usual audiences.

Purpose-driven open data case studies framework project

Our collaborative project with students from the University of Edinburgh Business School delivered an innovative framework to demonstrate the value and impact of open data and a pilot app to make open data more engaging and accessible for diverse audiences.

Commitment 4: climate change

Overview

For our climate change commitment, internal promotion of Climate Policy Engagement Network (CPEN) is ongoing to raise awareness of CPEN and embed it into engagement plans across DG Net Zero. Director for Energy and Climate Change, Deputy Directors and other senior colleagues now have an increased awareness of and interest in CPEN as an engagement tool.

Key updates

2025-26 Climate Engagement Fund

Members of the Climate Participation and Engagement Network (CPEN) received a notification about the 25-26 Climate Engagement Fund and an invitation to CPEN information session.

Commitment 5: participation

Overview

The participation commitment has made progress since the previous OGP Steering Group in key areas of internal training, communications and engagement, and the review of the Community Empowerment Act (Scotland). The commitment continues to face barriers in terms of resources and capacity (both from civil society and within government).

Key updates

Review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015

A review of parts of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 (the Act) has concluded in three reports:

• Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015: update and findings report
• Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 - part 3 participation requests: findings report review
• Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 - part 5 asset transfer: findings report review

Children and Young People’s Executive Team Takeover

Continuing to improve children and young people’s participation in decision-making and policy design, this year’s annual ET Takeover took place on 10 June.

Social researcher intern to focus on trust in government

In August 2025 the Open Government team will support the delivery of another Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS) social research intern to focus on the topic of trust in government. The research project will be an analysis of evidence on levels of trust in government, and potential contributing factors across different areas, demographics and protected characteristics in Scotland.

Trust and transparency in Scotland community bulletin

In a shared project between the Open Government Team and civil society representatives the first issue of the trust and transparency in Scotland community bulletin was published on 9 June. The community bulletin keeps people informed and connected on conversations and work ongoing around trust and transparency in Scotland.

Participation training

The Open Government and Digital Engagement teams at Scottish Government undertook a ‘train the trainer’ programme covering the following areas:

• the aims of participation and theoretical underpinnings
• participation methods and terminology
• participant experience and inclusive practice developing a community of practice and training

This will help the teams to further develop relevant and digestible training and support for an internal network of Participation Community Representatives.