Single Authority Models Stakeholder Group minutes: October 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Cabinet Secretary for Health & Social Care
• Minister for Public Finance
• Cllr Shona Morrison, COSLA President
• Cllr Steven Heddle, COSLA Vice President
• Malcolm Burr, Chief Executive
• Cllr Paul F Steele, Council Leader
• Niall Houston, Policy Manager
• Gillian McCannon, Chair
• Pippa Milne, Chief Executive
• Cllr Jim Lynch, Council Leader
• Douglas Hendry, Executive Director  
• David Logan, Head of Legal and Regulatory Support
• Graeme McMillian, Transformation Programme Manager
• Laura Blackwood, Executive Support
• James Gow, Head of Finance and Transformation
• Sarah Compton-Bishop, Chair
• Fiona Davies, Chief Executive
• David Park, Deputy Chief Executive
• Gareth Adkins, Executive Director of People and Culture
• James Goodyear, Interim Chief Executive, NHS Orkney
• Joanna Kenny, Chair Staff Governance Committee
• Stephen Brown, Chief Officer

Apologies

• Cllr Heather Woodbridge, Council Leader, Orkney Islands Council
• Evan Beswick, Chief Officer, Argyll and Bute Integrated Joint Board

• Gordon Jamieson, Chief Executive, NHSWI

• Julie McLachlan, Place Based Service Change
• Simon Mair, Deputy Director Public Service Reform
• Ellen Leaver, Place Director Orkney CPP
• Erin McKee, Special Adviser
• Oliver Reid, Chief Executive, Orkney Islands Council 
• Simon Cameron, COSLA 

Items and actions

Welcome and Strategic Context

Mr McKee opened the meeting and thanked participants for joining the discussion before confirming that all actions from the July meeting have been completed. Attendees had no comment on the minute from the July meeting.

Mr Gray thanked local partners for the work involved in completing their September Submissions, noted that the levels of partnership working have stepped up and highlighted the importance of continued joint efforts to maintain momentum. Cllr Morrison welcomed the progress made so far.

September Submissions

In Argyll & Bute, full council and the NHSH Board both agreed to develop the two preferred models as set out in the September submission. Invest to Save funding will support wider engagement activity with communities, staff and CPP partners.

NHSH noted the ongoing move towards establishing an IJB arrangement in Highland. The experience in Highland of operating one version of a lead agency type arrangement will be relevant to SAMs development. SAMs work in A&B could result in NHSH operating two distinct sets of integration arrangements within their geographic area of responsibility. Emerging SAMs arrangements in other rural and islands geographies could also have implications for NHSH. It will be important that servicing place-based arrangements does not compromise the necessary focus on patient safety.

NHSH’s direct involvement in two simultaneous changes processes focused on integration will require making best use of available staff capacity to ensure future arrangements work for all interests. Another key consideration is Trade Union engagement as this work is progressed.

Mr McKee noted that deeper local integration is key to public service reform and SAMs development must build in appropriate engagement with all interests.  Mr Gray emphasised the importance of staff-side engagement.

In the Western Isles, separate submissions from NHSWI and CnES set out possible options. Next steps will be to work with each other to agree common ground. A refined set of options will allow for joint engagement with communities, staff and wider CPP partners.

In Orkney, initial meetings involving those recently appointed to senior leadership positions have been productive. The preferred approach is to focus on local priorities, including those identified by wider community planning partners, and use shared principles to guide discussions on the type of change in Orkney which will best deliver benefits to local communities. This approach is putting in place the right conditions to move quickly on a fully collaborative basis. Ministers recognised the recent leadership changes, noted that progress is being made and highlighted SG officials as a source of support.

Invest to Save

CnES confirmed that they will use their allocated portion of the Invest to Save (ItS) fund, including to recruit an additional post to support joint work on SAMs development. Funding will also support communications and engagement work. September submissions from Orkney and Argyll and Bute set out similar approaches to ItS and were referenced earlier in discussion. A coordinated overview of ItS proposals will be submitted to SG on behalf of participating councils, as the direct recipients ItS funding. Mr McKee noted that funding should be directed towards addressing barriers and facilitating SAMs delivery.

Next Steps

Local partners confirmed that significant progress will be made by December. The SG guidance note on December submissions and Theory of Change work are helpful. By the December deadline, each geography will have clarity on their preferred model of reform.  It is expected that work to further develop and analyse the evidence base will require more time.  This will allow for models to be further refined and more fully evaluated against outcomes. This would lead into and support a formal consultation stage and implementation.

SAMs development is taking a different approach to standard policy development. Careful choreography and sequencing can help to manage interdependencies and avoid inadvertently shutting down possibilities. Our shared policy objective is to establish place-based arrangements which can help to address significant financial and service sustainability challenges.  

Concluding Remarks

Cllr Morrison noted that COSLA is keen to share learning from SAMs development with the wider local government family.

Mr McKee and Mr Gray concluded the meeting by acknowledging progress across geographies and reiterating the offer of continued support from SG officials in pursuit of our joint goals.

Actions:

• CnES and NHSWI will meet at the earliest possible opportunity to agree a refined set of options.
• Local partners to consider SG guidance note on December submission and provide officials with any feedback.
• SG to share Theory of Change with revisions which capture outputs from the session with local partners.