Verity House Agreement - Assurance and Accountability

1. Introduction

The Verity House Agreement committed the Scottish Government and COSLA, on behalf of Scottish Local Government, to improving assurance and accountability arrangements in order to support, understand and demonstrate collective progress towards shared priority outcomes of tackling poverty, particularly child poverty, transforming our economy to deliver a just transition to net zero and delivering sustainable and person-centred public services.^[1]

This document sets out what we mean by Assurance and Accountability for the Verity House Agreement shared priorities and sets out the principles of the Verity House Agreement outcomes framework.

Strong assurance arrangements will allow political leaders and officials across the Scottish Government and Local Government to:

• understand where progress is, and is not, being made across the public sector towards shared priority outcomes by using evidence and considering relevant local contexts;
• have greater shared confidence and levels of trust in the effectiveness and impact of policy and funding decisions taken at both local and national levels and how they are interacting with each other;
• identify and help promote examples of good practice from across the sector, including through self-evaluation and continuous improvement, as well as opportunities to reform service design and delivery at local, regional and national levels;
• consider and identify opportunities to review, streamline and reduce existing reporting requirements for councils and public sector partners aligned to more fiscal flexibility and a reduction in ringfencing of funding; and
• provide appropriate and reciprocal challenge and scrutiny through open and honest conversations in line with the principles of the Verity House Agreement.

Robust accountability arrangements will allow political leaders and officials across the Scottish Government and Local Government to:

• consider and agree what are local, national and joint responsibilities including the role of wider partners within the whole system;^[2]
• develop a clearer articulation of these responsibilities and communicate these distinctions to members of the public, delivery partners, Councillors and Members of the Scottish Parliament;
• engage in open, honest and constructive dialogue in relation to spending and delivery that is solution-focused and avoids apportioning blame to any party or part of the system; and
• build trust across the Scottish Government, its public bodies and agencies, and Local Government to enable a more effective focus on shared outcomes to support meaningful improvement to service delivery at a local, regional and national level where needed.^[3]