Publication - Strategy/plan
Verity House Agreement - Assurance and Accountability
This document sets out the assurance and accountability approach local government and the Scottish Government will use to evidence progress towards our shared priorities, setting out the principles of the Verity House Agreement outcomes framework.
Annex A – Outcome framework principles
The following principles should inform the delivery of the monitoring framework and identification of indicators:
- maximise the use of existing data and be aligned with existing data sets in order to avoid duplication of effort and identify opportunities for streamlining reporting;
- be identified and agreed by the Scottish Government and Local Government with input from partners such as Audit Scotland, the Accounts Commission and the Improvement Service in order to promote credibility of joint approach;
- include a mix of annual and more ‘real time’ data, including existing qualitative data where appropriate, in order to support a holistic understanding of progress towards shared outcomes;
- wherever possible, be able to be disaggregated at local authority level in order to understand local variation and identify examples of good practice;
- wherever possible, be able to be disaggregated by protected characteristics in order to promote equalities and human rights dimensions of delivering public services in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty; and
- be accessible and transparent, noting that most data, other than management information, will already be published.