Plan 24-30, June 20 – what’s to come

Fiona Duncan is Independent Strategic Advisor - the promise.

This is the first blog that has the new Plan 24-30 logo, designed to make Plan 24-30 easily identifiable and clearly linked to the promise. You can expect to see more of it, and all the branding that goes with it, over the next two weeks.

At the end of those two weeks, Plan 24-30 will launch on its own website.

Since last November,  the three-staged approach to understand, create and check Plan 24-30 has been a collaboration. A huge amount of time, energy and thought, by so many people, all across Scotland, has gone into developing Plan 24-30. Literally thousands of people from hundreds of organisations— a reflection of the commitment to #KeepThePromise and the scale of effort, every single day.

HUGE thanks to everyone.

Unlike the Independent Care Review launch, there will be no ‘big reveal’ on 20th June— the content of Plan 24-30 should not come as a surprise to folks who helped develop it.

Plan 24-30:

Builds on what has come before

• Consulting with and listening to the care community will continue to make sure Plan 24-30’s focus is always on what matters.
• Scotland’s route map to #KeepThePromise by 2030, reflecting how far Scotland has come, how far there is still to go - and honest about what’s getting in the way.
• With all calls to actions from the Independent Care Review organised and grouped under the five foundations of the promise: voice, family, care, people, scaffolding.

Is devised together

• Developed in an open and collaborative way with those who have a role or responsibility or authority or stake in the promise to make sure their work is explicit.
• With stakeholders – including the care community – shaping the content, an approach that will continue.
• Detailing WHO needs to do WHAT, by WHEN to make sure the promise made in February 2020 is kept in full by 2030.

Belongs to Scotland

• Supporting everyone working to #KeepThePromise to understand and play their part, to ensure their work is informed by Plan 24-30’s content.
• With organisations encouraged to share what’s working, to keep Plan 24-30 up-to-date with content that grows to reflect change.
• Reflecting the need for a single focus that makes sure everyone pulls in the same direction over the years to come, regardless of ‘system’ or ‘service.’

Is live and constantly updated, keeping everyone on track

• Tracking WHAT has happened and WHAT still needs to happen, by WHO and by WHEN.

All actions within Plan 24-30 will be tagged by icons representing the sectors who need to work together for progress to be made. This way, it is easy for organisations to find the actions related to their role and responsibilities.

The last seven months of work have highlighted two significant issues for Plan 24-30.

The first is that so much of what needs to change is known already. But what isn’t universally known is the how.

Here’s one… like many commissions and inquiries, the Independent Care Review identified that children, families and care experienced adults live in and experience multiple, fragmented ‘systems’ simultaneously, on any given day, at any given time.  Be this poverty, or housing, or justice, or substance use, or mental health, or education. All permeable systems.

Meaning that the second issue that has become clearer over the months is the need for Plan 24-30 to pose solutions for the persistent and recurring systemic barriers, like policy silos and their consequences - fragmented distribution of money, which demand multiple lines of bureaucratic reporting, and disperse responsibility for delivery and skew accountability— ultimately resulting in scrutiny and governance that reflects that same problematic fragmentation.

Attempting to drive change in any system in complete isolation is fruitless. None of us live in silos.  So, just as the Independent Care Review shifted how reviews were conducted, Plan 24-30 has to shift how change is made. Scotland needs to stop looking in the same old places for new solutions. If they were there…, the promise would be kept by now.

No small task…