Initiatives

The Digital Office, in collaboration with Scotland Excel and Crown Commercial Services (CCS), leads aggregated procurements for Microsoft licences. This initiative allows councils to jointly renew their Microsoft Enterprise Agreements, achieving cost-effective solutions through collective procurement efforts.

The Digital Office supports local government in adopting and deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI). We achieve this by building capability through collective initiatives, sharing case studies, business cases, maturity assessments, toolkits, policies and digital skills training. We partner with industry experts like DataLab, AI Alliance, and the Alan Turing Institute to promote the responsible and ethical adoption of AI, aligning to national policy and strategy. We also work with local authorities to identify collaborative procurement opportunities to reduce costs and implement common solutions across the sector.

The Digital Office's data capability-building initiative for local authorities focuses on empowering employees with enhanced data literacy to support a data-driven culture. It aims to improve decision-making by providing tools and training to interpret and utilise data effectively. This portfolio prioritises data quality and data collection through data governance to adhere to privacy, security, and compliance standards. By aligning data initiatives with local, regional, and national strategic objectives, these programmes encourage collaboration and drive operational efficiency across local government.  

The Digital Office's digital leadership and skills initiatives aim to cultivate a digitally proficient workforce capable of driving innovation and transformation in local government. By enhancing digital literacy, employees gain the knowledge to use tools efficiently, boosting productivity and supporting a digitally aware culture. These initiatives encourage creative problem-solving through new technologies, support seamless digital transformation by aligning skills with organisational goals, and enhance customer engagement through effective use of digital platforms. Additionally, they empower leaders with the expertise, mindset and confidence needed to drive digital innovation and navigate the dynamic digital landscape effectively.  

Internet of Things (IoT) offers councils opportunities to enhance services and reduce costs by being more targeted and preventative. Partnering with CENSIS, the Digital Office supports councils in adopting IoT solutions through webinars, expert guidance, and practical blueprints (for example for solutions such as smart waste, building monitoring, and road surface temperature monitoring). Looking ahead, the initiative plans to improve alignment with Scotland’s Growth Regions to provide more hands-on support to the regions for identifying challenges and opportunities, developing business case cases and support for securing funding.  

The Digital Office helps councils strengthen their service design capabilities by focusing on adopting a user-centred mindset, using the right tools and methods, and developing relevant skills. This approach encourages councils to understand problems before creating solutions, involve users in service design, and use common methods to innovate and collaborate. In partnership with various groups, the Digital Office ensures high-quality, relevant training and support for local authorities.  

To address major cyber incidents affecting councils, the Digital Office provides a centralised incident response coordination function. This initiative streamlines efforts, reduces duplication, and ensures a comprehensive, closed-loop management process.

The Digital Office has launched a centralised repository for processes in collaboration with Engage Process, a leading process management solution. The centralised repository is a shared platform where Scottish Local Authorities can share process maps. This initiative aims to improve processes, enhance operational efficiencies, and deliver better outcomes for citizens across Scotland.

The Community Health Index (CHI) System is a Unique Patient Identifier (UPI) used across the Scottish Health and Social Care sector. The Local Government CHI programme, led by COSLA’s Health and Social Care Policy team and the Digital Office, aims to standardise and modernise CHI use within local government. This supports integrated health and social care, improves outcomes for service users, eliminates system duplication, reduces repetitive information requests, increases system capacity, and ensures timely access to accurate information for effective care delivery.  

The Digital Office is leading the creation of a Digital To Be State for the SOLACE/Improvement Service Transformation Programme. The goal is to provide a clear vision for a future, digitally enabled local government, serving as a planning guide for Councils and the sector overall. The initiative is split into two parts. The first part is the development of the ambition, the second is an implementation strategy which will provide practical tools and guidance that can be used to realise the ambition.

The Digital Office provides table-top cyber security exercises designed to enhance cyber resilience for local authorities. These exercises help teams identify gaps in their preparations and emphasise the collective responsibility of the entire council for cyber security and incident response. Conducted with senior teams, the exercises involve working through a scenario provided by a facilitator, who introduces additional information as the exercise progresses. If you would like to conduct a table top cyber exercise, please get in touch at info@digitaloffice.scot

The Digital Office is working with the Scottish Government to develop the ongoing maturity regime being used to assess the public sector currently and into the future. At the moment, this remains the Public Sector Cyber Resilience Framework but is likely to move the Cyber Assurance Framework (CAF) in the coming years. The Digital Office's Chief Information Security Officer represents the interests of local government and is helping shape the adoption of the CAF and will communicate, support, and provide necessary policies and procedures to Local Authorities to assist in their adoption of the framework.

The Digital Office, with support from the Digital Assurance Board, Enterprise Architecture Group, and Digital Leaders, develops standards for cyber security components such as Multi Factor Authentication, or in response to digital developments such as transcription bots. These standards and briefings can be adopted by Councils, or they can be used to inform their own internal policies and governance arrangements.

The Digital Office is working with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), COSLA  and the Local Government Association to respond to the DWP's annual Memorandum of Understanding updates. These updates can have significant implications for local government in terms of their technical solutions for the management of Revenues and Benefits as well as their overall network security. This benefits local government as they have a single voice progressing their interests and working with the DWP to keep their requirements proportionate and achievable.

The Digital Office plays a crucial role in providing independent advice for national digital programmes. They partner with Council ICT, Digital leaders, and Security Officers to ensure solutions are effectively implemented across the 32 Councils. Their responsibilities include ensuring technical designs for national digital solutions meet council requirements and standards, identifying and preventing potential costs and risks, and providing unbiased appraisals of options in complex environments. By aligning national digital initiatives with local government needs, the Digital Office helps prevent duplication and facilitates the smooth implementation of digital programmes across the public sector.

The Digital Maturity Assessment offers local authorities a comprehensive baseline of their digital transformation journey by capturing workforce insights and identifying areas for improvement. This assessment is divided into key categories: Vision and Strategy, Research and Analysis, Digital Skills and Workforce, Data Technology, and Capacity for Change. By evaluating these areas, the assessment helps local authorities understand their current digital capabilities and pinpoint opportunities for future development.

The Digital Telecare Programme, led by the Digital Office in collaboration with the Scottish Government Digital Health and Care division and COSLA, supports Telecare Service Providers in transitioning from the analogue Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to a fully digital ALL-IP solution. The Digital Telecare Programme has actively engaged with all Local Authorities, Housing Associations, and HSCPs to implement innovative, future-proofed and resilient telecare solutions ahead of the digital switchover in 2027.

The M365 Skills Hub is an online learning resource designed for Microsoft 365 users in the health and care sector, accessible to all NHS Scotland health boards and participating local authorities and health and social care partnerships. It offers self-paced guided learning modules, recorded training sessions, and live training sign-ups. Users can stay updated on recent and upcoming M365 features, ask questions, and get advice from fellow users. The Digital Office, NHS Scotland and Society of Personnel and Development Scotland (SPDS) are collaborating to extend access to all remaining councils, providing a wealth of resources and content.

The Digital Office, in collaboration with the Scottish Government, local authorities, Police Scotland, the NHS, and the Home Office, is actively involved in developing the policies and procedures for the new Multi-Agency Public Protection System (MAPPS) and ensuring that its implementation meets the requirement of Scottish Local Government. This system is set to replace ViSOR, which currently contains details of individuals requiring special monitoring arrangements and for whom local government is a responsible authority.

The Digital Office for Scottish Local Government, in partnership with the Scottish Digital Academy, has established the National Digital Capability Advisory Group (DCAG). This new advisory body will play a crucial role in developing digital capabilities across Scotland's public and third sectors, ensuring organisations can efficiently design, build, and maintain high-quality digital services. The DCAG aims to strengthen strategic coordination, collaboration, and co-creation among public and third sector organisations. It focuses on developing and advancing digital capabilities, which include the people, skills, and systems needed to support and sustain digital transformation. 

Initiated by COSLA, Scottish Government’s Digital Health and Care Division, NHS, and the Digital Office, this programme transforms how Health and Care colleagues across Local Government and NHS Scotland work together. By maximising the use of M365 functionality e.g. sharing calendars to viewing others’ availability and Teams chat/ calls, colleagues in multi-disciplinary teams can now collaborate seamlessly and effectively.

The Digital Office is working alongside COSLA and in partnership with the Scottish Government to refresh Scotland’s Digital Strategy. This refresh is being conducted due to changes in policy priorities since the strategy's initial launch and aims to provide clearer implementation plans. The Digital Strategy will be divided into two sections: an Ambition and Implementation Plans, corresponding to different parts of the strategy.

In October 2024, COSLA secured a five-year agreement for councils to access CACI's Acorn and Paycheck products. Acorn categorises communities by socio-demographic factors like age, income, and lifestyle, while Paycheck provides household income data. This helps councils improve policy decisions, resource allocation, and targeted interventions. The Digital Office and CACI support councils in adopting the data, creating shared learning, and identifying collaboration opportunities.

Led by the Digital Office and Scotland Excel, this project aims to provide local authorities with a dedicated framework to access trusted security operation centre services, ensuring continuous monitoring, analysis, and response to cyber threats. Recent reprimands from the ICO to Councils in England who experienced serious cyber attacks have highlighted the need for significant logging and monitoring to meet the security requirements of GDPR. A Security Operations Centre and the attendant security tools would support meeting those requirements.

The Shared Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) Platform exemplifies the transformative potential of collaborative innovation in telecare. Developed through engagement with 13 early adopters and over 65 stakeholders (including local authorities, housing associations, and government bodies) the platform enables seamless integration of digital devices, enhancing personalisation, choice, and control for service users. Its robust cloud-based design fosters scalability, proactive care, and operational efficiency, while addressing cybersecurity and disaster recovery needs.

The Digital Office is working with COSLA policy teams and the Improvement Service on developing national common components to support the roll-out of Visitor Levy across Scotland. This includes digital application aspects, consultation approaches, scheme viability modelling, and common service designs. A core national Visitor Levy Expert Group has been established to coordinate these activities.