Digital Nation Scotland: A Vision for a World-Leading Digital Future
The Scottish Government aims to refresh its Joint Digital Strategy, originally launched in 2021, to advance Scotland as a vibrant, inclusive, and outward-looking digital nation.
The purpose of Digital Scotland is to support and help accelerate the Scottish Government’s ambition for the country to become a world leading digital nation, and our ebook will provide a complete blueprint for achieving this.
The Scottish Government aims to refresh its Joint Digital Strategy, originally launched in 2021, to advance Scotland as a vibrant, inclusive, and outward-looking digital nation.
The strategy, a collaboration with local authorities, focuses on leveraging digital transformation to enhance public services, boost economic growth, promote social inclusion, and support environmental sustainability.
Key ambitions include:
Vision and Purpose: The refreshed strategy seeks to create a common purpose for digital transformation across Scotland’s public sector, aligning with national priorities such as economic recovery, climate change targets, and inclusive public services. It emphasizes digital as a fundamental enabler for achieving Scotland’s goals, ensuring no one is left behind in the digital age.
Transparent and Collaborative Process: The refresh process, led by Becca Fairless, emphasizes transparency with regular updates via blog posts and stakeholder newsletters. It involves the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, COSLA, and the Digital Office for Scottish Local Government.
Alignment with National Priorities: The strategy seeks to align digital initiatives with Scotland’s broader goals, fostering a unified purpose across the public sector.
Inclusive Development: By involving stakeholders in developing delivery plans for Digital Inclusion, Digital Education and Skills, Digital Economy, and Digital Public Services, the strategy aims to enhance engagement, ownership, and clarity of roles.
Driving Collective Action: The success of the strategy is measured by its ability to inspire and motivate collective action at both national and local levels. By aligning digital initiatives with Scotland’s priorities, the strategy seeks to deliver tangible improvements for citizens, businesses, and public services, ensuring ethical, secure, and user-centered digital transformation.
The refresh builds on the 2021 strategy’s progress, as outlined in the May 2024 report, and aims to adapt to the evolving digital landscape through ongoing stakeholder collaboration.
As Colin Birchenall, CTO of the Digital Office describes here the key theme is collaboration across all sectors of the Scottish public sector including Local Government. The purpose of Digital Scotland and this site is to further expand this scope to also include businesses and entrepreneurs, so that it can be as large a collective effort as possible.
Digital Nation Scotland is a testament to Scotland’s ambition and resilience. By uniting communities, businesses, and policymakers, it builds on the Scottish Government’s vision of a collaborative, inclusive digital nation. This book is both a record of progress and a call to action. Together, we can create a future where Scotland leads the world in digital innovation, empowering every citizen and showcasing our brilliance globally.
