1. Key Messages

• Across Scottish Government and Local Government there is action being taken to improve the Covid Recovery Strategy (CRS) outcomes. • Despite the fact that different organisations often have different articulations of outcomes and target groups which are not identical to the CRS, the underlying aims have been found to be aligned in most cases. • Some Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) have prioritised outcomes that they believe are underrepresented in the CRS, including mental health and wellbeing, climate change and digital inclusion in remote and rural areas. • The delivery of actions and development of policy is not typically being carried out as a direct consequence of the CRS – many local authority and CPP recovery plans were published in advance of the CRS, and many Scottish Government policies cited in the CRS were established before publication. • CPPs and local authorities also note that the CRS exists alongside a number of other national and local priorities that they experience, which are often competing. • While some of the actions in the CRS are policies that are still being developed and are not yet in the delivery phase, the majority (68%) are understood to be progressing as planned, with a small number (11%) already having been completed. • Whereas on outcomes and target groups there is broad agreement between the CRS aims and those stated locally, it is more difficult to evidence an aligned view between

Scottish Government and local areas on specific actions that will have the greatest impact on outcomes. • This is partially because a number of the policies/actions in the CRS are not yet in a delivery phase, and partially because other actions are being undertaken locally that are not cited in the CRS. Many of these local actions contribute to the CRS outcomes directly or indirectly, while others contribute to non-CRS outcomes (e.g. Net Zero and

Digital Inclusion). Evidence indicates that local actions are primarily prioritised by statutory obligations, community engagement and data analysis. • Officials within both Scottish Government and Local Government have expressed positivity for the urgency and empowerment felt during the Covid response, and a desire to continue working in that way to address new and emerging challenges.

However, a move back to Business as Usual has been felt, with ways of working tending to revert to ‘how things were before’. • There are several common barriers that are observed both nationally in policy design and local service delivery that impede the effectiveness of delivery. Such challenges include the number of competing priorities nationally and locally with associated reporting burdens, the challenge of sharing of data and intelligence across organisational barriers, the requirement to re-organise and re-prioritise resources in response to external influences and the flexibility of funding.