How will the Plan 24-30 route maps help Scotland keep the promise?

19/06/2025

It has been a year since Plan 24-30 launched, and a lot has been developed over the last 12 months. This update sets out some of the changes that have been made since then as well as providing more detail on the route maps, what these are and how they are being developed.

Further updates will look at the progress of the route maps, and how Scotland will tell the Promise Story of Progress.

Plan 24-30 is a strategic plan, but not a traditional one. It was designed to be different, to enable cross-sector, multi-agency approaches needed to keep the promise.

Plan 24-30 is hosted on a website, designed to capture the actions of those responsible for leading and implementing change, to track the progress in real time, and to ensure the many paths towards 2030 are aligned and reinforcing one other.

The Plan 24-30 route maps build on existing work and progress and are now being developed in collaboration with those responsible for leading and implementing change. The route maps are being designed to enable organisations and leaders to work together on complex issues and build shared plans that respond to the evolving needs of children and families.

The route maps:

track progress in real time and evolve as Scotland continues to adapt to the changing needs of children and families.

provide greater transparency on work underway and future commitment

support better alignment across national and local priorities.

In February the Oversight Board for the promise gave a clear call to action; that all route maps have to be developed by 2025, and they expect to see all relevant organisations engage in this process. To ensure that this is done as effectively as possible, The Promise Scotland have been developing the process for how the route maps support Scotland to keep the promise, and the principles that will allow organisations across Scotland to both lead, and support the development of detailed route maps.

How will the Plan 24-30 route maps support Scotland to keep the promise?

Alignment: Route maps will support alignment across multiple plans, priorities and policies. Ensuring that the different plans to support families and to keep the promise are reinforcing rather than working against each other.

Transparency: Enable greater transparency on the broad range of work to keep the promise, including who is leading and what the steps towards 2030 look like.

Enable co-design and collaboration: Provide a tool to co-design plans, surface solutions and collaborate to deliver the change.

Fixed destination, dynamic planning and delivery: The destination is fixed, the promise must be kept by 2030. The route there must be flexible, as Scotland responds to the changing landscape and needs of children and families. The route maps will evolve as understanding deepens guided by what is working and the challenges to overcome.

Keeping the promise by and beyond 2030: The route maps are the tool to support collaborative planning, but it will be the sustained bold leadership across Scotland that will ensure the promise is kept in full, and that the conditions for change are sustained beyond 2030.

Principles of the Plan 24-30 route maps

While approaches to keep the promise may vary across systems and sectors, the path to 2030 must be guided by these core principles:

Underpinned by what matters to children and families, rather than what matters to the system.
Keeping the Promise means redesigning systems to prioritise what children and families value over what the system values.
Take an intersectional approach
Taking an intersectional approach means building systems and services that are inclusive and acknowledge overlapping factors such as race, gender, socioeconomic status and disability.
Uphold children’s rights
The route maps must align with the incorporation of the UNCRC and drive progress to ensure the rights of all children, families and care experienced adults are upheld.
Enable co-design of plans, collaborative delivery and transparency on progress.

Find out more about the principles here.

Meeting in the middle:

The path to 2030 will be not linear; obstacles and challenges will arise that must be addressed, whilst also ensuring that the pace and scale of change increases. Surfacing these bridges and barriers is crucial to understand where change must be accelerated to ensure the promise is kept. The meeting in the middle is a theory of change for Plan 24-30, it illustrates the connections between the five areas repeatedly identified as the major barriers and bridges to the promise being kept: data, scrutiny, risk, money, and policy.

Find out more about meeting in the middle.