The Promise Progress Framework

The Framework has been developed by COSLA, The Scottish Government and The Promise Scotland, with input received from key stakeholders including Public Health Scotland, the Improvement Service, CELCIS, Who Cares? Scotland, the Care Inspectorate, Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. These stakeholders make up The Promise Collective, a group of organisations who provide a strong framework of partnership working and sharing of information and activity underway across organisations. 

The dashboard which launched in September 2025 contained the data as published in the initial report in December 2024. During this testing period, users have been invited to explore the layout and interactivity of the dashboard, and provide any feedback to this initial version of the dashboard, and we encourage you to continue to do so.

In December 2025 indicators were updated to reflect data that has been published throughout 2025. The dashboard will be improved based on any feedback received. 

Moving forward from December 2025 the Promise Progress Framework will be updated regularly to include the most up to date data. Details about when data was last updated, and when next updates are expected are presented alongside each indicator to help users understand this.

Updates to the Promise Progress Framework require robust quality assurance. The Scottish Government already have a way of doing this developed for updating other dashboards such as the National Performance Framework. It allows for objective scrutiny and quality checking of proposed updates by a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of senior analysts from across Government, and guided by advice from lead analysts.

The Technical Advisory Group who already provide this scrutiny to the National Performance Framework have overseen this latest update to the indicators within the Promise Progress Framework. In 2026, a dedicated Promise Technical Advisory Group will be formed, chaired by the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician.

To read more about the Technical Advisory Group click here.

To hear from the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician about this work click here.

One of the main evidence gaps highlighted in the Promise Progress Framework is the need to better understand differences in health outcomes and healthcare access for children and young people with care experience.

To address this, Public Health Scotland is leading a project to see if linking existing data can provide a sustainable way to regularly track health, mental health, and healthcare measures for children and young people with care experience.

The project is based on the commitment to “do data differently,” following the principles of the Promise Story of Progress. The aim is to avoid creating new reporting requirements by making better use of existing administrative data. This will make it possible to report new insights regularly without creating extra work for services.

The Promise Data and Evidence Group recently released the first annual workplan, which gives more detail about the project, including aims and planned milestones. The workplan is available online here.

The Promise Data and Evidence group, established in March 2025 brings together a network of analysts from across sectors and organisations to review the data and evidence landscape, identify activities to improve data infrastructure, and support research priorities that enhance understanding of progress. The work of the group supports the development of the Promise Story of Progress. The group has their own space on the Scottish Government website, which contains their terms of reference, initial workplan, and any other updates: The Promise Data and Evidence Group - gov.scot

One of the main evidence gaps highlighted in the Promise Progress Framework is the need to better understand differences in health outcomes and healthcare access for children and young people with care experience.

To address this, Public Health Scotland is leading a project to explore the feasibility of using data linkage to track health, mental health, and healthcare measures for children and young people with care experience.

The project is based on the commitment to “do data differently,” following the principles of the Promise Story of Progress. The aim is to avoid creating new reporting requirements by making better use of existing administrative data. This will make it possible to report new insights regularly without creating extra work for services.

The Promise Data and Evidence Group recently released the first annual workplan, which gives more detail about the project, including aims and planned milestones. The workplan is available online here.

How the care experienced community are feeling the impact of change must be at the heart of how success is measured and The Promise Progress Framework will be used as the frame to gather data and information on their experiences to ensure impact of change is understood.

Achieving this at a national level across the ten vision statements requires an approach that balances the need to collect insights that guide what needs to happen next, while limiting asking the same questions of the same people over again. As part of the next steps in the development of The Promise Story of Progress, there is a need to explore a variety of ways of collecting this information including social research and support from organisations who work directly with the care experienced community.

To start, the What Matters' questions have been created, based directly on what children, young people and families told the Independent Care Review was important to them. These questions are intended to help root Scotland’s understanding of what ‘good’ looks like through experience, rather than what 'good' looks like to the 'system'.

To answer this question within The Promise Story of Progress, at its launch in December 2024, The Promise Progress Framework has multiple national indicators and data sources mapped to its outcomes to guide a high-level understanding of national progress. Each indicator is populated with data back to the most recent pre-COVID data point where possible so change over time since the promise was made can be understood.

Drawing together multiple outcomes and indicators means it is possible to use the data from across areas and organisations to help tell a story of national progress. When taken together, this forms one key part of helping Scotland understand the direction and pace of the change it is making.

Contextual indicators within the framework help to provide an understanding of some of the wider pressures that may be affecting work to keep the promise. This is in acknowledgement that work to keep the promise is affected by the wider conditions across Scotland, which can impact children, families, and adults risk of needing extra support. These indicators will not necessarily be impacted at the whole-population level by work to keep the promise, and therefore are clearly labelled throughout the framework. The Promise Progress Framework is a national framework that is shared by all those with a responsibility for keeping the promise. While reporting will be produced centrally by The Promise Scotland, Scottish Government and COSLA, there is work across organisations and groups to ensure the best data and evidence available is used to interpret the national picture.

Feedback on this first iteration of the Promise Progress Framework will be key. Views of stakeholders and partners would be highly valued. To do this please email: plan2430@thepromise.scot

The vision statements and outcomes in The Promise Progress Framework set the frame for organisational understanding. National-level indicators are important for understanding wider change, however further context is needed to interpret the reasons behind this change and the resulting impacts. Therefore, a broader evidence base is required to examine how processes at local and organisational level are affecting change.

Work at the organisational level is key to developing better understanding but also to support an improvement in how change is experienced by those for whom the promise was made. This work requires different kinds of data, evidence and information than what is needed at the national level.

As part of the next steps in the development of The Promise Story of Progress, the mechanism for how improvement work at the organisational level can feed into and inform the national picture will be developed, building on the work already underway through Plan 24-30.