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The What Matters questions

The What Matters questions are a tool to help those working to keep the promise to reflect, review and make changes to their own practice, based on what children and families told the Independent Care Review was important to them.

They can help people to used with the information from the Promise Story of Progress as a tool for learning, understanding and improvement.

As well as the questions, there are also two case studies, from Highland Council and South Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership on how the What Matters questions are being used in practice.

 

What Matters questions What Matters Case Studies
The What Matters questions
 The What Matters questions can help root Scotland’s understanding of what ‘good’ looks like through the experience of what makes a difference, rather than what ‘good’ looks like to the ‘system’.  In turn this will guide Scotland’s planning and actions.  

They offer a practical, reliable tool that people can use with confidence, knowing they reflect the experiences and messages shared with the Independent Care Review.

The insights gathered from the Promise Story of Progress, when looked at with the What Matters questions, become a practical tool for reflection, understanding the wider context and action. They can help practitioners, leaders and organisations check whether their current practice is making a difference, understand what is working well, and see where change is still needed by keeping focus on what matters to children, families and care experienced adults.

For example, if the data shows a drop in how often care experienced children are attending school, and this is seen alongside what organisations are learning and what lived experience is telling us, it gives a more holistic picture of some of the bridges and barriers to attendance. The What Matters questions can then help practitioners, leaders and organisations explore what might be happening behind the numbers in their own setting and encourage curiosity and reflection about what support might be needed and what might need to change.

They can help the workforce meaningfully apply learning in day-to-day practice, while also informing strategic decision making, all in the context of knowing what the national picture is. They ensure that the work is rooted in what children, families and care-experienced adults have already shared and create the conditions for the workforce to meaningfully apply and build on learning, from strategic spaces to individual practice.

This can then led to improve practice, experiences, and as changes are made across Scotland, the national data will also reflect this.

 Using the What Matters questions in this way means: 

  • ensuring that the evidence gathered through the Promise Story of Progress continues to honour the testimonies of children and families shared with the Independent Care Review; 
  • encouraging everyone involved in keeping the promise to act on what has already been heard, using it to guide practice, learning, and improvement. 

Find out more

The What Matters questions should be used by organisations, to help assess the extent to which their work to keep the promise, including data collection, use and development, is moving things closer to being able to answer the three questions in the promise story of progress. Where the questions cannot be fully answered, they are intended to help identify gaps in understanding and support, or changes needed in processes and practice, from the perspective of what children and their families have already shared about what needs to happen.

Top tips for use:

  • Get people to engage with What Matters by using the guide cards to help you start conversations about change that will have a positive impact on the people you support. 
  • Talk about what the statement / questions mean in your practice and how they can guide you and fill gaps. 
  • Use these with other tools such as the Promise Design School’s empathy maps or journey experience blueprints to give a fuller picture of what matters to the people you support. 

·   These are not meant to be used for surveys or without discussion.

The What Matters questions were developed to help keep all work firmly rooted in what children and families told the Independent Care Review mattered most to them.

To achieve this, the testimony of the 5,500 people who took part in the Review was first translated into clear, useful questions that hold those voices at the centre. The findings were distilled into hundreds of statements and questions, then explored through the early stages of the promise data map project to understand how well current information reflects what children and families said really matters.

Over time, this material was refined and organised so it could align with the themes in Plan 24–30. The result is a set of What Matters questions that stay closely connected to what the Independent Care Review heard and have been shaped through a careful and thorough process.

Feedback so far from organisations has helped identify a number of improvements that will be addressed in the next version of the guidance and tools, while keeping close to the original meaning behind the questions.

  • Some What Matters questions appear in more than one Plan 24–30 theme to support connection and cross-cutting thinking. However, people told us that in the context of using the cards as a tool, this duplication could feel confusing, and it wasn’t how it was intentional or should be used.
  • Several questions were felt to be too long or too complex.
  • Users noted the need for a wider range of accessible materials to support broader understanding and inclusion.
  • People requested more examples of how the questions can be used, to help them think creatively about applying the resource in different ways.

These will be addressed as part of the next steps.

Using the What Matters questions as a tool for learning and understanding is already proving helpful in practice. People in the workforce have also said that examples and practical ideas would help them use the What Matters questions more often and in more meaningful ways. You can find examples of how people are already using them in practice here. To build on this, The Promise Scotland will continue to seek feedback on their format, guidance and usefulness so that new examples can be published that support their continued use and improvement.

The What Matters questions cards and guidance will be updated again in 2026.

As the Promise Story of Progress develops in 2026, we welcome your thoughts, ideas and suggestions. Please contact us at plan2430@thepromise.scot with 'Promise Story of Progress' in the subject line.

The Promise Scotland will continue to take a collaborative approach to updating the guidance and cards. This means listening to organisations who have used the questions and making sure their experiences shape what comes next.

The Promise Scotland will continue to capture new examples, refine the guidance and work alongside partners to understand what helps the questions work well in different contexts, and how to make them clear and easy to use as possible.