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Reform needs a clear vision for the whole of public service, but it also needs a practical starting point. So, if we are serious about prevention, financial sustainability and better life chances, reform should begin where it can make the greatest immediate and long-term difference: with children and families.This article is written ahead of the publication of the Scottish Government's Programme for Government, whose reform vision is keenly awaited.Solace Scotland, working with the Improvement Service, has been developing our own shared vision. In our view, tackling child poverty and strengthening active communities provide the clearest opportunity to shift the system away from crisis response and towards early intervention, whole-family support and better long-term outcomes. This is not a narrow children's services agenda. A child's life is shaped by housing, family income, health, education, transport, employment, community networks and the places in which they grow up. Starting with children and families is therefore a practical way of testing whether whole-system, place-based reform can work.The challenges facing families are not neatly contained within single institutions. Communities experience them as one reality, while the public sector too often responds through separate services, budgets and accountabilities. Fragmented support, workforce pressures, short-term funding and inconsistent access to services make it harder to intervene early. Reform must connect services around people, not ask people to navigate the boundaries between services.Public service reform should not be reduced to organisational charts, savings targets or a succession of pilots. The starting point is a clear proposition about the future system Scotland wants: preventative rather than reactive, relational rather than transactional, designed around people's needs and accountable for shared outcomes. Form should follow function. Decisions should be made locally by default, regionally where scale adds value and nationally where consistency is genuinely required.In some places, Single Authority Models may offer the right solution; in others, mergers, shared services or strengthened regional partnerships may better integrate responsibility around outcomes and place. The test must be whether the model improves the experience and outcomes of children and families, reduces fragmentation and creates more space for prevention.Place-based working cannot remain a slogan. It has to change how decisions are made, how resources flow, how partners are held to account and how communities shape solutions. Councils have a distinctive role because they combine democratic accountability, convening power and a daily relationship with the places they serve. But local government cannot deliver reform in isolation. If other public bodies remain driven primarily by separate national structures, targets and funding streams, Scotland will struggle to deliver genuinely integrated, whole-family support.One of the most persistent weaknesses in the current system is the separation of responsibility from authority. Organisations can be held accountable for outcomes without controlling the powers or resources that determine whether those outcomes are achievable. Future reform should test every proposal against a basic question: do responsibility, authority, accountability and resources sit in the same place? If not, the system will continue to generate duplication, frustration and unclear ownership.Fairer Futures Partnerships and other local tests of change show the value of strong leadership, community voice, data-led targeting and cross-service collaboration. The wider Solace and Improvement Service Transformation Programme is also turning reform into practical work through shared services, digital platforms, collaborative procurement, workforce modernisation, self-evaluation and leadership development.Funding is central to that alignment. Short-term, tightly ring-fenced funding is poorly suited to long-term challenges such as child poverty, inequality and family wellbeing. Scotland needs more stable, multi-year and outcomes-focused funding that allows national and local partners to plan together, invest in prevention and sustain approaches that work. It also requires a willingness to review legal, policy, procurement, public-finance and data-sharing barriers that inhibit joint working and modern service design.Structural change alone will not be enough. Reform depends on relationships, trust, shared purpose and a willingness to work through difficult trade-offs. Communities should be active partners in shaping, delivering and sustaining change. That means moving beyond consultation towards co-design, valuing lived experience alongside professional expertise and recognising the assets, strengths and informal networks already present in every place.Culture change is therefore not optional. Leaders must create the conditions for staff to work across boundaries, test new approaches and learn from what does not work as well as what does. Relationship-building, collaboration and the intelligent use of data are core public-service skills. Targeted, sustainable investment in workforce and leadership capability is essential if promising local practice is to be tested, adapted and scaled.Governance, performance and scrutiny must support the same shift. Success should be judged through a small set of system-level measures: improved outcomes and experience for children and families, reduced escalation to crisis, less duplication and clearer pathways, stronger workforce capacity, improved trust and evidence that learning from local practice is shaping wider decisions.There are already foundations on which to build. Fairer Futures Partnerships and other local tests of change show the value of strong leadership, community voice, data-led targeting and cross-service collaboration. The wider Solace and Improvement Service Transformation Programme is also turning reform into practical work through shared services, digital platforms, collaborative procurement, workforce modernisation, self-evaluation and leadership development.Local government is ready to contribute to the national conversation of reform with ambition and realism.The prize is significant – public services that feel simpler to families, clearer to staff, more accountable to communities and more capable of acting before needs become crises.Scotland should think system first, make place a serious organising principle and begin where reform can have the greatest lasting impact: with children and families.Pippa Milne is chair of Solace Scotland and chief executive of Argyll and Bute Council

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SOLACE SCOTLAND

Real reform begins at home

By Pippa Milne | 09 September 2026

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