ALLIANCE respond to further NPF Review engagement with human rights focus

After the Scottish Government scrapped the initial review, the most recent proposal suggests a smaller number of broader outcomes.

The ALLIANCE have submitted a response to the Scottish Government’s most recent round of engagement on the review of the National Performance Framework (NPF). The ALLIANCE engaged extensively with the earlier stages of the NPF review through:

• Membership of the “A Scotland that cares” campaign for a National Outcome on Care.
• Responding to the Scottish Government’s 2023 public consultation.
• Submitting a written response to the Finance and Public Administration Committee’s 2024 inquiry.
• Subsequently providing in-person evidence to the committee.

We previously welcomed several of the changes that had been proposed to the NPF, in particular the addition of a National Outcome on Care. Similarly, the shift in focus of the business and economy related outcomes to “Wellbeing Economy and Fair Work” was a positive step forward. We also felt the retention of a standalone Equality and Human Rights outcome made sense, whilst emphasising the need to embed human rights throughout the outcomes. However, we also recommended that more work was done to fully embed the NPF in the policy development process.

The ALLIANCE were surprised and disappointed by what amounted to a sudden scrapping of the review in early 2025. It remains unclear from this further engagement document why this was felt to be necessary, or how the evidence from the review has informed these new proposals.

The ALLIANCE are not inherently opposed to some of the proposals in this new document, including reducing the number of outcomes; the aim that human rights are a cross-cutting perspective throughout them; and changing the name of the NPF. We are however concerned by the lack of clarity around how and why these new proposals have been developed, the continued lack of information on indicators, and the extremely limited reference to human rights beyond the mention of being a cross-cutting perspective.

The Scottish Government must offer more information on their plans, including indicators, and undertake adequate consultation on them. In addition, more work must be done to embed the refreshed NPF into all aspects of government planning and budgeting, for example by ensuring the annual Programme for Government is framed around the national outcomes, and undertaking more comprehensive budget tagging in relation to them.

You can read the full response via the resource links below.

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