Pre-budget follow-up joint statement on prevention
- Area of Work: Policy and Research
- Type: News Item
- Published: 8th January 2026
The 'joint statement on prevention' partners have issued a follow-up ahead of the 2026-27 Scottish Budget.
Our latest statement focuses on what’s needed to put the ‘hard to do’ parts of preventative policy into action.
The statement partners include the ALLIANCE, Edinburgh Community Health Forum, Scottish Community Development Centre: Community Health Exchange, and Voluntary Health Scotland. We believe that finding sustainable solutions to the ‘implementation gap’ is essential for preventative policy to be translated into action that meaningfully improves people’s lives, and addresses the issues that they face every day.
In our original joint statement we set out some of the ‘hard to do’ – but essential – steps to putting preventative policy into practice. They are:
- Co-production and power-sharing with people, communities and the third sector;
- Long-term investment and work;
- Transparency and accountability;
- Courageous leadership;
- Evidence-gathering; and
- Working across siloes and sectors (including fiscal)
As partners we encourage the Scottish Government, and specifically the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, to demonstrate courageous leadership in the 2026-27 Scottish Budget. Financial decision-making and reporting that prioritises and transparently allocates and tracks spend on prevention is vital. It is also crucial to ensure that financial decision-making power is meaningfully shared with community and third sector organisations as equal partners in the shift to prevention.
Solving the implementation gap is possible and the pace of change required is clear. Let’s move urgently and consistently – together – so that prevention becomes not just a policy ambition, but a policy success.
You can read the full follow-up joint statement at the link below. If you’d like to discuss or find out more, please email us at policy@alliance-scotland.org.uk
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