Scotland's children's services plans 2023-2026 review: improving outcomes for children, young people and families

13. Presentation and SMART approach

This chapter discusses overall presentation, readability of Children’s Services Plans, and the extent to which the SMART criteria was met.

SMART (Criterion 14)

The Statutory Guidance states that Children’s Services Plans should present information in an easily accessible format, which meets the following ‘SMART’ criteria:

• Specific: be specific about priorities, actions, outcomes and which organisations and services are contributing to their achievement.
• Measurable: include measurable strategic priorities with supporting service delivery and improvement actions, and a set of measurable indicators to evaluate progress.
• Achievable: have clear aims and robust governance arrangements.
• Relevant: include a narrative on children’s services and related services.
• Time-related: specify timescales for strategic priorities, and delivery or improvement actions.

Ten 2023-2026 Children’s Services Plans met this criterion, which is an increase from five in the review of 2020-2023 CSPs. However, there was also an increase in the number of CSPs which did not meet this criterion, from zero to two in 2023-2026.

Children’s Services Plans which fully met this criterion adhered to every element of SMART, and also demonstrated efforts to ensure the CSP was accessible by, for example, using diagrams and offering alternative format versions. Alternative format versions included different languages, such as Polish, Arabic and Chinese as well as child friendly versions and formats to support disabled people such as large print, braille, audio and sign language videos.

CSPs which partially met this criterion demonstrated some elements of SMART, but not all. The two Children’s Services Plans which did not meet this criterion did not satisfy all aspects of SMART and did not structure the Children’s Services Plan in an easily accessible format; for example, they were lengthy, text heavy and used jargon throughout.

In terms of presenting information which met all five elements of SMART, all 30 Children’s Services Plans were deemed to be Specific, Achievable and Relevant. However, there was less demonstration of being ‘Measurable’ and ‘Time-related’ (Figure 13.2).

Most Children’s Services Plans were well presented and easy to read, with effective use of design elements such as colour, photographs, tables and infographics. The average length of a CSP was 47 pages, with the shortest being 18 pages, and the longest 127 pages.

Many of the more detailed Children’s Services Plans provided an alternative summary version, or one-page infographic which provided a high-level summary of the Plan.

Other aspects which enhanced the accessibility of Children’s Services Plans content included:

• Glossaries to define terms and explain acronyms.
• Inclusion of clear and relevant visual elements that aided understanding of the CSP.
• A child/family-friendly, or brief summary version. In some cases this was a short summary written in simple language, and in others presented in an alternative format, such as an infographic or animation.
• Information about how to request the document in different languages and alternative formats, such as Braille or large print.

Examples of good practice

Aberdeenshire: The Children’s Services Plan is well-presented, colourful and engaging, with features to assist the reader, including a contents page, clear headings and a glossary. Appendix 1 includes clear and concise tables, setting out the aims, actions, and performance measures under each priority, with an identified lead agency and clear links to wellbeing indicators and UNCRC Articles. In terms of the SMART principles, the priorities and actions are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-related.

East Renfrewshire: The Children’s Services Plan includes an executive summary, diagrams and clear headings, as well as a one-page summary of the Plan. It also includes instructions about how to request the Plan in other languages or alternative formats such as large print or Braille.

Argyll & Bute: The Children’s Services Plan is available online as a poster summary with illustrations and a children and young person-friendly animated film. Local young people were involved in making the film.

Dumfries & Galloway: Instructions to request the Plan in different languages are provided at the start of the Children’s Services Plan. An easy read version is also available online, as is a video with British Sign Language, closed captions and voiceover.