Independent information and support services funded by the Scottish Government: review findings

Annex 1: SIRD Project Interview Themes

Initial Bid:

What was the initial focus of your bid?

What did you think you would be able to achieve for your organisation? For clients?

Were you looking at exploring a particular way/ model of working?

What was the bidding process like?

Client Facing Work

Who makes referrals into the project? How do you encourage referrals?

Do you get self-referrals? How are self-referrals encouraged?

At what points in the process do people come to you?

What support do you provide?

What have been the challenges in delivering the client facing work? Have any of those barriers been unexpected? How have you sought to overcome these challenges?

Has the balance between the different elements of client facing work been as expected?

What overall impact has the work had on clients? What has the impact been of the different elements of the work you have done?

Strategic Work

What work have you done at a strategic level? What difference has this made?

Has the balance between your strategic work and your client facing work been as expected?

How (if at all) can your strategic work be delivered better in the future?

Working with Partners

How would you describe relationships with the local authority in the areas in which you work? What determines the nature of those relationships?

Which other partners do you work with? How important are those relationships? What determines the nature of those relationships?

What do you try and do to build these relationships? What barriers (if any) have you faced to doing so? If you have been looking to improve relationships, how successful have you been?

Support and monitoring

What internal support do you get (if any) from your wider organisation?

What support do Inspiring Scotland provide? How helpful has this been?

Are there any other peers/organisations that have been helpful in supporting the work funded by the SIRD Fund?

What are your views on the monitoring framework? Is it clear, proportionate, usable? Can you use it to improve and develop your work or to demonstrate its value to others?

The Future

What case would you make for continued funding for the work done by SIRD projects, local and nationally? In the short term. In the long term?

What would the weak points of that case be? What needs to change to strengthen that case?

What do you think SDS independent information and support will look like in 5 years? What should it look like?