What was your highlight of 2024?
This year we welcomed Scotland’s seventh first minister into government, developed a new programme for government, and recently published our new budget for 2025-26, all focused on delivering four priorities: to reduce child poverty; grow the economy; reduce emissions; and improve public services.
Much of our focus in Scotland is on building a better future for the next generation, and this year we welcomed the commencement of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Act in July – and it was lovely to celebrate this moment with Scotland’s Children’s and Youth Parliament, who campaigned for the changes. We have also made progress reforming social security, maintaining lower rates of relative child poverty in Scotland. And we proudly marked the one-year anniversary of the Verity House Agreement, reinforcing our strong commitment to genuine partnership with local government.
In September we published our Green Industrial Strategy, with the 2025-26 budget this December announcing a near tripling of offshore wind investment, underpinned by the new climate change bill which passed in November. To help support this mission, Scotland hosted the inaugural Council of Nations and Regions, another step-change in collaboration to accelerate inward investment and help achieve clean energy by 2030. We look forward to sustaining the momentum, hosting the British Irish Council this December in Edinburgh.
It is always a privilege to see the team’s hard work translating into impact locally, and highlights include our community justice, refugee resettlement and whole-family wellbeing programmes. I am proud of the core capabilities we have developed, including on change, commercial asset management and procurement.
Amongst many highlights, this summer we launched the procurement of seven new ferries as part of phase one of the small vessel replacement programme, on top of four larger ferries for our Islay and Little Minch routes already procured earlier this parliament. Having visited the communities impacted, it is good to see these lifeline services are now set to improve in the future.
Finally, in Scotland, genuine partnership is essential, often referred to as the "Team Scotland" approach. I want to thank all of our colleagues and partners for their leadership, resilience and determination to deliver for their communities this year.
What was the hardest part of being a leader in 2024?
Balancing the in-year budget following the inflationary shock was a hard challenge, and I am proud of our teams for doing so again despite acute fiscal pressures.
Abroad, 2024 was another year where events have been disturbing and that has translated into challenges domestically too. Across the Scottish Government we have tried to respond with kindness and integrity, including sustaining our resettlement support for refugees and working hard on positive inter-faith relations. The government also committed to putting wellbeing right at the heart of our national performance framework for the long-term, striving to build that fairer, more inclusive Scotland.
What are the main challenges facing your organisation in the coming year – and how are you planning to meet them?
There will always be bumps in the road, but I have good confidence in the capability of the team to navigate them very well, in support of their ministers.
We continue to grapple with complex challenges, including climate adaptation and the legacy of Covid backlog demand. But we have made progress tackling much of this, for example, halving the court backlog of outstanding scheduled trials since January 2022. And we have tried to set the foundations for more fundamental system reform, for example, piloting and now rolling out a new approach to summary case management, which will reduce the number of victims, witnesses and police officers having to attend court.
And we are working hard on improving productivity in our NHS, for example rolling out digital dermatology services across Scotland, with targeted additional investment to reduce waiting times. And within government, we have implemented Oracle Cloud ERP across the Scottish Government and over 30 public bodies who have joined our shared services programme. This has reset our corporate services onto firmer foundations for the long term, a key pillar of the government’s 10-year public service reform programme.
These are just a few of the changes ahead on public service reform. To thrive in the future, transformation and reform will be essential.
What was the best Christmas present you’ve ever given or received? And the worst?
My best Christmases are always with my children, who bring Christmas to life with their excitement and joy. I wish everyone a restful holiday and happy new year.