Education Scotland Corporate Plan for 2026 to 2031: Our operating context
Our operating context shapes national priorities, expectations and our evolving role as a curriculum agency. By clearly positioning our role, Education Scotland can weave a strong “golden thread” connecting its work to national frameworks, policies and outcomes. This alignment is critical for demonstrating impact, supporting system coherence, and ensuring its work contributes meaningfully to wider ambitions for improvement and better outcomes for learners and communities across Scotland. Education Scotland operates within a nested system; a wider, interconnected system of national policy, reform, and delivery.
Education Reform
Education in Scotland has undergone significant education reform, including the establishment of Qualifications Scotland and an independent inspectorate, and the development of a renewed curriculum and assessment system. These reforms aim to build on the strengths of Scotland’s education system while ensuring it is responsive to current and future needs.
The Education (Scotland) Act 2025 followed Professor Ken Muir’s Putting Learners at the Centre report and introduced major structural changes to Scotland’s education system. Qualifications Scotland has replaced the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), and a new Chief Inspector of Education leads the new, independent inspection function for Scotland, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIE).
As part of these changes, Education Scotland has been refocused on curriculum design, delivery, and improvement. With inspection functions removed, Education Scotland’s role now centres on supporting high-quality curriculum implementation, strengthening professional learning, and working with partners to build a more coherent, transparent, and learner-centred education system.
This plan recognises that working effectively with key partners is essential to ensuring a coherent, aligned and high-impact education system. Education Scotland’s collaboration with local authorities, COSLA, ADES and the Centre for Teaching Excellence, the professional associations and others, strengthens collective leadership, enables shared understanding of priorities, and supports consistent implementation across Scotland. Through partnership working, we can better connect policy, practice and evidence, ensuring that national priorities translate into meaningful improvements in learning, wellbeing and outcomes for children and young people.
National Improvement Framework
The National Improvement Framework (NIF) is the Scottish Government’s key strategy for improving education, setting out the national vision, priorities and outcomes for children and young people. NIF focuses on delivering excellence and equity, ensuring that all learners achieve their potential regardless of background, and is supported by an annual improvement plan that outlines actions, evidence and measures of progress. This plan illustrates how NIF drives Education Scotland’s contribution to the national vision, priorities and outcomes for children and young people:
- Through our vision and mission: by reinforcing an ambitious, inclusive and collaborative approach to curriculum and system improvement. NIF emphasis on an inclusive and relevant curriculum, high-quality learning and teaching, and strong partnership working supports our commitment to co-design and implementation alongside practitioners and partners. At the same time, the NIF’s core focus on equity, excellence and closing the attainment gap, alongside improving wellbeing and professional practice, closely drives our mission to strengthen practice and place these principles at the centre of curriculum development. The NIF reliance on evidence-informed improvement and system-wide collaboration also drives our aim of connecting evidence, policy and practice, ensuring that national priorities are translated into meaningful, high-quality experiences and outcomes for children and young people across Scotland.
- Through our strategic priorities: NIF’s emphasis on an inclusive and relevant curriculum drives the setting of our strategy priority for a coherent, inclusive curriculum, ensuring clarity, progression and equity for children and young people. The NIF’s focus on high-quality teaching, leadership and system-wide accountability also drives our strategic priority for leadership of learning and system coherence, reinforcing the need for strong, collaborative leadership at all levels to drive improvement. In addition, the NIF’s outcomes around performance, equity, wellbeing and closing the attainment gap directly informs our priority on organisational performance, culture and impact, ensuring that our work is evidence-informed, outcome-focused and contributes to measurable improvements across the system. Collectively, our strategic priorities represent a key delivery mechanism through which national NIF ambitions can be realised.
National Performance Framework
The National Performance Framework (NPF) provides Scotland’s overarching wellbeing framework, setting out a clear national purpose, values, and a series of National Outcomes that describe what the Scottish Government wants to achieve across economic, social, and environmental areas. These outcomes are supported by indicators to measure progress. NPF guides decision-making and drives improvement across Scotland’s government and public services.
At the time of publication, the NPF is subject to review. There is a recognised need to strengthen its impact in practice, ensuring it more effectively informs decision making resource and system alignment (Carnegie UK, 2024). This creates an opportunity for Education Scotland to clearly demonstrate how its work contributes to national outcomes, supports collaboration and wellbeing.
In this context, Education Scotland has a key role in advancing equity, inclusion and improved long-term outcomes for all learners, ensuring that education makes a central contribution to Scotland’s wider wellbeing ambitions. The National Performance Framework (NPF) guides decision-making and improvement across Scotland’s government and public services. It provides a wellbeing framework and clear purpose, values, and outcomes. These describe what the Scottish Government want to achieve across economic, social, and environmental areas. They are supported by indicators to measure progress.
Public Service Reform
Scotland’s Public Services Reform Strategy sets out the Scottish Government’s vision for high-quality, efficient, and effective public services. Building on the Christie Commission (2011), its priorities prevention, joined-up services, and efficiency, alongside addressing deeper systemic issues such as leadership and culture, accountability and incentives, empowerment, and structural complexity. The Strategy also signals an increased pace and ambition in delivering this vision.
Public service reform crosscuts the entirety of this plan: it crosscuts what we will deliver and how we will deliver it and enables Education Scotland to play a distinctive role in contributing to a more coherent, efficient and learner-centred system that improves outcomes for all.
This Corporate Plan and the Annual Delivery Plans that flow from it, reinforces Education Scotland’s commitment to focus on prevention, partnership and supporting system-wide coherence. The Public Service Reform Strategy emphasises joined-up services and addressing systemic barriers and this aligns closely with Education Scotland’s role in supporting curriculum delivery, strengthening leadership of learning and enabling collaboration across the education system. It also highlights the importance of modelling high-quality practice, building capacity and demonstrating clear, measurable impact.
Education Scotland has prioritised maximising efficiency through an extensive organisational design programme and the development of shared services with HMIE and other education partners as well as Scottish Government. This commitment to maximising efficiency will continue for the duration of this plan.
