Scotland’s public and third sectors: doing more with less
Tuesday 28th April 2026
Scotland’s public and third sector leaders are being asked to hold service quality steady while funding tightens, costs rise and demand keeps shifting. The result is a familiar pattern of short-term firefighting, incremental savings that often slip and transformation programmes that struggle to work in the real world. To complicate matters further, Shona Robison MSP – Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Scottish Government – explicitly called for public sector reform to deliver £1.5 billion in efficiencies in her 13th January Scottish Parliament statement.
What matters now is what actually works at service and programme level. Which approaches, tools, innovation and lessons learned really work? What do you do when your plans hit procurement rules, legacy systems, workforce gaps or governance constraints? The themes we will explore are shaped by decisions organisations are facing and making right now: what to stop, what to replicate, what to automate and what to redesign. This conference is designed to be practical for public and third sector delegates. It focuses on repeatable steps that finance, service, procurement, HR, digital, audit and operational teams can take quickly.
The agenda covers 10 themes intended to help you seek out what works at organisational and system levels. We will cover fraud and error reduction; AI and digital delivery; staffing and temporary workforce; procurement and contracts innovation; revenue generation; better use of data; spend-to-save; estates and energy and service redesign. Each theme is intended to help attendees apply next steps they can start to apply quickly.
The intended audience is all those tasked with delivery in the context of constrained budgets across our public and third sectors.
Benefits of attending
- Understand the implications of the Scottish budget
- Get up to date insight on tackling fraud, error and loss
- Learn how to employ AI, automation and digital in organisational and service delivery
- Discuss staffing, recruitment and temporary workforce innovation
- Find out about procurement and contract innovation
- Consider revenue generation and income maximisation
- Explore the value and use of data
- Examine deployment of spend-to-save initiatives
- Hear insight on service redesign and transformation
- Address demand management and prevention
- Focus on collaboration, place and pooling resources
Who should attend
- Senior management including Chief Executives, Directors, Managers and Policy Officers
- Advisory and representative groups including policy makers, lawyers, professional representative organisations and trade unions
- Campaigning groups including third sector organisations, lobbying groups, sectoral and industry groups, single issue campaigning organisations
- Public sector bodies including local government, quangos/NDPBs, health, further education and emergency services
- Heads of Finance and Finance Managers, including budget holders and finance business partners
- Internal Audit Managers, Counter Fraud Leads and Risk & Assurance Managers
- Procurement Managers, Commissioning Leads and Contract/Commercial Managers
- Service Managers and Operational Leads across all services
- Transformation and change Managers, Service Improvement Leads and Programme Managers
- Digital Managers, Automation leads and Service Designers
- Data & Insights Managers, business intelligence and performance Leads and Information Governance Leads
- HR Managers, Workforce Planning Leads, Recruitment Leads and Temporary Staffing/Bank Managers
- Estates and Facilities Managers, Property Asset Managers, Energy Managers, and Sustainability and Net Zero Delivery Leads
- Income Generation and Commercial Development Managers, Grants and Funding Managers and Fundraising Leads
Speakers
Diarmaid Lawlor
Associate Director – Place, Housing & Economic Investment
Scottish Futures Trust
Agenda
Tuesday 28th April 2026
09:00 Chair's opening remarks
Session 1
09:05 Keynote – The Scottish Budget
- Where the Scottish budget stands
- What the January spending announcement means for services
- Understanding what isn't resolved and what's coming next
09:20 Question and answer session
09:30 Tackling fraud, error and loss
- The practical fraud and error pressure points during budget constraint – payroll, procurement, grants, debt and benefits
- Prevention controls that don’t slow delivery
- Investigation-to-learning loop – using cases to improve systems and staff confidence
- Building a proportionate counter-fraud plan across public sector bodies and third sector funds
09:45 Employing AI, automation and digital in organisational and service delivery
- Where automation pays back fastest – triage, correspondence, casework, scheduling, reporting, FOI and admin
- Data readiness and safe AI governance – privacy, bias, procurement, and audit trails
- Shared platforms across bodies – M365 collaboration, cyber basics, common components
- Digital maturity under constraint – stopping low-value projects and scaling what works
10:00 Question and answer session
10:10 Comfort break
Session 2
10:20 Staffing, recruitment and temporary workforce – including skills mix
- Reducing agency dependence – bank models, internal talent pools, better demand planning
- Workforce analytics – vacancy, sickness, turnover, rostering and productivity measures that matter
- Skills-mix redesign – role clarity, delegation and supervision models that protect quality
- Fair work and retention – what actually works when pay is tight?
10:35 Procurement and contract innovation – including contract management and social value
- Faster, better buying – frameworks, dynamic purchasing and outcome-based specifications
- Contract management as a savings engine – leakage, demand control and supplier performance
- Community benefits and procurement with purpose without increasing cost
- Managing risk – conflicts of interest, transparency and audit-ready decisions
10:50 Revenue generation and income maximisation
- Income mix under constraint – fees and charges, trading, grants, philanthropy and partnerships.
- Debt prevention and collection approaches that protect vulnerability
- Funding strategy – evidence of impact and repeatable bid processes
- Governance for income – risk appetite, reserves and avoiding “false economy” cuts
11:05 Question and answer session
11:20 Comfort break
Session 3
11:30 Value and use of data – measuring value, targeting resources, proving impact
- Data into savings – using insight to reduce demand, control spend and prioritise interventions
- Practical governance – data sharing, information governance, safe havens and proportional approvals
- Outcome indicators and dashboards that leaders actually use – avoiding vanity metrics
- Getting ready for AI – data quality, metadata, lineage and model monitoring
11:45 Employing spend-to-save initiatives – invest-to-reduce recurring cost
- Building business cases that survive scrutiny – payback, risk and achieving benefits
- Energy, digital and prevention investments that reduce recurring demand and cost
- Targeting invest-to-save at the right problem – choosing effective rather than 'nice to have'
- Financing options – reserves, prudential borrowing, grants and blended models
12:00 Question and answer session
12:10 Comfort break
Session 4
12:20 Service redesign and transformation – doing less, differently, better
- Choosing redesign targets – cost drivers, inequality impact, risk and statutory duties
- Practical redesign tools – service blueprints, lean flow, channel shifts and understanding demand
- Leading change with limited capacity – small teams, fast cycles and frontline ownership and engagement
- Benefits tracking – how to make sure savings are real
12:35 Demand management and prevention – reducing avoidable demand
- Mapping avoidable demand – repeat contacts, failure demand, rework and churn
- Early help, triage and 'right service first time' design patterns
- Using data to predict and prioritise – who benefits most from prevention
- Measuring impact – moving beyond activity to outcomes and cost avoidance
12:50 Collaboration, place and community wealth – pooling resources with the third sector/community
Diarmaid Lawlor, Associate Director – Place, Housing & Economic Investment, Scottish Futures Trust
LinkedIn
- Shared delivery models – joint commissioning, shared services, consortia and partnerships
- Community wealth building levers – procurement, local supply chains and anchor collaboration
- Community energy and local investment approaches that lower costs and retain value locally
- Practical partnership governance – outcomes, funding flows and accountability
13:05 Question and answer session
13:20 Chair's closing remarks
Speakers
Diarmaid Lawlor
Associate Director – Place, Housing & Economic Investment
Scottish Futures Trust
SFT_Scotland
UrbScotland
Diarmaid is the Associate Director for Place, Housing & Economic Investment at the Scottish Futures Trust.
He was previously Head of Urbanism with Architecture and Design Scotland. An urbanist, with a multi disciplinary background, he has worked on projects involving the shaping and implementation of change for clients in Ireland, the UK and Europe, for the public, private and tertiary sectors. He has almost 20 years' experience of helping clients make well informed decisions about complex, connected urban policy and investment challenges. He is an educator, communicator and collaborator who writes and speaks on creative approaches to making better places.
Venue
This conference takes place online.
Fees
How to book
You can book to attend in 3 ways:
- Select book now on the right hand side of this page, fill in the form on that page and click the 'send booking' button
- Call 0131 556 1500
- Email mail@mackayhannah.com
Conference fees
- Delegate fee (includes video recording of the conference) – £169 +VAT
- Group discount – organisations booking 3 or more delegates will receive every third delegate place at half price (please complete further forms if necessary)
Please note – It is not permissible to share the recording. Please contact us if you wish to share it. See our terms and conditions for further information.
Payment
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You have the option to pay by bank transfer or card.
Bank details will be included on the invoice.
If you wish to pay by card, please tick the appropriate box on the booking form and a member of our staff will contact you by telephone to take the payment. Alternatively you may call 0131 556 1500.
Terms and conditions
By placing this booking, you agree to the full terms and conditions found via the link at the foot of our website.
