Joining Up Services for Children in Glasgow – Public Service Reform, Integration and Productivity in Children’s Services in Scotland
By Katherine Long, Brigette Wessels and Des McNulty
This is a series of four papers developed by the research team responsible for the delivery of The Productivity Institute funded “Joining Up Services for Children in Glasgow; Exploring New Models of Collaboration and Integration”. The aim of the series is to define the relational approach to productivity and to apply it to the design and delivery of public services, focusing specifically on the process of joining up children’s disability services in one of the most deprived areas of Glasgow, mapping out relevant contextual factors, literature and recent policy developments, and to analyse the cultural and political context in which productivity is to be measured and integrated services are to be delivered.
- Briefing 1 – Relational Productivity: A New Framework for Public Value in Children’s Services – sets out the paper’s central conceptual argument: that productivity in public services can in part be understood as a relational achievement, generated through collaboration, trust, prevention and participation, rather than merely as a function of organisational efficiency.
- Briefing 2 – Scotland’s Policy Architecture for Integrated Children’s Services – sets out the Scottish policy architecture against which this argument is made.
- Briefing 3 – Measuring Collaborative Capacity: A Framework for Practitioners – develops a practical framework for measuring collaborative capacity, designed for Health and Social Care Partnerships, Children’s Services Planning partnerships, and Community Planning Partnerships to assess whether local systems have the capacity to collaborate effectively, rather than simply reporting the volume of activity undertaken.
- Briefing 4 – Priorities for Action: What’s Feasible Now – reviews a series of refined and prioritised recommendations for improving collaboration in children’s services in Scotland by assessing what is realistically achievable in the current policy and financial context.
Briefings 1 and 2 were published in August 2026, with Briefings 3 and 4 to follow in September 2026.
A related publication by Katherine Long, Brigette Wessels and Des McNulty, Evaluation of Strategic and Ecological Integration in Scottish Policy, Guidance and Actions; Recommendations for Delivering Public Service Reform Workstreams, also forms part of the wider Productivity Institute-funded project. While separate from the four-paper briefing series, it examines how stronger strategic and ecological integration can support public service reform and more joined-up children’s services in Glasgow.
Current Publications:
Katherine Long, Des McNulty and Bridgette Wessels
Katherine Long, Des McNulty and Bridgette Wessels
Katherine Long, Des McNulty and Bridgette Wessels
Formal enquiries regarding the paper series or the project can be directed to:
Bridgette.Wessels@glasgow.ac.uk
