About the promise

It's Scotland's promise

Scotland has known for a long time that its "care system" isn't working.

It's not done as much as it could to make sure care experienced children grow up loved, safe and respected, and that’s made things harder for those children.

Sometimes, things have remained hard as they've moved into adult life.

And because Scotland’s “care system” isn’t working, it comes at a real cost:

• It comes at a human cost, because of the impact it has on the people in and around it.
• It comes at a financial cost, because the money isn’t spent in a way that really supports people.

So in 2020, Scotland made the promise.

Based on what care experienced people know needs changing

A lot of work went into understanding what needs to change in Scotland.

For over three years, the Independent Care Review listened to care experienced children, young people and families. It heard about how many of them did not feel loved. Were not kept safe. Were not respected.

Listening to their experiences of the "care system" helped make it clear what needed to change.

And it helped identify where gaps in Scotland’s knowledge existed.

Their input allowed the Independent Care Review to produce:

• a series of detailed reports which outlined a vision for how Scotland should care, and
• an evidence framework which set out in detail the research backing the promise, and which addressed the gaps care experienced people identified.

The promise is based on the experiences of real people, because it aims to create a new way of care that puts those experiences at the centre.

And it's also based on a large amount of data, research and evidence, so that this new system can work.

Plan 21-24 takes the first steps in keeping the promise

To #KeepThePromise, a lot has to change across Scotland. In Plan 21-24, the Promise Scotland sets out 25 actions to be taken so this change can happen.

And that promise is achievable by 2030

Keeping the promise is a massive task, but it is an achievable one— and The Promise Scotland helps make sure it can happen.

It connects and supports people and organisations as they work to #KeepThePromise.

And it may be able to help support you, too.