Interview with Fiona Duncan, Independent Strategic Advisor on the promise

Since 2020 Fiona Duncan, Independent Strategic Advisor on the promise, has been focused on keeping the promise that was made to the thousands of care experienced children, young people and adults who shared their voices and views during the Independent Care Review. With 2025 marking the halfway point of the promise, Fiona discusses tackling barriers, making progress and how she is continuing to listen and act upon the experiences of the care experienced community.

The full interview is included in Issue 7 of Insight magazine.

Interview by Sophie Ward

Sophie Ward: From the outset of the Independent Care Review, the care experienced community was to sit at the very heart of all work to keep the promise. How do you continue to prioritise their views as you progress towards 2030?

Fiona Duncan: Children, young people, care experienced adults and families - in and on the edge of the care system - were at the heart of the entirety of the care review, all its processes and all its outputs. The conclusions were accepted in full in Parliament, across all parties, on the same day, at the same time - it really was a phenomenal moment.

The reports reflect what the care community said, what they need and what matters most to them – I use this to prioritise everything I do. There continues to be a strong thread between what was said during the care review and all actions being delivered today.

There were some significant external, unforeseen circumstances that happened not that long after the conclusion of the care review. We had the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis – these things didn’t impact all members of society equally. I'm staying true to the conclusions of the care review, while also recognising that the world has changed since it was published.

A huge amount of change is happening so people's priorities are shifting with that. It’s important to keep pace, so I continue to listen, and the care experienced community remain at the heart of change.

SW: Plan 24-30, launched last June, discusses how we must ‘shift how change is made’, can you explain the new approach that you have had to take to make progress on keeping the promise?

FD: No child, family or care experienced adult lives in a silo. No child or family or care experienced adult only engages with one system. Perhaps a child gets a bus to school, there’s two systems already. They might be a member of a local club, they might like to go swimming, there are multiple systems around that child. A plan that depends on only one system could entirely miss the point of how people live their lives.

Some folk are uncomfortable with how unorthodox Plan 24-30 is - they prefer a printed document. A lot of people were uncomfortable with how radical the Independent Care Review was too. But previous reviews and plans haven’t worked, so there is a need to do something different. What we’ve designed is the best chance we’ve got.

SW: The first four years of keeping the promise have presented barriers to creating whole system change, how do you plan to tackle these going forward?

FD: To inform the development of Plan 24-30, The Promise Scotland wrote to over 100 organisations with statutory duties asking them how they were getting on and what was getting in the way. Over 160 documents were received with significant issues repeated – whether that was policy, data, scrutiny, risk, or money. Everything identified as a barrier was also presented as an opportunity to accelerate change.

For example, funding can feel like an old fashioned scramble that happened outside a church on a wedding day. Yet, if instead of dedicating resources to chasing, picking up then spending lots
of individual pennies, you will receive the same amount of money in a single sum so you can get on with doing – there would be efficiencies everywhere.

We also analysed how all these are linked. There’s a section in Plan 24
30 called ‘meeting in the middle’ that makes clear how they are both
systemic barriers and opportunities, identifying how they impact on change. Through collaboration we will seek solutions – Plan 24-30 is not a case of one person waving a magic wand, it will take all of us.

SW: What do you think is the single most important action or activity to create the required change that has been identified?

FD: My priority is - and always has been - very much children and young people, families and care experienced adults. What would make the biggest difference to their lives is listening. If you and I are listening to one another with respect, intent to understand and then we act as a result, then things will change. So by listening to children, families, care experienced adults and acting in their best interests, somebody will be working for them and not for the system, resulting in better lives. For that to happen, trusting relationships need to be developed, with love and respect.

It should be simple but it's not, in part because there's not enough resources to dedicate the time needed to develop meaningful relationships and to build that trust. So the workforce feel they're not always equipped to make decisions and that they carry a lot of the risk in making the wrong decision.

Listening is at the heart of the promise and it is a great point to start - but none of the work is quite as straightforward as that.

SW: You began working on the Independent Care Review in 2017, and the plan will run through until 2030. When working on this long-term plan, what helps you to stay focused on the vision first set out in the Independent Care Review? 

FD: This is the most important thing I have ever been asked to do in my life. It comes with the greatest level of responsibility, and I take that seriously.

I am absolutely determined. This is not just a job. When Scotland keeps the promise, there will be generations of children and families who never come anywhere near the care system because our approach to whole-family support is so good and so non-stigmatising that families get it when they need it and it helps them thrive.

And for children who do come into the care of the state - and there will always be children who will need to be looked after outside their family - they will get the most loving and nurturing childhood possible, they will stay with their brothers and sisters wherever safe to do so, and continue their relationships with their families if possible. They will grow up loved, safe and respected and go on to be happy, healthy adults, who can rely on the state to be a good parent to them for all their days.

That is worth focusing on. Through the Independent Care Review, Scotland's children, young people, families, and care experienced adults shared their stories to help make sure that Scotland could make the promise. And I made the promise too. So it's mine to keep in the same way as it's everyone else's to keep.

Fiona Duncan will co-chair day two of Children in Scotland’s Annual Conference on 28-29 May 2025, and had this to say about the event: 

Find more Annual Conference information here.

And to find out more about the promise, click here.