2025 Highlight Day 15: Digital Maturity Assessment

Building the Future Together How Our Digital Maturity Assessment Supports Scotland’s Local Government to identify opportunities for Transformation

Digital transformation isn’t just about technology, it’s about culture, capability, confidence, and clarity of direction. As Scotland’s local authorities work towards a bold and digitally enabled future, understanding where we are today is essential for realising those ambitions collectively.

That’s where our Digital Maturity Assessment (DMA) comes in.

Why We Use the Digital Maturity Assessment

The DMA provides a baseline understanding of where an organisation is on its digital transformation journey, capturing insights across the workforce and identifying opportunities for improvement and innovation. The DMA is designed to help councils meet the responsibilities set out in the Digital Strategy for Scotland by:  

• Establishing a clear vision of current digital capability
• Engaging leaders, managers, operational teams, and frontline staff
• Highlighting strengths, barriers, and emerging opportunities
• Informing strategic decision-making and investment

This allows organisations to make thoughtful, evidence based choices about their next steps.

How the DMA Process Works

Our assessment model is iterative and consultative, delivered in three structured phases.

Phase One: Leadership Engagement & Discovery

This phase brings senior leaders and operational teams together to explore the organisation’s current state. It includes:

• Workshops with senior management
• Service innovation workshops with staff
• Analysis of existing strategies, structures, and project pipelines

This helps build clarity around organisational priorities and provides a shared understanding of the “here and now”.

Phase Two: All Staff Survey & Insights

Every employee is invited to participate in the DMA survey, which includes a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions covering themes such as:

• Vision & strategy
• Research & analysis
• Digital skills & workforce
• Digital competency
• Data & technology
• Capacity for change

The survey captures the lived experiences and insights of staff across all roles, helping surface perspectives that may otherwise be overlooked.

Phase Three: Analysis, Recommendations & Continued Support

Once the data is collected, our team:

• Analyses the results
• Develops a set of insights, recommendations, opportunities and benefits
• Builds a Kanban of priorities, actions, and owners
• Provides ongoing support and signposting

This structured approach ensures the DMA isn’t a report that sits on a shelf, or a tick box exercise, it becomes a practical tool, an enabler for continuous development.

How the DMA Aligns with a Digitally Enabled Future Vision

With a future vision of empowered leadership, confident teams, continuous learning, and user centred public services, the DMA is a key mechanism to help organisations understand their starting point before moving toward this future.

The DMA supports this by:

1. Creating clarity and reducing ambiguity

By understanding “where we are now versus where we want to be,” organisations can make informed decisions about priorities, resources, and sequencing.

2.  Building capability and confidence

The DMA highlights both strengths and gaps across the workforce, supporting targeted investment in skills, leadership, and culture.

3. Supporting strategic coherence

Because it links to organisational strategies, digital roadmaps, and transformation pipelines, the DMA ensures that future planning is grounded in evidence.

4. Enabling continuous improvement

The updated DMA model is iterative and designed to evolve over time, ensuring organisations can track progress year on year.

5. Informing a digital vision

Aligning digital strategy delivery requires robust baselining. The DMA can help build the foundation for this alignment.

A Tool for Transformation, NOT a Test

At its core, the Digital Maturity Assessment is an opportunity, not an audit.

It creates space for reflection, empowers teams to shape their digital future, and ensures that each organisation’s journey is grounded in real insights from real people. By combining structured analysis with collaborative support, the DMA helps Local Authorities transition confidently from today’s reality to tomorrow’s ambitions, as a collective partnership. 

Verity Hislop, Senior Project Manager, Digital Office for Scottish Local Government, highlights “The Digital Maturity Assessment is more than a measurement tool, it’s an enabler for transformation. It gives us the clarity, evidence, and shared understanding we need to identify meaningful opportunities, prioritise what matters most, and align our next steps to both local ambitions and national Digital Office initiatives. It’s about building confidence, capability, and momentum across the organisation so we can deliver better outcomes for our workforce, our services, and our communities.”

Chris Duffy, Project Manager, Digital Office for Scottish Local Government, "The development of the DMA has created a truly scalable solution for all Local Authorities and Team Members to participate from operations up to senior management and elected members. The tool is intended to be a recurring service for partnerships to engage and build upon their digital transformation by adopting new technologies, processes and standards to become a more efficient and accessible service for their customers as we move into the digital age"