The Transforming Scotland in a Generation (TSIAG) Commission of Inquiry, chaired by Sir Harry Burns, was established by the Cross-Party Group on the Prevention and Healing of Adverse Childhood Experiences to examine how Scotland can achieve a generational improvement in social and economic outcomes through developmental primary prevention.

Over four years the Commission took oral evidence from thirty academics and practitioners in Scotland and internationally, and received more than four hundred written submissions. The Commission's recommendations build on the 70/30 objective supported by 128 of 129 MSPs in the last Parliament, including all party leaders in 2022, and by the Scottish Government, and are designed to function as a delivery mechanism for Scotland's Population Health Framework and Public Service Reform Strategy rather than as a competing initiative.

The reports set out how earlier, evidence-based intervention in the first years of life can reduce the developmental drivers of violence, addiction, poor mental health, educational inequality and persistent intergenerational disadvantage. The economic proposition is one of coordinated reallocation rather than additional spending, with long-term projected returns to the Scottish economy in the range of £5 to 7 billion per annum. Implementation is proposed through the ARISE Blueprint, a framework for local transformation aligned with existing Scottish Government strategy.

Reports available (contact Vice Chair- as below)

Part 1: Executive Summary 

Part 2a: Summary Report 

Part 2b: Full Report and Evidence will follow, together with a Foreword by Sir Harry Burns and a Preface by the Vice-Chair.

About the Commission

The Commission of Inquiry was established in 2022 by the Cross-Party Group for the Prevention and Healing of Adverse Childhood Experiences in the Scottish Parliament. Its remit was to examine the evidence on how Scotland could deliver the 70/30 objective: a 70 percent reduction by 2030 in child abuse, neglect and children's exposure to domestic abuse.

The Commission's evidence base comprises oral testimony from thirty leading academics and practitioners drawn from Scotland and from comparator nations, together with more than four hundred written submissions from organisations, charities, frontline practitioners and people with lived experience.

The Commission concluded that if its recommendations were implemented in full, the outcome would be a transformational improvement in Scotland's social and economic outcomes within a generation. The reports now published set out the evidence underpinning that conclusion and the implementation framework through which it can be achieved.

Strategic alignment

The Commission's recommendations are designed to operate within, and accelerate the delivery of, the Scottish Government's existing strategic framework.

The reports identify developmental primary prevention as the most direct mechanism for achieving the population-level outcomes set out in the Population Health Framework, and the most substantial source of coordinated reallocation available to the Public Service Reform Strategy. The 70/30 cross-party mandate provides the political foundation for sustained implementation across electoral cycles.

The ARISE Blueprint sets out how national reallocation and local transformation can be sequenced to deliver measurable progress within current spending envelopes.

Contact

For substantive enquiries relating to the Commission's findings, recommendations or implementation, please contact George Hosking OBE, Vice-Chair of the Commission, at [email protected].

 

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