Scotland’s public administration is entering a five-year reorganisation affecting health boards, environmental agencies, transport bodies, regulators, public records, corporate services and digital systems. Modern Scot maps the organisations that exist now, the changes the Scottish Government has actually announced, and what remains unknown about jobs, offices and where functions will eventually be carried out.

The Scottish Government began September with a public-sector structure containing 14 territorial NHS boards, 32 councils, 31 health and social-care integration authorities and a national public-body directory extending across executive agencies, regulators, commissioners, public corporations, health organisations and other statutory bodies.

On 1 September, First Minister John Swinney announced a five-year programme intended to alter that structure substantially.

The Government describes the programme as a “rewiring” of the Scottish state. Its Programme for Government says the number of public bodies will be substantially reduced, some named organisations will be combined or brought into government, other sectors will be reviewed for merger, and more administrative functions will operate through common systems and shared services.

The programme does not yet amount to a completed replacement map.

Some measures are stated policies. Others are consultations, reviews or investigations. Replacing 14 territorial health boards with two strategic boards is an announced policy. Exploring a single ferries body is not yet a decision to establish one. Investigating consolidation of bodies that manage public land does not identify which bodies will eventually disappear. Nor does the disappearance of an organisational name necessarily mean that the work disappears. Environmental regulation will still be required if environmental bodies are combined. Roads and rail will still require administration if Transport Scotland ceases to operate as a separate executive agency. Hospitals and community health services will continue to operate if the territorial-board structure changes.

The questions are therefore not confined to how many bodies remain. They include which functions will need to move, who controls them, which local structures will survive, where the records are held, where staff are employed and where administrative work will be located.

Scotland’s Reorganisation at a Glance

Territorial NHS boards

Scotland currently has 14 territorial NHS boards:

Existing territorial NHS boards	Proposed change
NHS Ayrshire & Arran
NHS Borders
NHS Dumfries & Galloway
NHS Fife
NHS Forth Valley
NHS Grampian	The 14 territorial boards are to be replaced by two Strategic Health Boards.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
NHS Highland
NHS Lanarkshire
NHS Lothian
NHS Orkney
NHS Shetland
NHS Tayside
NHS Western Isles

The Government has not yet published the final boundaries, headquarters, membership or detailed division of responsibilities of the two replacement boards. The current 14-board structure and the Government’s two-board policy are both explicit in the official record.

National and special NHS bodies

Alongside the 14 territorial boards, the current national health-body landscape includes:

Current national or special health body	Present position
Healthcare Improvement Scotland	Government intends further reduction of special health boards
Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland	Final future structure not published
National Waiting Times Centre Board / NHS Golden Jubilee	Final future structure not published
NHS 24	Final future structure not published
Public Health Scotland	Final future structure not published
Public Services Delivery Scotland	Created in 2026 from NHS Education for Scotland and NHS National Services Scotland
Scottish Ambulance Service Board	Final future structure not published
State Hospital Board for Scotland	Final future structure not published

The Programme for Government says the reduction from 14 territorial boards to two will be accompanied by further reduction in the number of special boards. It does not yet identify the complete next-stage structure.

Environment

Four existing organisations are explicitly named:

Existing organisation	Government plan
Scottish Environment Protection Agency — SEPA
NatureScot	Single overarching environmental body
Zero Waste Scotland
Scottish Forestry	Potential inclusion in the same structure

SEPA, NatureScot and Zero Waste Scotland are explicitly intended to enter the new environmental organisation. Scottish Forestry may also be included. The Government has not yet published its final statutory structure, headquarters, regional office arrangements or workforce design.

Food Regulation and Scrutiny

Existing organisation	Proposed change
Food Standards Scotland	Becomes institutional home for additional functions
Scottish Food Commission	Integrate into Food Standards Scotland
Scottish Pubs Code Adjudicator	Integrate into Food Standards Scotland

The Government says the independent scrutiny functions of the Scottish Food Commission and Scottish Pubs Code Adjudicator are to be maintained after integration.

Architecture and Housing

Existing organisation	Proposed change
Architecture & Design Scotland	Embed within More Homes Scotland

This is an announced government measure rather than a general review.

Transport

Transport Scotland itself is only one organisation within the national transport structure.

Existing organisation	Announced position
Transport Scotland	Return to core Scottish Government
Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland	Consultation on transfer into Scottish Government
National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board	Functions under review
Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd	Within wider transport/ferry landscape under consideration
David MacBrayne Ltd	Within wider transport/ferry landscape under consideration
Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd	Remaining transport bodies subject to merger review
Scottish Canals	Remaining transport bodies subject to merger review
Scottish Road Works Commissioner	Remaining transport bodies subject to merger review
Scottish Rail Holdings Ltd	Remaining transport bodies subject to merger review

The Programme for Government does not say that all of the latter organisations will merge. It says remaining transport bodies will be reviewed to identify merger opportunities.

Scotland also has seven statutory Regional Transport Partnerships:

Regional Transport Partnership	Area
HITRANS	Highlands and Islands
NESTRANS	North East Scotland
SEStran	South East Scotland
SWestrans	South West Scotland
Strathclyde Partnership for Transport — SPT	Strathclyde
TACTRAN	Tayside and Central Scotland
ZetTrans	Shetland

The Government has not announced that all seven Regional Transport Partnerships will be abolished or merged.

Clyde and Western Isles Ferries

The present publicly controlled ferry structure divides responsibilities between several organisations.

Organisation	Current role
Transport Scotland	Government policy, sponsorship and contract functions
Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd — CMAL	Vessel and harbour asset ownership
David MacBrayne Ltd	Publicly owned parent company
CalMac Ferries Ltd	Ferry operator

The Government says it will explore creation of a single ferries body for Clyde and Western Isles services. No final replacement organisation has been published.

Records and Registers

Existing organisation	Government position
National Records of Scotland	Reform activity announced
Registers of Scotland	Reform activity announced

The Programme for Government does not state that these two organisations will merge. It commits the Government to reform activity involving both.

National Records of Scotland is responsible for functions including national archives, civil registration, census and demographic work. Registers of Scotland maintains Scotland’s principal land and property registers.

Parliamentary Commissioners and Ombudsmen

The present directory includes:

Body
Ethical Standards Commissioner
Patient Safety Commissioner
Scottish Biometrics Commissioner
Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Scottish Information Commissioner
Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
Standards Commission for Scotland

The Government says it intends to work with the Scottish Parliament on previous reviews of this landscape with a view to reducing the number of bodies while protecting their functions. No final structure has been published.

Revenue Scotland

Revenue Scotland remains a separate non-ministerial office. The Government intends to explore whether it can take on a broader range of revenue functions. That is an expansion of possible functions rather than an announced merger.

Inspectorates, Audit and Scrutiny

The Programme for Government commits ministers to rationalising the number of bodies performing inspectorate functions and to working with Audit Scotland on simplification of the audit and scrutiny landscape.

Current nationally listed inspectorate and scrutiny organisations include, among others:

Existing body
Audit Scotland
Care Inspectorate
Healthcare Improvement Scotland
HM Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland
HM Chief Inspector of Education in Scotland
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in Scotland
HM Chief Inspector of Prosecution in Scotland
HM Fire Service Inspectorate in Scotland
Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland
Scottish Housing Regulator
Environmental Standards Scotland
Scottish Information Commissioner

The Government has not published a definitive list saying which of these organisations will be merged, retained or otherwise structurally altered.

Culture

The Government says it will assess whether management of Scotland’s national cultural assets can be simplified. It has not announced a completed cultural merger plan.

Current national bodies in this field include:

National cultural or heritage body
Creative Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland
National Galleries of Scotland
National Library of Scotland
National Museums Scotland
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

None should be described as a confirmed merger target unless and until the Government identifies the proposed structure.

Public Land

The Programme for Government also commits ministers to investigating consolidation of public bodies involved in management of public land assets.

Bodies with significant land-management, land-policy or estate functions include Forestry and Land Scotland, Scottish Forestry, NatureScot, Crown Estate Scotland, Scottish Land Commission, Historic Environment Scotland, the national park authorities and others.

The Government has not yet published an authoritative final list of the organisations to be included in the land-consolidation exercise.

Scotland’s 32 Councils

The local-government structure remains unchanged at present.

Scotland’s 32 councils are:

Council	Council
Aberdeen City Council	Aberdeenshire Council
Angus Council	Argyll and Bute Council
City of Edinburgh Council	Clackmannanshire Council
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	Dumfries and Galloway Council
Dundee City Council	East Ayrshire Council
East Dunbartonshire Council	East Lothian Council
East Renfrewshire Council	Falkirk Council
Fife Council	Glasgow City Council
Highland Council	Inverclyde Council
Midlothian Council	Moray Council
North Ayrshire Council	North Lanarkshire Council
Orkney Islands Council	Perth and Kinross Council
Renfrewshire Council	Scottish Borders Council
Shetland Islands Council	South Ayrshire Council
South Lanarkshire Council	Stirling Council
West Dunbartonshire Council	West Lothian Council

The Government has opened discussions about regional local government alongside community-level governance. It has not published a replacement council map or identified individual councils for abolition.

Health and Social-Care Integration

Scotland also has 31 health and social-care integration areas:

Integration area	Integration area
Aberdeen City	Aberdeenshire
Angus	Argyll and Bute
Clackmannanshire and Stirling	Dumfries and Galloway
Dundee City	East Ayrshire
East Dunbartonshire	East Lothian
East Renfrewshire	Edinburgh
Falkirk	Fife
Glasgow City	Highland
Inverclyde	Midlothian
Moray	North Ayrshire
North Lanarkshire	Orkney Islands
Perth and Kinross	Renfrewshire
Scottish Borders	Shetland Islands
South Ayrshire	South Lanarkshire
West Dunbartonshire	West Lothian
Western Isles / Na h-Eileanan Siar

Their future sits alongside the planned health-board restructuring and continuing discussions about social-care governance. No final replacement structure has been agreed.

Shared Corporate Government Already Exists

The proposed institutional mergers are only one layer of the reform.

A second layer already exists underneath a substantial number of organisations.

On 1 October 2024, the Scottish Government implemented Oracle Cloud for its own corporate administration and for 32 other public-sector organisations. The shared system covers corporate functions including HR, finance and payroll. The Scottish Government supplied the full list in a 2025 Freedom of Information response.

The 32 Organisations Using the Scottish Government Oracle Cloud Shared Service

No.	Organisation
1	Accountant in Bankruptcy
2	Boundaries Scotland
3	Community Justice Scotland
4	Consumer Scotland
5	Crofting Commission
6	Disclosure Scotland
7	Education Scotland
8	Environmental Standards Scotland
9	Food Standards Scotland
10	Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland
11	National Records of Scotland
12	Office of the Advocate General for Scotland
13	Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
14	Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland
15	Parole Board for Scotland
16	Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
17	Redress Scotland
18	Revenue Scotland
19	Risk Management Authority
20	Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service
21	Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
22	Scottish Fiscal Commission
23	Scottish Housing Regulator
24	Scottish Law Commission
25	Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body
26	Scottish Public Pensions Agency
27	Scottish Road Works Commissioner
28	Scottish Social Services Council
29	Care Inspectorate
30	Social Security Scotland
31	Student Awards Agency Scotland
32	Transport Scotland

The significance of this arrangement is not that the 32 organisations have become one organisation. They have not.

It shows instead that institutional independence and administrative independence are different things. Separate bodies can retain different statutory powers, boards and accountability arrangements while sharing the same underlying corporate platform.

The Programme for Government now proposes further consolidation of functions including estates and procurement and explicitly says public-sector payments, call handling and shared services will be examined for further simplification.

The Named Digital and Data Infrastructure

The phrase “multiple public-service data systems” also conceals what is being constructed.

Several distinct systems and common digital components are now being developed or expanded. They perform different functions and should not be treated as one database.

System or programme	Function
ScotAccount	Common Scottish Government account and digital identity-verification capability
ScotGov App	Planned common entry point through which citizens can engage with multiple government services
Digital Mailbox	Secure digital correspondence from public services
ScotPayments	Shared payments capability
ePass	Common approach for services including licences, permits, casework and related functions
Data Exchange	Infrastructure intended to make data held by one organisation available to another under privacy and security controls
“Tell us once”	Service-design policy intended to reduce repeated provision of the same information across public services
Shared data definitions and datasets	Standardisation intended to enable greater reuse of information across organisations
MyCare.scot	National digital health and social-care service
Digital Health and Care Record	Planned integrated digital health and care record
Oracle Cloud shared service	Common corporate HR, finance and payroll infrastructure rather than a citizen-service database

The Scottish Government’s own digital-service material identifies ScotAccount, Digital Mailbox, ScotPayments and ePass as reusable common components. Its September Programme for Government adds the ScotGov App, Data Exchange, shared datasets and “tell us once” to the current reform programme.

MyCare is being built using common capabilities including ScotAccount and Digital Mailbox and is intended eventually to support access to an integrated Digital Health and Care Record.

These systems should not be described as one consolidated Scottish database. The published architecture is more complicated.

The Government is, however, explicitly seeking greater interoperability and reuse. Data Exchange is described as making data held by one organisation available to other organisations while protecting privacy and security, and “tell us once” is intended to reduce the need for people to repeatedly provide the same information.

That is a different form of consolidation from formally merging public bodies.

The Entire National Public-Body Landscape

The phrase “more than 130 public bodies” is difficult to interpret without seeing the names.

The following is the current national directory as maintained by the Scottish Government and updated on 16 September 2026. The directory divides the landscape into formal categories. The list below does not mean that every organisation has been selected for merger. The Government has named some bodies for specific action and has separately committed to reviewing all remaining public bodies for efficiency, joint working or possible merger.

Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies

No.	Organisation
1	Accounts Commission for Scotland
2	Architecture and Design Scotland
3	Bòrd na Gàidhlig
4	Cairngorms National Park Authority
5	Care Inspectorate
6	Children’s Hearings Scotland
7	Community Justice Scotland
8	Creative Scotland
9	Crofting Commission
10	David MacBrayne Ltd
11	Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Holdings Ltd
12	Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd
13	Highlands and Islands Enterprise
14	Historic Environment Scotland
15	Independent Living Fund Scotland
16	Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority
17	National Galleries of Scotland
18	National Library of Scotland
19	National Museums Scotland
20	NatureScot
21	Police Investigations and Review Commissioner
22	Qualifications Scotland
23	Quality Meat Scotland
24	Redress Scotland
25	Risk Management Authority
26	Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
27	Scottish Agricultural Wages Board
28	Scottish Canals
29	Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration
30	Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
31	Scottish Enterprise
32	Scottish Environment Protection Agency — SEPA
33	Scottish Food Commission
34	Scottish Funding Council
35	Scottish Futures Trust
36	Scottish Land Commission
37	Scottish Legal Aid Board
38	Scottish Legal Complaints Commission
39	Scottish National Investment Bank
40	Scottish Rail Holdings Ltd
41	Scottish Social Services Council
42	Skills Development Scotland
43	South of Scotland Enterprise
44	sportscotland
45	VisitScotland
46	Water Industry Commission for Scotland
47	Zero Waste Scotland

These are the organisations listed in the Government’s current executive NDPB directory.

Advisory Non-Departmental Public Bodies

No.	Organisation
1	Boundaries Scotland
2	Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland
3	Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland
4	National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board
5	Poverty and Inequality Commission
6	Scottish Advisory Committee on Distinction Awards
7	Scottish Commission on Social Security
8	Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel
9	Scottish Law Commission

Public Corporations

No.	Organisation
1	Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd
2	Glasgow Prestwick Airport
3	Scottish Water
4	Crown Estate Scotland

Health Bodies

No.	Organisation
1	NHS Ayrshire & Arran
2	NHS Borders
3	NHS Dumfries & Galloway
4	NHS Fife
5	NHS Forth Valley
6	NHS Grampian
7	NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
8	NHS Highland
9	NHS Lanarkshire
10	NHS Lothian
11	NHS Orkney
12	NHS Shetland
13	NHS Tayside
14	NHS Western Isles
15	Healthcare Improvement Scotland
16	Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland
17	National Waiting Times Centre Board / NHS Golden Jubilee
18	NHS 24
19	Public Health Scotland
20	Public Services Delivery Scotland
21	Scottish Ambulance Service Board
22	State Hospital Board for Scotland

Executive Agencies

No.	Organisation
1	Accountant in Bankruptcy
2	Disclosure Scotland
3	Education Scotland
4	Forestry and Land Scotland
5	National Social Work Agency
6	Scottish Forestry
7	Scottish Prison Service
8	Scottish Public Pensions Agency
9	Social Security Scotland
10	Student Awards Agency Scotland
11	Transport Scotland

Non-Ministerial Offices

No.	Organisation
1	Consumer Scotland
2	Environmental Standards Scotland
3	Food Standards Scotland
4	National Records of Scotland
5	Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator
6	Registers of Scotland
7	Revenue Scotland
8	Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service
9	Scottish Fiscal Commission
10	Scottish Housing Regulator

Commissioners and Ombudsmen

No.	Organisation
1	Ethical Standards Commissioner
2	Patient Safety Commissioner
3	Scottish Biometrics Commissioner
4	Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People
5	Scottish Human Rights Commission
6	Scottish Information Commissioner
7	Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
8	Standards Commission for Scotland

Other Significant National Bodies

No.	Organisation
1	Audit Scotland
2	Convener of School Closure Review Panels
3	Court of Lord Lyon
4	Drinking Water Quality Regulator
5	HM Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland
6	HM Chief Inspector of Education in Scotland
7	HM Chief Inspector of Prisons in Scotland
8	HM Chief Inspector of Prosecution in Scotland
9	HM Fire Service Inspectorate in Scotland
10	Justices of the Peace Advisory Committees — six committees
11	King’s Printer for Scotland
12	Police Negotiating Board for Scotland
13	Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
14	Scottish Police Authority
15	Scottish Pubs Code Adjudicator
16	Scottish Road Works Commissioner

The six separate Justices of the Peace Advisory Committees mean that a simple count of headings does not produce the same number as a count of organisations. That is one reason the Government itself generally describes the landscape as containing “more than 130” bodies rather than relying on one static number.

The directory is also changing while the wider reform proceeds. Qualifications Scotland replaced the Scottish Qualifications Authority in February 2026. Public Services Delivery Scotland replaced NHS Education for Scotland and NHS National Services Scotland. The Scottish Food Commission was added in September. The First-tier Tribunal for Scotland and Upper Tribunal for Scotland were removed from the public-bodies directory on 3 September because they are judicial bodies supported by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service.

What Happens to the Jobs?

The organisational changes sit inside a wider programme to reduce corporate expenditure and change the public-sector workforce.

The Public Service Reform Strategy sets a target to reduce annualised Scottish Government and public-body corporate costs by £1 billion over five years. The workstreams contributing to that target include workforce change, shared services, digital resources, intelligent automation, national collaborative procurement and the Scottish Single Estate.

That does not tell Scotland how many jobs will be lost in Inverness, Dundee, Glasgow, Stirling, Kirkwall, Lerwick, Stornoway, Aberdeen, Dumfries or elsewhere.

The distinction between frontline and corporate employment will also matter.

Environmental regulation still needs environmental officers. Ferries still require crews and operational support. Hospitals still require clinical staff. Public records still require custodianship.

The areas most directly exposed to consolidation are likely to include duplicated corporate functions: finance, HR, payroll, procurement, estates, administration, IT support and senior management. The Government has identified those kinds of functions as targets for shared delivery and efficiency, but has not published a body-by-body staffing consequence for the September restructuring.

The Missing Workforce Map

Question	Position at September 2026
Is workforce change part of reform?	Yes
Are mergers part of the programme?	Yes
Are shared corporate services part of it?	Yes
Is automation part of it?	Yes
Is there a financial target?	Yes — £1 billion reduction in annualised corporate costs over five years
Has a body-by-body job-loss figure been published?	No comprehensive figure located
Has Government published the number of NHS administrative posts that will remain after 14 boards become two?	Not yet
Have the headquarters of the two strategic health boards been announced?	Not yet
Has the headquarters of the proposed environmental body been announced?	Not yet
Has a Scotland-wide list of public offices to be closed been published?	No
Has Government said where consolidated HR, finance, procurement and payroll work will be located?	No comprehensive geographical plan has been published
Does a merger automatically mean operational jobs disappear?	No
Can workforce numbers fall without compulsory redundancies?	Yes, including through turnover, vacancy controls, redeployment and organisational redesign

Local Employment Matters

Public bodies are not only lines on an administrative chart.

They are employers distributed around Scotland.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig, NatureScot, the Crofting Commission, Forestry and Land Scotland and Highlands and Islands Enterprise have important employment presences in Inverness.

Food Standards Scotland is based in Aberdeen.

The Care Inspectorate and Scottish Social Services Council are based in Dundee.

The Scottish Public Pensions Agency is based in the Borders at Tweedbank.

Transport Scotland is headquartered in Glasgow.

The Scottish Land Commission is based at Inverness Campus.

South of Scotland Enterprise is based at the Crichton in Dumfries.

The territorial health boards maintain administrative employment throughout every part of Scotland, including Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.

A national merger does not necessarily mean that those jobs move.

An organisation can combine senior management and corporate services while leaving operational staff in existing regions.

But it can also remove duplicated corporate teams or relocate work into a smaller number of centres.

The Government has not yet published a Scotland-wide geographical workforce plan showing which functions will remain local, which will become regional, which will become national and where the resulting teams will be based.

Before and After

The direction now looks like this:

Scotland today	Direction announced or being examined
14 territorial NHS boards	2 strategic health boards
8 current national/special health bodies	Further reduction in special boards
SEPA + NatureScot + Zero Waste Scotland + potentially Scottish Forestry	One overarching environmental body
Scottish Food Commission + Scottish Pubs Code Adjudicator + Food Standards Scotland	Functions consolidated within Food Standards Scotland
Architecture & Design Scotland	Embedded within More Homes Scotland
Transport Scotland as an executive agency	Transport Scotland inside core Scottish Government
Several remaining national transport bodies	Merger opportunities under review
CMAL + David MacBrayne + CalMac + government ferry functions	Single ferries body being explored
National Records of Scotland and Registers of Scotland	Reform activity, final model not specified
Eight commissioner/ombudsman bodies in the current directory	Consolidation to be considered with Parliament
Multiple inspectorates and scrutiny bodies	Rationalisation and integration under review
Separate national cultural institutions	Management simplification to be assessed
Multiple public-land organisations	Consolidation to be investigated
32 councils	Regional local-government model under discussion
31 health and social-care integration areas	Future governance unresolved
32 named organisations already using shared Oracle corporate infrastructure	Further expansion of shared functions envisaged
Separate citizen-service systems	ScotAccount, ScotGov App, Digital Mailbox, ScotPayments, ePass, Data Exchange, MyCare and other common components increasingly reused across services
Organisation-specific data holdings	Greater sharing and reuse through Data Exchange, shared datasets and “tell us once”
More than 130 national public bodies	All remaining bodies subject to review for efficiency, joint working or possible merger

The last row is the broadest commitment of the programme.

After naming specific changes, the Government says it will review all remaining public bodies for efficiency and explore opportunities for joint working or merger.

That does not mean every organisation listed in this article will disappear.

It does mean that none of the remaining landscape can simply be assumed to sit outside the wider review.

The Map Scotland Does Not Yet Have

The Government has now provided enough information to establish the direction of reform.

It has not yet published the final organisational map.

Such a map would need to show which bodies survive; which disappear; which functions move; which statutory powers remain separately exercised; which boards remain accountable for decisions; where records are transferred; who becomes the legal employer of staff; which offices remain; which administrative functions become national or regional; how digital identity and data-sharing systems connect; and what local structures sit beneath the larger bodies.

The employment geography is similarly unfinished.

If 14 health boards no longer require 14 separate sets of corporate functions, the Government has not yet shown where the replacement work will be located.

If four environmental organisations operate beneath one structure, the Government has not yet said where that organisation will be headquartered or which existing offices will continue to perform corporate rather than operational functions.

If shared HR, payroll, finance and procurement continue to expand, the Government has not published a map showing which communities will retain those jobs.

The same applies to the digital layer.

Scotland already has 32 named organisations sharing the Oracle corporate platform. ScotAccount, Digital Mailbox, ScotPayments and ePass are designed as reusable common components. The ScotGov App is intended to allow people to engage with multiple services through a common platform. Data Exchange is intended to allow information held by one organisation to be made available to another under controlled arrangements. MyCare is using some of those common components within health and social care.

None of those facts establishes that Scotland is creating a single database or that every public function is being transferred to one organisation.

They do show that the reorganisation is occurring on more than one level.

Public bodies are being reviewed.

Some institutions are being merged or absorbed.

Corporate functions are being shared.

Common digital components are being reused.

Data is intended to move more readily between services.

Automation is included in the efficiency programme.

And the location of much of the replacement administrative machinery has not yet been published.

Scotland therefore has considerably more information about what is intended to be consolidated than it has about what the completed state will look like.

The next stage of the reform will determine not simply how many public bodies remain on the national directory.

It will determine which institutions retain their own machinery, where the work is carried out, who controls the systems underneath it and where responsibility sits when the organisational names begin to disappear.

Sources

Scottish Government, Programme for Government 2026 to 2031, 1 September 2026.

Scottish Government, Programme for Government 2026 to 2031: First Minister’s speech, 1 September 2026.

Scottish Government, National public bodies: directory, updated 16 September 2026, including the separate directory pages for executive NDPBs, advisory NDPBs, public corporations, health bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial offices, commissioners and ombudsmen, and other significant national bodies.

Scottish Government, Scottish Government HR system Oracle information: FOI release, FOI/202500468811, published 22 September 2025.

Scottish Government Digital Directorate, Building joined-up digital public services in Scotland, 18 June 2026.

Scottish Government, Digital Strategy for Scotland: Sustainable Digital Public Services — Delivery Plan 2025–2028.

Scottish Government, MyCare.scot: national rollout — high-level summary, September 2025.

Scottish Government, Public Service Reform Strategy: impact assessments, July 2025.

Scottish Government, Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plan.

Scottish Government, Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 2nd Quarter 2026.

Transport Scotland, Annual Report and Accounts 2024–25.

Transport Scotland, Corporate Plan 2024–27.

Transport Scotland, Regional Transport Partnerships.

SEPA, Annual Report and Accounts 2024–25.

NatureScot, Equality and Mainstreaming Report 2025.