Annual Report 2025/26 - Delivery Plan Implementation and Next Steps

Detailed work has been undertaken to understand Shetland’s population and future projections.  This highlights the rapidly ageing population, the decline in working age population and the limited number of people of child-bearing age. 

The Council, on behalf of national, regional and local partners, commissioned the Minimum Income Standard (MIS) for Argyll & Bute, Orkney, Outer Hebrides and Shetland.  This will provide information about the different needs and additional costs for household types in these areas, compared to UK urban households, in order to have an acceptable standard of living. This follows on from the MIS for Remote Rural Scotland of 2013 and 2016.

The Shetland Partnership Network met five times in 2025-26. The Network brings together representatives of all community planning partners in Shetland, and provides opportunities for information sharing, developing ideas and building relationships. It helps partners create a sense of shared ownership of community planning and to create a safe environment for open and honest conversations around the challenges and opportunities facing Shetland. 

The following events took place over the last year:

• April 2025: Historic Environment Scotland and Shetland Amenity Trust hosted the event, providing an introduction to the Your Historic Place Lens, highlighting the role of heritage in community planning, and sharing updates on local heritage and cultural activity.
• August 2025: Members explored two of the Shetland Partnership’s Improvement Projects: Person-Centred Shetland and Compassionate Shetland. The session focused on improving collaboration across services, supporting what matters to people and communities, and updating partners on work to tackle stigma and strengthen compassionate communities.
• October 2025: The focus was on EmPowering Shetland. Partners considered economic opportunities arising from major projects, the energy transition, workforce and supply chain development, and how Shetland can maximise long-term community benefit from future investment.
• December 2025: Members reviewed the latest population data for Shetland, including demographic change, migration patterns, births and deaths, and discussed the implications for future community planning. The session also provided an opportunity to reflect on the Network’s activity during 2025 and identify priorities for future development.
• February 2026: The Network considered proposals for the development of the next Shetland Partnership Plan, providing partners with an opportunity to discuss and help shape the approach to community planning beyond 2028.

Feedback from these events highlighted the value of bringing partners together to share learning, strengthen relationships, and explore collaborative approaches to addressing Shetland’s opportunities and challenges.

In addition to the planned Network Events, partners meet regularly on shared areas of interest, whether informally or through Strategic Partnerships.  

Understanding and Sharing Resources

The Management and Leadership Team and the Shetland Partnership Network continued to provide opportunities for partners to discuss resource challenges. The establishment of the Fairer Futures Partnership created a further opportunity to strengthen trust between partners, explore how resources could be shared more effectively and support a shift towards earlier intervention.

Effective Partnerships and Partnership Agreements

Scoping work to take forward the Strategic Alignment workstream designed to streamline Shetland’s strategic plans, reporting processes and partnership groups, began. This is informing conversations about combining strategic plans, reporting and accountability.  Some of this will be achieved through the new Shetland Partnership Plan. 

Impact Assessments

Statutory partners have legal duties around impact assessments.  For example, the Council has in place templates, guidance and other resources, for individual impact assessments. 

The Council has implemented its new Impact Assessment policy.

Risk Register

The Management and Leadership Team continued to maintain and review risk registers for both the Partnership and Shetland overall, with reviews taking place on a four-monthly cycle.

Regional & National Understanding

Partners make use of opportunities to strengthen external bodies’ awareness of Shetland’s unique characteristics and opportunities.  As detailed above, an example includes working with Argyll and Bute, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides to commission updated Minimum Income Standard research, strengthening national understanding of the additional costs faced by households in island and remote rural communities.

NHS Shetland worked alongside NHS Orkney and NHS Western Isles to evidence that historic Scottish Government funding for the Distant Islands Allowance had not kept pace with the contractual cost of the allowance. The Scottish Government accepted the case and provided recurring funding to meet the identified gaps, including £1.291 million a year for NHS Shetland. This better reflects the additional costs faced by island public services and continued to support NHS Shetland’s financial position during 2025/26, following its contribution to a break-even position in 2024/25.

In April 2025, senior representatives from GB Energy, the National Wealth Fund, the Scottish National Investment Bank and the UK Government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero visited Shetland to explore energy-transition and investment opportunities. The visits involved engagement with the Council, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Lerwick Port Authority. The Council’s Chief Executive presented Shetland’s Future and provided copies to both delegations, helping to strengthen understanding within the UK and Scottish Governments of Shetland’s energy-transition opportunities.

Effective Communication

A Shetland Partnership Communications Strategy 2025-28 and Communications Plan for 2025-26 were delivered. These outline how the Shetland Partnership will engage with and inform stakeholders over the period 2025 to 2028, aiming to build awareness of community planning, the Partnership’s role, Shetland’s strategic direction, and the resources available. 

The primary action was monthly information sharing with staff across Partner organisations.  A monthly alert, linking to recent case studies, updates on Improvement Projects, or local data on the website, was created and shared with partners.  Partners have used this resource to inform staff and their networks, encouraging traffic to the website.  

Support to Embed Outcomes within Organisations & Partnerships

During 2025/26, work continued to support partner organisations to connect their own planning and delivery more clearly to the Shetland Partnership Plan outcomes. This included encouraging partners to identify how their existing activity contributes across the four priority areas and where partnership working is helping to deliver shared outcomes.

As part of this work, Police Scotland mapped its activity across Participation, People, Place and Money. This included engagement with Community Councils and community safety initiatives, prevention and safeguarding work with schools and partner agencies, emergency planning and community resilience, visible policing, road safety and environmental enforcement, and action to protect local businesses, tourism and critical infrastructure. This provided a clearer picture of how operational activity contributes to shared outcomes and highlighted the breadth of joint working with the Council, NHS Shetland, Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, the Alcohol and Drug Partnership and third-sector organisations.