Having worked across the private, public and third sectors over the past 40 years, I’ve come across my fair share of remarkable leaders. Some are remarkable for their intellect, instincts or their ability to inspire. Others — and I’ve known quite a few — are remarkable because they leave people in their wake rather than treating them as collaborators on a shared journey.
Part of that leadership journey was understanding when fear of getting this completely right meant we spent “far too much time admiring the problem, Norman.”
Polite translation: you know what’s wrong, you know what needs done — stop wringing your hands and get on with it.
Around the same time as I was receiving my latest lesson in what good leadership is (and isn’t), Campbell Christie was publishing a report that could have been a turning point for our public services. The principles he identified — prevention, partnership, empowerment and efficiency — remain widely endorsed as the solution, yet we are still wringing our hands about how best to turn them into a lived reality.
In June, it will be a decade and a half since the Christie Commission report was published, the question is unavoidable: have we admired the problem long enough?
I now find myself in a different place. Supporting Clackmannanshire Council in the realisation of their Transformation Space. A space where the normal rules of engagement are suspended in favour of the needs of those who require support the most. This work is being shaped by what I am hearing consistently from communities themselves: a call not necessarily for better individual services, but for a more connected system, and for communities to be treated as connected, whole places rather than collections of needs.
The Clackmannanshire Transformation Space recently published an important document — a policy paper that sets out a bold, practical and deeply human response to a problem we’ve known about for years. From Christie to Clackmannanshire doesn’t promise another restructure or a new framework. Instead, it asks a more uncomfortable question: what if the real barrier to reform isn’t will, but the way we’ve designed our systems?
The paper is clear that public servants are not the problem. Commitment, professionalism and care exist in abundance. The problem is that our systems were built for a different era — one that prioritised compliance, control and organisational boundaries over relationships and real lives. In most other sectors, the urgency of that mismatch would have forced change long ago. Public services, however, have been allowed to admire the problem.
Clackmannanshire Council has chosen a different response. The Transformation Space treats public services as a living ecosystem — where funding, governance, relationships and learning interact. It moves away from transactional delivery and towards a relational model rooted in trust, shared responsibility and long-term resilience. This is not simply Christie reinterpreted — it is Christie acted upon, and arguably taken further.
From Christie to Clackmannanshire shows what happens when reform principles are embedded in how decisions are made, not just how they are described. It is what “getting on with it” looks like.
This is not reform done to communities, but reform done with them. What truly sets the Transformation Space apart is its approach to community leadership. For the first time in Scotland, people with lived experience of issues such as poverty, homelessness, caring responsibilities and mental ill health are directly shaping priorities and deciding how pooled public and partner funding is spent.
Local citizens develop a shared vision for change, shape investment criteria, assess proposals and make funding decisions, with public bodies and independent funders acting as partners rather than gatekeepers. This represents a deliberate handover of real authority and power to communities — going beyond consultation, beyond empowerment, and even beyond partnership. It is co-governance in action, reflecting both the letter and the spirit of Christie’s original ambition.
As the document makes clear, this redistribution of power builds trust, strengthens accountability and ensures services are designed around what matters most to people and communities.
From Christie to Clackmannanshire also demonstrates how Clackmannanshire is getting on with it — showing how long-standing reform principles can be made real when they are embedded structurally rather than rhetorically.
The Transformation Space pools funding across sectors, aligns partners around shared outcomes, and enables practitioners to work across traditional boundaries. This creates space for integrated, whole-person responses that reflect the interconnected nature of people’s lives.
Crucially, the model is fundamentally preventative — targeting root causes rather than symptoms and reducing reliance on costly crisis interventions. Efficiency, in this context, is not about doing more with less, but about doing better with everything available, including community assets, lived experience and local networks.
While grounded in the specific challenges facing Clackmannanshire, the document speaks to a much wider moment for Scotland’s public services. Demographic pressures, fiscal constraints and rising demand mean that incremental change is no longer enough.
As the paper argues, Scotland now faces a choice: continue with fragmented systems that struggle to keep up, or commit to a new model of reform that is preventative, integrated and genuinely empowering.
You will not be surprised to hear that I am advocating the latter, and I believe the Transformation Space offers a compelling, practical example of what that future could look like. Perhaps the more honest framing is this: whether we are willing to trust communities not just with voice, but with power.
Ultimately, From Christie to Clackmannanshire is more than a policy paper. It is a statement of intent, a challenge to the status quo, and a hopeful reminder that public services can be more human, more connected and more effective.
Christie’s vision was not naïve, nor simply ahead of its time. Clackmannanshire Council is showing what becomes possible when leadership is willing to act with courage — placing real trust in communities, embracing connected systems, and getting on with it.
Christie’s vision was not naïve, nor simply ahead of its time. Clackmannanshire is giving us the opportunity to stop admiring the problem, place trust in our communities, show courage in leadership — and get on with it.
To read the full From Christie to Clackmannanshire policy document, please visit: https://clackstransform.org/resources/
Norman Gill is Founding Consultant at The Camor Partnership