The Northern Alliance – striving to embed best practice across Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Highland, Moray, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands – was in itself a test of change as the first regional improvement collaborative, before these were fully established across the country in 2017, and is now in the second year of its Phase 3 Regional Improvement Plan. Its workstream priorities remain aligned to the National Improvement Framework (NIF) and have been developed collaboratively with local authority practitioners and national partners. But the way Northern Alliance officers carry out improvement activity has had to change significantly during the last 14 months.