Equality, diversity and inclusion at HES

We're working hard to improve access and widen participation in Scotland’s historic environment. 

We believe everyone should be treated fairly and that no one should be denied opportunities or discriminated against because of factors such as their age, disability, gender re-assignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marital status or pregnancy. 

To make this possible, we:

• collaborate with external partners such as Young Scot, disability advocacy groups, LGBTQI+ organisations and Black, Asian and minority ethnic heritage organisations. With the support of our partners, we're reducing barriers and giving everyone a voice. 
  

• work to make Scotland’s historic places and collections, and all our services, accessible and inclusive to everyone. Our commitment to improving access information across all of our sites and delivery of BSL tours at Edinburgh Castle are just two examples of how we're doing this.
  

• promote accurate, representative stories from every part of Scotland’s history. Through exhibitions, events and work like our Properties in Care and British Empire Project we provide a platform for diverse voices to be shared and celebrated.

From the events we run to the history featured on our guide books and interpretation panels, we make sure the visitor experience at Historic Scotland sites celebrates our diverse history. Past events have included Celebrating International Women’s Day at Stirling Castle and Traces of Empire at Blackness Castle.

Find places to visit

We also post about Scotland's diverse past on our digital channels, whether it's an untold story researched by our content team or specially commissioned features from a range of writers and creators.

• Black history
• Women's history
• LGBT+ history
• Gypsy, Roma and Traveller history
• South Asian heritage

Equality and diversity are key to Scotland’s success. We aim to employ a workforce that reflects, at all levels, the diversity of our society. 

To make this possible, we are an equal opportunities and living wage accredited employer. With our staff, volunteers and partners, we shape and promote opportunities for training and volunteering relevant to a wide range of people.

Our employment values

We have a total of seven staff-led employee networks which offer support for our staff with protected characteristics, inform policy reviews within the organisation and help to build awareness of diverse human experiences and underrepresented history and culture. 

We seek to reward all our staff fairly. We publish our pay gap data annually, and report on the pay gap for gender, disability and ethnicity, in line with human rights mainstreaming considerations.

The data below shows that we have made great progress in reducing our gender pay gap, which has been 0% for two years in a row. We continue to strive to make progress on pay gaps for disabled and ethnic minority employees. 

Our mainstreaming activities aim to integrate equality, diversity and inclusion into our day-to-day work. 

We need to understand how we currently operate in order to identify improvement actions. High level support from the Senior Management Team and leaders in the wider sector help to drive forward our initiatives and long term culture change. 

Strategically 

We're reviewing our strategy, policy and decision making processes to ensure equality, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of our work. 

Legally

In line with our statutory duties, we undertake Equality Impact Assessments (EqIA). These assessments verify that all our policies, procedures and practices foster respect, advance equality of opportunity and guarantee fairness. 

Regulatory

We publish Equality Outcomes and Mainstreaming Reports which set out our three equality outcomes and our progress in meeting them.

Read about our three equality outcomes