Access to Information

How to Request Information

An overview of ways to request different types of information from Historic Environment Scotland.

  1. Overview
  2. Request publication scheme information
  3. Make a Freedom of Information request
  4. Request environmental information
  5. Request your personal information
  6. Freedom of Information Act exemptions
  7. Request Public Sector Information
  8. Charges for publication scheme information
  9. Charges for other information
  10. Copyright

1 Overview

Sources of information include our publication scheme. You can also ask for information under the terms of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.  

Let us know if you’d like the information in another language or in an alternative format such as large print or Braille.

Find out how to make a complaint or give feedback.  

Contact

FOI Officer
Historic Environment Scotland
Longmore House
Salisbury Place
Edinburgh
EH9 1SH

Email: foi@hes.scot

2 Request publication scheme information

Information that we pro-actively make available through our publication scheme is usually on our website.

If this isn’t the case, or you’d like a hard copy of the information, you can contact the relevant team below. Many classes of information are available directly from these groups within Historic Environment Scotland.

Let us know if you’d like the information in another language or in an alternative format such as large print or Braille. Find out about charges for publication scheme information.  

Alternatively, contact:

Contact

FOI Officer
Historic Environment Scotland
Longmore House
Salisbury Place
Edinburgh
EH9 1SH

Email: foi@hes.scot

3 Make a Freedom of Information request

You can write to us to request information not included in our publication scheme.

You can either:

We’ll respond to your written request within 20 working days of receiving it.

Let us know if you’d like the information in another language or in an alternative format such as large print or Braille.

Find out how to request environmental information.

Contact

FOI Officer
Historic Environment Scotland
Longmore House
Salisbury Place
Edinburgh
EH9 1SH

Email: foi@hes.scot

4 Request environmental information

You can write to us to request environmental information. This is information subject to the Environment Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004. This legislation complements the Freedom of Information Act but deals specifically with environmental issues.

You can either:

Most requests for environmental information are free of charge. We aim to respond to your written request within 20 working days of receiving it. But we may take up to 40 working days to respond in exceptional circumstances.  

Let us know if you’d like the information in another language or in an alternative format such as large print or Braille.

Contact

FOI Officer
Historic Environment Scotland
Longmore House
Salisbury Place
Edinburgh
EH9 1SH

Email: foi@hes.scot

5 Request your personal information

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you can ask us whether we process any personal information about you. If we do, you can request a copy of this information.  

This is called a subject access request.

You should write to our Data Protection Officer at the address below to submit a subject access request to Historic Environment Scotland.

Your request should include:

  • a contact address  
  • proof of identity – such as a copy of your birth certificate, passport or driving licence
  • as much detail as possible about the information you want to access

We aim to meet your request within one month of receiving all of the above.

Let us know if you’d like the information in another language or in an alternative format such as large print or Braille.

We may get in touch if we need further details to track down the information you want.

Contact

Data Protection Officer
Historic Environment Scotland
Longmore House
Salisbury Place
Edinburgh
EH9 1SH

6 Freedom of Information Act exemptions

We aim to be as open as possible. But the Freedom of Information Act recognises that there may be valid reasons to withhold information.  

Reasons for such exemptions include, but aren’t limited to:

  • national security  
  • health and safety
  • confidentiality
  • personal information

We will make as much as possible of the information available where an exemption applies.

We will always tell you why we’re withholding information.

You can ask us to review our decision if you’re not satisfied with our explanation.

Read more on how to make a complaint about a decision.  For more on exemptions, see the Scottish Information Commissioner’s website.

7 Request Public Sector Information

Our Statement of Public Task for Public Sector Information (PSI) purposes is published on our website. 

If you have any questions about the Public Task Statement, you can either:

  • email enquiries@hes.scot
  • post your enquiry to:
    Historic Environment Scotland
    Longmore House
    Salisbury Place
    Edinburgh
    EH9 1SH

If you have a complaint about Historic Environment Scotland under the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015, you can make a complaint or give feedback.  

Under the PSI Regulations we are obliged to:

  • Attempt to respond to your enquiry or complaint internally
  • Respond to you in writing within 20 working days or explain why we cannot meet this timeframe
  • Explain the reasons for our decision
  • Set out your options for escalating your complaint if you are dissatisfied with our decision.

8 Charges for publication scheme information

All information contained within our publication scheme is available free of charge, unless otherwise stated. You can download the information from our website or we can send it to you by email.

We may charge for providing information in hard copy. We’ll let you know if a charge applies and how it’s calculated. Charges reflect copying and postage costs. We will only send out the information once the charge has been paid.

See which publication scheme information incurs charges.  

Copying costs

Photocopies may be charged at the standard rate of:

  • 10p per black and white A4 copy
  • 30p per colour A4 copy

Postage costs

We may charge you for the postage paid to send you information by first class post. We may also charge the cover price and postage of a small number of publications.  These include:

  • guidebooks
  • technical advice notes
  • Historic Environment Scotland images

9 Charges for other information

Information not included in the publication scheme is free of charge up to £600. This is the upper cost limit set by the fees regulations under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

We’ll do all we can to meet your request within this limit. But if it’s likely to cost us more than £600 to provide the information, we’ll ask you to refine your request to bring the cost within this limit.

Where this isn't possible, we may either:

  • opt to charge for costs projected above £600  
  • decide not to provide the information

If we must charge you for information we’ll let you know before we send it. 

10 Copyright

Because of our multiple roles in managing properties and collections and as a national collection, copyright applies to distinct kinds of information in different ways. 
Different copyrights may apply to:
  • our own corporate information - that is, information we produce about our business or in the course of our business
  • material in our physical or digital collections, such as books, manuscripts, photographs or drawings
Where we hold the copyright you can copy or reproduce HES corporate information, such as reports, statistics, policies and procedures and corporate correspondence, provided that
  • it is copied or reproduced accurately
  • it is not used in a misleading context
  • the source of material is identified
Authorisation to re-use copyright material not owned by HES should be sought from the copyright holders concerned. Copyright restrictions are likely to apply to material in our collections.

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