Discover how people and communities are at the heart of Scotland's historic environment.
Our approach to achieve our outcomes is to facilitate and coordinate a wide range of actions, development, and dissemination activities that move us forward. You can find more information on our current work underway to achieve each outcome on these pages.
All our work will be reported against our original baseline assessment of the sector’s performance.
The Skills Investment Plan (SIP) for the historic environment (2024) will produce detailed action plans.
Development of a Heritage Skills at Risk Register
Development of SIP pillar and pathway plans
Make Your Mark (MYM) in Volunteering Campaign
New and increased SIP pillar and pathway activities and programmes
Targeted programmes to tackle heritage skills at risk and support future volunteering needs
There are short-term and long-term actions emerging for this area, including the important need to collaborate on or commission advice to inform work packages to tackle the needs of communities
Scottish Community Heritage Conversations programme 2024/2025
Promote OPOF and the historic environment sector at non-historic environment events and to influence related strategies to build a broader stakeholder network
HES consultation on future ‘Managing Change’ guidance
Explore expansion of data sources to include greater detail on community involvement in the historic environment
Implement targeted work packages to address community guidance needs and greater inclusion in decision making.
Work with a diverse range of stakeholders to demonstrate and improve community and place-based involvement in the historic environment.
Understanding where community owned assets are located helps us support place-based strategies and ensures communities across Scotland can access, value, and benefit from their built environment. This map shows the number of recorded assets by local authority, offering a snapshot of where they are distributed across the country. A deeper analysis to understand the percentage of heritage assets in community ownership is ongoing.
There are short-term and long-term actions emerging for this area, including the important need to develop work packages to tackle known diversity and inclusion needs.
Make Your Mark (MYM) in Volunteering Campaign current Inclusive Volunteering project and Toolkit
MGS Delivering Change programme
Ongoing work by MGS, HES, Creative Scotland and Trad Arts Scotland to plan for implement the new ratified 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Disseminate good practice in youth engagement and tackling diversity and inclusion through sector knowledge sharing events.
Year 2 Development: Community & Place Advisory Activities.
Explore expansion of data sources to include greater detail on the existing gaps and challenges related to diversity and inclusion
Implement targeted work packages to address historic environment diversity and inclusion gaps and barriers
Build the profile of good practice emerging in this area in the historic environment and develop collaborations with wider stakeholders to further embed national diversity and interests.
Different people can engage with Scotland’s historic environment in different ways. This dashboard shows how attendance at heritage sites has changed since 2018 and highlights how communities are connecting with the past. Use the filters to explore activity types and see attendance patterns across gender, age, disability status, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, as reported in the Scottish Household Survey.
From August 2024 onwards we will collaborate on or commission advice to inform work packages that will tackle priority needs in this area, which are:
What guidance and support do communities need to empower them to be resilient and inclusive in their actions and involvement with the historic environment?
What actions would support greater and a more diverse range of community involvement in decision-making in the historic environment?
What approaches would help to tackle known diversity and inclusion barriers to engagement in the historic environment sector?
Identify critical actions required to harness better and more widespread recognition and inclusion of the specific support/impact the historic environment provides and can contribute towards the place-making and planning (overlap with Priority 3).
Produce a heritage skills are risk list.
Please contact us if you would like to be involved in this work. Further updates on events or consultations will be communicated here.
The Montrose Playhouse is a community funded project run by local volunteers as a registered charity. Its origins can be traced back to 2013 when a Montrose-born architectural designer uploaded speculative plans for a new cinema to social media. The site chosen was the derelict local swimming pool that lay empty after a modern facility was built nearby.
The social media post immediately garnered widespread local attention and sparked community discussions about reuse and regeneration of the site. A committee was formed and consultation began on the site’s future. Nine years later, they realised their dream of a cinema and wider cultural and arts hub.
The Montrose Playhouse is now open as an adaptable three-screen cinema with education and exhibition spaces, as well as a retail space and café bar.
