Priority 2: Empowering resilient and inclusive communities and places

Discover how people and communities are at the heart of Scotland's historic environment.

Where we are

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.

Outcome 4

Organisations that care for the historic environment have the right skills and are more resilient

The Skills Investment Plan (SIP) for the historic environment (2024) will produce detailed action plans.

An older, dark blonde Labrador with white hair on its fair, gets a pat from a woman crouched next to it while talking to a young man sat on auditorium seats. Other other people are next to them also talking.

Short-term

  • Development of a Heritage Skills at Risk Register
  • Development of SIP pillar and pathway plans
  • Make Your Mark (MYM) in Volunteering Campaign

Long-term

  • New and increased SIP pillar and pathway activities and programmes
  • Targeted programmes to tackle heritage skills at risk and support future volunteering needs

Outcome 5

Communities have more opportunities to participate in decision-making about the historic environment

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

Five women stand or sit around a table, they are writing on a large flipboard

Short-term

  • 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

Long-term

  • 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.

Community ownership: Distribution of community owned assets across Scotland

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.

Outcome 6

The historic environment is more diverse and inclusive

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.

Large crowd of people marching at Edinburgh Pride.

Short-term

  • 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.

Long-term

  • 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.

Heritage for all: Who is visiting, and how is it changing?

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.

Communities & Place Advisory Activities

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:

  1. What guidance and support do communities need to empower them to be resilient and inclusive in their actions and involvement with the historic environment?
  2. What actions would support greater and a more diverse range of community involvement in decision-making in the historic environment?
  3. What approaches would help to tackle known diversity and inclusion barriers to engagement in the historic environment sector?
  4. 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).  
  5. 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.

A person playing guitar and another person playing violin on stage, in front of a seated audience

Case study: Montrose Playhouse

From social media dream to reality: the power of community

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.

The Montrose Playhouse

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