Strategic Environmental Assessment

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a systematic way to identify, predict, report, mitigate and monitor the environmental effects of public sector plans, programmes and strategies.

A requirement of the Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005, SEA is a vital tool that:

• puts the environment at the heart of public sector activity

• is seen as a key component of sustainable development

• reflects the views and expertise of consultation authorities, the general public and key stakeholders

Under the Act, a ‘responsible authority’ describes the public sector organisation responsible for preparing the plan, programme or strategy to be assessed.  A ‘consultation authority’ is one that advises responsible authorities on environmental matters in a particular area of expertise.

There are three consultation authorities:

• Historic Environment Scotland

• Scottish Environment Protection Agency

• NatureScot

Information and guidance on SEA from the Scottish Government

The SEA Gateway was set up by the Scottish Government to manage the administration of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) consultations.

Responsible authorities should submit all formal consultation documents to SEA Gateway during the SEA process. These documents include pre-screening, screening, scoping and environmental reports and post-adoption statements.

SEA Gateway will then:

• issue the documents to the consultation authorities

• coordinate the timely return of responses from the consultation authorities

Contact the SEA Gateway by emailing sea_gateway@gov.scot

SEA pre-screening register

Historic Environment Scotland is both a responsible authority and a consultation authority for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).  

Responsible authority role

As a responsible authority, we consider all qualifying Historic Environment Scotland plans, programmes and strategies for SEA.

Where significant environmental effects are likely, we carry out an environmental assessment. A public statement (called a Post Adoption Statement) on how opinions have been taken into account is produced at the end of the SEA process.

Consultation authority role

As a consultation authority, we give advice to public bodies doing SEA. This includes:

• responding to screening reports (within 28 days)

• responding to requests for help in scoping environmental assessments (within 35 days)

• reviewing environmental reports (time frame agreed during scoping)

• responding to post adoption statements, where required

 Contact us about SEA by emailing hmconsultations@hes.scot