Joining the dots – Impact and Data: what joins the dots?

The impact of data

In my work, questions of how we avoid siloed working and how we connect the dispersed data landscape come up on a regular basis. These are critical issues blocking our ability to be a united sector voice, and as I am sitting at the intersection of policy and communications, considering questions of policy, systems, and connection is the heart of my core tasks with BEFS. So, where are the gaps and where are the solutions, and what are BEFS doing?

The historic and built environment is inherently interconnected with wider national economy and public health questions – composite parts of a living and breathing system of people, places, histories, and aspirations. We cannot achieve our national targets for climate resilience, wellbeing, or a thriving workforce – among many other areas – without full integration of national issues with both the needs and offerings of the existing built environment. This holistic approach underpins our advocacy on behalf of all our Members, and is the default approach and a clear necessity to many of us in the sector. While this understanding of the potential and the impact of holistic thinking is well understood by those working within the built environment, is it clear to people outwith it? What is the role of data in both demonstrating and driving impact? And are we tracking our impact to leverage results?

BEFS is the sector strategic intermediary – our membership is wide and diverse. This is not an accident; our membership is a sector mosaic for whom our advocacy takes a holistic approach, because a joined-up approach is a stronger approach. We often hear and repeat the phrase “strength in numbers”, and this is not just true in terms of sector voices amplifying each other, but also in terms of the literal numbers that tell the story of our sector and our national economy. The impact of data cannot be overstated.

The policy landscape, and the data within it, is vast and the threads connecting various policies and strategies can seem both unintuitive and tangled. BEFS 2026 Manifesto outlines our work and our organisational priorities, representing our Members and the wider sector. It is comprised of both qualitative and quantitative sector data, because while qualitative data tells the story of “why”, quantitative data tells the story of “what”, and good advocacy requires both.

In 2025/26 BEFS has thus far responded to 46 consultations. Like many of our Members, we log our consultation responses on our website for the benefit of our colleagues as well as the general public wishing to gain insight into the sector voice. However, a strong sector that enacts change on a national scale must not create policy archives in silos. How do we track what was said and what was done? When we offer sector expertise in consultation, we must be clear on what is reflected back on the other side of inquiry. We are not doing enough to meet this need at present.

Better data for better outcomes

Datasets which are simultaneously broad and precise tell the story of an issue in a wide context across spatial, temporal, social, and economic dimensions. When we work with data that is collected and analysed holistically, we can begin to uncover the impact of the issue at hand. Examining how traditional buildings in Scotland are understood today by sector practitioners who steward the health of these buildings for the nation illustrates this.

An example – in 2007, the Scottish Government published the Guide for Practitioners 6: Conversion of Traditional Buildings. We saw a highly technical guide that placed an emphasis on preservation – highlighting the value of traditional construction – and offered little-to-no insight to the data landscape. This was understandable in the context of the time, as the very first SHEA (Scotland’s Historic Environment Audit) was published in the same year, having provided the sector and other stakeholders with an invaluable evidence base giving us an indication of the health of Scotland’s historic environment.

In the recently published 2026 edition, we see a move towards emphasising holistic thinking around traditional buildings, acknowledging the inherent interconnectedness between accessibility, conservation, and climate adaptation, for example. It makes clear the connection between place and material. BEFS – on behalf of  all our Members – and alongside sector colleagues, have advocated intensely for this holistic approach to be adopted by the government, and it is welcome to see this beginning to be reflected in national building standards.

The national strategy for the historic environment, Our Past, Our Future, is an example aimed at both practitioners and the wider Scottish public, and throughout it we can see how data translates to impact. The strategy recognises that for our sector to thrive, we must contribute to a thriving society by doing our part for a wellbeing economy, transition to Net Zero and climate resilience, and community empowerment. These priorities were developed in 2023 in response to a rapidly changing world that had outgrown its predecessor strategy, Our Place in Time. A responsive national strategy for the historic environment is not only essential for the sector, but also for Scotland on our journey to meet our wider national targets. The most recent data on how the national picture is looking can be found in Our Past Our Future’s midpoint review, published in September 2026.

How can we better demonstrate our impact?

Being clear on the impact of our work means that we can map out our successes and our gaps, to re-strategise, and to identify both the paths of least resistance, and the paths that simply must be taken to see change.

Given how important it is to evidence impact, I believe that BEFS is particularly well-positioned to illustrate how this can be done in practice. As part of our proactive work to de-mystify and connect the sector and the complex policy and data landscapes, I have developed a policy impact tracker, operating not just as an organisational archive, but as a living tool meant to aid the team in tracking what we’ve said and where we’ve been. It’s an internal tool and operates in tandem with our 2026 Manifesto and is organised according to the Manifesto themes. How organisations manage and track their impact will be particular to their organisational aims, their structure, and team preferences, but it is important that it’s done. For many of us who are navigating the funding landscape, having a bank of organisational memory and data telling the story of both success and needs may prove to be an asset, too.

To begin the process of creating your own archive and tracker, I suggest you consider the following questions:

• What are the core topics that your organisation works with? For us, these are our five Manifesto themes.
• What kind of work do you do that benefits from impact tracking? Do you work with policy, or are you more on the ground?
• How are you measuring impact? Is it qualitative (reviews or mentions, or something else?) or quantitative (numbers of visits, income, etc)?
• Become best friends with Excel, or another medium of your choice.
• Is your resource public or internal? Is your specific impact data of interest and need to the public? Are you working to make internal processes more simple? If it is internal, how will you use your evidence of impact to benefit the sector?
• Most importantly, when you have begun setting up your tool, make a plan for how you will showcase your impact, and link up with other organisations for a stronger voice. If you have been considering joining BEFS as Members or Associates, consider this your sign to do so.

Ultimately, BEFS and our Members know intuitively that what we do is worthwhile; showing up in the right spaces and conversations, being both proactive and responsive.. But in a party-political reality where we are competing with many other national interest organisations for the attention spans of MSPs, making sure that we deliver the whys and the whats with a solid chain of receipts that really resound with party interests and national interests is a question of good science communication.

Impact is a substance that joins the dots, and as a sector we have done the work of connecting, signposting, and advocating many times over. Tracking this work effectively will allow us to continue to be better, and thus contribute to our work to improve places, economies, and lives for people across Scotland. We look forward to working with Members and the wider sector to do so.

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