Details pertaining to Historic Environment Scotland in the Scottish Government’s Draft Budget.
The Scottish Government announced the draft budget on 15 December and it includes details for Historic Environment Scotland.
Capital expenditure is raised by £2.2m and resource reduced by £1.5m. HES is anticipated to raise an additional £4.9m thorugh its own activities. Grants dispensed by HES on behalf of the Scottish Governmnet are to be maintained at the existing level of £14.5m, a figure which has remained static since 2006.
This is the section relevant to Historic Environment Scotland:
Historic Environment Scotland (HES)
Table 12.05: More Detailed Spending Plans (Level 3)
| Level 3 | 2016-17 Draft Budget £m |
2016-17 Budget £m |
2017-18 Draft Budget £m |
| Operational Costs | 81.6 | 81.4 | 84.8 |
| Capital Expenditure | 3.4 | 3.4 | 5.6 |
| Less Income | (40.0) | (40.0) | (44.9) |
| Total | 45.0 | 44.8 | 45.5 |
| of which: | |||
| DEL Resource | 41.6 | 41.4 | 39.9 |
| DEL Capital | 3.4 | 3.4 | 5.6 |
| AME | – | – | – |
What the budget does
HES is the lead public body for the historic environment in Scotland, and takes the lead in delivering Scotland’s historic environment strategy Our Place in Time, in addition to having delegated responsibility for the care and management of Scottish Ministers’ Properties in Care. A significant portion of the grant-in-aid funding which HES receives is passed on to Scottish communities by way of grant schemes which fund the regeneration of Scotland’s town centres and the repair of historic buildings. Between 2006 and 2016, grants amounting to £140.6 million assisted repairs to the historic environment of over £591.3 million, evidencing the significant leverage that historic environment investment can deliver.
In 2017-18 HES will:
- promote and deliver a range of events in support of Scotland’s year of history, heritage and archaeology;
- continue to offer grant support to deliver benefits for communities by helping regenerate and promote the active use, care and maintenance of the historic environment, broadening access to it, promoting sustainable economic development and reinforcing local identity and sense of place;
- provide expert advice and guidance to encourage informed decision-making and achieve the right balance between conservation and sustainable change;
- promote learning and education to enhance knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of the historic environment, delivering learning programmes linked to the Curriculum for Excellence, to National and Vocational Qualifications and to opportunities in further and higher education; and
- maintain our funding for the Historic Environment Scotland external grants scheme at existing levels.
Full budget details are found here.
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BEFS is delighted to have been awarded funding to coordinate the Scottish Traditional Building Forum (STBF).
BEFS is delighted to have been awarded funding to coordinate the Scottish Traditional Building Forum (STBF).
Built Environment Forum Scotland (BEFS) welcomes a grant from Historic Environment Scotland to fund the running and coordination of the Scottish Traditional Building Forum (STBF).
STBF is made up of a network of local traditional building forums with local representation who work together to highlight specific issues relating to traditional buildings and building practices. It is concerned with the lack of awareness of property owners regarding the condition of their building and the wide ranging guidance offered to property owners in undertaking these repairs.
BEFS aims to raise the profile of the forum and provide guidance and support for the STBF and regional forums on widening partnerships and accessing the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. This will be achieved with the help of John McKinney, known in the sector for championing traditional building maintenance, who has been appointed the STBF’s Coordinator. Among other responsibilities, John will organise, promote and run national STBF events and support existing forums with advice.
“We are grateful to Historic Environment Scotland for funding this initiative. It creates an invaluable opportunity to support and strengthen the traditional building forums and promote the exceptional work that they are doing” said BEFS Director, Euan Leitch.
Colin Tennant, Head of Technical Education and Training at Historic Environment Scotland, added: “Scotland has around 450,000 traditionally constructed buildings, many of which are used today as private homes and office buildings. This forum and network offers a real opportunity for knowledge sharing as well as access to guidance and expertise at a local level throughout the country. BEFS will build upon and further develop the great work that is already being carried out across the industry, which will help shape the future of building conservation in Scotland.”
BEFS has been involved in a number of STBF’s events, including their traditional building skills event in Edinburgh’s St Andrew Square Garden earlier this summer, which attracted more than half a dozen MSPs and inspired Gordon MacDonald MSP to lodge a parliamentary motion urging greater awareness of traditional skills and materials and the return on investment that this generates. BEFS has also supported STBF’s mini-golf course at the Edinburgh Festivals, which uses traditional building skills and materials for the obstacles. STBF is using the event to promote traditional building skills and materials to a range of people who would not normally attend or visit the vast array of events already organised to promote the industry.
Read more about the work of the STBF in John McKinney’s blog for BEFS.
Archaeologists, the UK, Europe and the world: a statement from the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists
Responding to archaeologists’ strong feelings about the referendum on UK membership of the European Union, the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) wishes to emphasise its status vis-à-vis nations, states and unions.
CIfA is the leading professional body for archaeologists. Its accredited members have agreed to subscribe to the Code of conduct and to follow its Standards and guidance. This obligation applies wherever they live and work, as does their requirement to comply with all relevant legislation and regulations. CIfA therefore operates without national borders: it is not and never has been a UK institute. While the majority of its members practise in the UK, and the attentions of the Chartered Institute are hence focused there, a growing cadre is based elsewhere (we are distributed across 32 countries).
CIfA does not have formal position on the UK’s membership of the European Union: that is a matter for the constituent parts of the UK and the EU to resolve through appropriate democratic processes. CIfA commends the thoughtful analyses of The Archaeology Forum and the Heritage Alliance of the potential impacts of a separation.
CIfA’s Board of Directors has reaffirmed its commitment to working with archaeologists from around the globe to promote professional standards and ethical behaviour, to maximise the benefits that archaeologists bring to society. One of the great benefits that archaeologists offer is the power to help different people understand the great variety of cultures and traditions of humanity, to recognise how civilisations can thrive on cooperation and how conflicts can arise where cooperation is absent, and to realise how socio-economic problems are generated within societies as often as by outsiders.
Above all, archaeology shows the mobility of our species. We are all of migrant stock: some have travelled from choice and in hope, others from danger and in distress. All have left their mark on the environment; and researching that mark through archaeology shows how these new peoples flourished or faded, whether their cultures stayed separate, integrated and retained their heritage or were absorbed almost without trace. The knowledge of how societies have adapted to and benefited from interactions between peoples helps us understand why the world is as it is today and gives us privileged insights into how to handle some of the challenges and chances it faces. Those challenges are very noticeable in today’s Europe, just as there have been magnificent examples of generosity and hospitality.
The job of work for archaeologists to do will be discussed in depth at CIfA’s next annual conference: CIfA2017 Archaeology: a global profession, to be held 19 to 21 April 2017, at the University of Newcastle. CIfA will also take an active role at the annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists later this year.
CIfA website www.archaeologists.net
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