Measurement & Evaluation
Scottish Historic Environment Audit
Key statistics on the historic environment are gathered every second year through the Scottish Historic Environment Audit.
BEFS facilitated a workshop on the emerging SHEA 2016 statistics – a report from the event can be found here.
The 2024 SHEA reports (for the year 2023-2024) the following:
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There are 55,932 protected heritage sites in Scotland.
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16 million people visited heritage sites in 2022.
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Around £1.93 billion was spent in 2023 on repairing and maintaining Scotland’s historic building stock.
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In 2023, the historic environment generated £6 billion for Scotland’s economy.
Scotland Performs – National Performance Framework
The contribution of Scotland’s historic environment is monitored through the National Performance Framework. The national indicator: improve the state of Scotland’s sites, is measured by the percentage of pre-1919 dwellings classified as having disrepair to critical elements. This measure was introduced in April 2017 following research undertaken by BEFS with stakeholders that resulted in a recommendation to the Scottish Government.
Measuring Success of the Strategy Our Past, Our Future
The 2023 historic environment strategy Our Past, Our Future (OPOF) has a framework against which success of the strategy is measured. The aim was to be able to measure and demonstrate the benefits for people which should arise from delivering the Strategy.
During 2014 – 2016 BEFS convened two working groups to develop a framework of strategic outcomes with associated indicators of the previous strategy for Scotland’s historic environment, Our Place in Time (OPiT).