Ian Walford (Acting Chief Executive of Historic Scotland) has announced the relocation of Historic Scotland’s strategic policy function into the Culture and Heritage Directorate of the Scottish Government, to take place over the summer, as part of a ‘mainstreaming’ programme.
Ian Walford writes:
I am writing to historic environment stakeholders to let you know about an important change we will shortly be implementing. During the recent discussions around the review of historic environment policy, many of our stakeholders and partners expressed the view that a key priority was the mainstreaming of historic environment policy outwith the operations of Historic Scotland. Since that view is very much in line with the development of the historic environment strategy, we have concluded that the most effective and straightforward way of achieving this will be to relocate the strategic policy function in the core Scottish Government.
I am writing today to let you know that we have identified this as a step we can start to implement straight away with a view to enhancing the effectiveness of the strategic policy function. The purpose of the move is to better integrate and mainstream the historic environment into broader policy and delivery agendas within the government and to improve its impact at a local and national level.
All of the necessary agreements have been obtained in principle and we now intend to move quickly, subject to completion of the appropriate discussions with the staff affected and their representatives, to transfer the relevant staff out of Historic Scotland into the Culture and Heritage Directorate in the Scottish Government. We anticipate actual movement of staff will take place during the Summer. Most of the staff currently in the Historic Scotland Policy Directorate will transfer with the function, the exception being those staff engaged on the Archaeology Strategy and Programme.
Responsibility for development and implementation of operational policy will remain variously in Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS). Although a relatively clear distinction can be made between strategic and operational policy, there will be areas of work where staff are currently involved in activity which straddles the two. Work is under way to identify and mitigate the possible practical impacts on operational policies. Strong links will be maintained by the Culture and Heritage Directorate with Historic Scotland and RCAHMS as they proceed to merge into a new historic environment body.
Further information concerning the relocation of the strategic policy function will follow. However, if you have any questions or queries about this development, please contact Andrew Fleming on 0131 668 8709 or Matthew Bird on 0131 668 8906.
For Historic Scotland see http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/
