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Built Environment Scotland\u2019s (BEFS) Policy & Strategy Manager Ailsa Macfarlane has analysed the Scottish Household Survey 2019, placing the findings in the wider policy context.<\/h3>\nBuilt Environment Scotland\u2019s (BEFS) Policy & Strategy Manager Ailsa Macfarlane has analysed the Scottish Household Survey 2019, placing the findings in the wider policy context.<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Built Environment Scotland (BEFS) writes:<\/p>\n
The Scottish Government has now published the Scottish Household Survey 2019 Annual Report and Key Findings.<\/p>\n
Growing concern about the environment, continued neighbourhood satisfaction, our connectivity \u2013 and the impact of culture and heritage.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Environment\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013in 2019, for the first time, the majority of each age group viewed climate change as an immediate and urgent problem. This evidence may perhaps add weight to the implementation of policies which would support a Green Recovery (BEFS response to this can be read \u2013\u00a0here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Neighbourhood\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 94% of adults felt their neighbourhood was a good or fairly good place to live and satisfaction in housing was high, 78% also reported a very or fairly strong sense of belonging to their neighbourhood.\u00a0 This ties into the localism agenda which has been brought to the fore during the COVID crisis and was raised during the recent\u00a0COVID Historic Environment Resilience Forum (CHERF)<\/a>\u00a0workshops. It could also be suggested that this appreciation of place only helps to underpin the importance of maintaining all our places \u2013 the poor maintenance of which was demonstrated by the Scottish House Condition Survey statistics\u00a0discussed<\/a>\u00a0by BEFS Director at the start of this year.<\/p>\n Internet access<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 whilst, when averaged, 88% of all adults now report using the internet and having internet access \u2013 the proportion of internet users among those over 60 had only reached 66% in 2019. This may be of note for culture and heritage organisations in what is increasingly being referred to as a \u2018post-digital\u2019 age. Not only is there a digital divide between areas of greatest and least deprivation on the SIMD \u2013 but there is a digital divide still to be fully bridged between age groups.<\/p>\n Culture and Heritage<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 a new report focusing on\u00a0Culture and Heritage<\/a>\u00a0has also been produced from the 2019 Scottish Household Survey data. This puts the statistics within the context of policy which is described as:\u00a0The Scottish Government\u2019s vision for culture, as set out in The Culture Strategy for Scotland is for a Scotland where culture is valued, protected and nurtured, and where its transformative potential is experienced by everyone.\u00a0<\/em>Our Place in Time<\/a>\u00a0is not mentioned within the document, which perhaps points towards the current policy focus within Scottish Government.<\/p>\n Visits to Historic Places were one percent higher than last year at 35%. However, the disparities noted previously between attendance from both financial and SIMD (most and least deprived 20%) areas appear to have grown slightly, with 21% from the\u00a0Most Deprived 20%<\/em>\u00a0attending an Historic Place, and 48% from the\u00a0Least Deprived 20%;<\/em>\u00a0the income bracket statistics have similar disparities for attending an Historic Place \u2013 25% of those with an income under \u00a310k attending, compared to 46% of households with an income over \u00a330k.<\/p>\n Aspirations of Attendance at Cultural Events and Places<\/strong>\u00a0has two new biennial questions. \u00a0Of attendees, a full 49% had no aspirations for additional attendance. Of those who did wish additional attendance 10% had the aspiration to visit\/go more often to Historic Places.<\/p>\n All interviewed (attendees and non-attendees) where asked what, if anything, limits or prevents attendance. The factors most often listed were lack of time (19%) and ticket costs (15%).<\/p>\n Two new biennial questions address the\u00a0Impact of Culture and Heritage:<\/strong><\/p>\n [see article for Table 6.1]<\/p>\n Here we see a new focus on the positive difference interviewees felt culture brought to their lives; and find the importance of heritage highlighted with 85% of respondents agreeing that It is important to me that Scotland\u2019s heritage is well looked after.<\/p>\n Of those who responded that they either strongly agreed or tended to agree that <\/span>culture and the arts made a positive difference<\/em>\u00a0to their life \u2013 a further question was asked about what sort of positive difference this was felt to be:<\/span><\/p>\n [see article for table 6.2]<\/p>\n This is the sort of evidence which is often sought by the sector. However, as there are questions about \u2018culture and the arts\u2019 and \u2018heritage\u2019 separately in the previous question and this question leads on specifically from \u2018culture and arts\u2019, does this muddy the water \u2013 or provide excellent evidence \u2013 for what aspects of the breadth of cultural heritage people are considering as providing a positive difference to their lives?<\/span><\/p>\n This is an extremely short overview of the Scottish Household Survey, I recommend that those with inclination explore the figures more fully across the range of documents. Volunteer numbers have not been expanded upon here \u2013 a topic that was repeatedly raised in\u00a0CHERF<\/a>. I recommend the Excel sheets for this, as the Volunteering section in the\u00a0Key Findings<\/a>\u00a0document may not provide the heritage detail necessary.<\/p>\n 2020 will provide a very different set of numbers, it is concerning that next year\u2019s statistics may reflect not only an inability to choose many of the activities (due to COVID restrictions) but also perhaps a reduction in the money available for leisure choices. Be that reduction to Local Authorities with reduced facilities and resource, or individuals affected by, or mindful of, recession scenarios.<\/p>\n Whilst a message being promoted by the Scottish Government is that\u00a0Scotland takes culture seriously : 90% of adults were culturally engaged in 2019<\/a>. Is this enough in the current scenario \u2013 is \u2018taking it seriously\u2019 enough? Current funding packages have gone some way to protecting jobs and aiding the breadth of the sector in this current crisis \u2013 but do we now need to re-examine how we demonstrate the importance of our cultural heritage? Ensuring it is clearly expressing the wide range of\u00a0benefits<\/em>\u00a0it provides; ensuring our cultural heritage is more sustainable, economically and environmentally, so that being taken seriously translates into tangible benefits for people and places, across social and geographic boundaries.<\/p>\n Read more….<\/a><\/p>\n For background see Gov.Scot – Scottish household survey 2019: culture and heritage – report<\/a> and\u00a0 Scottish household survey 2019: annual report<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Built Environment Scotland\u2019s (BEFS) Policy & Strategy Manager Ailsa Macfarlane has analysed the Scottish Household Survey 2019, placing the findings in the wider policy context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27992,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27991\/revisions\/27992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}