{"id":7308,"date":"2014-03-07T19:12:20","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T19:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=7308"},"modified":"2014-03-07T19:49:46","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T19:49:46","slug":"ihbc-welcomes-scotlands-he-strategy-bill-publication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=7308","title":{"rendered":"IHBC welcomes Scotland\u2019s HE Strategy & Bill publication"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Institute of Historic Building Conservation, the UK\u2019s professional body for built and historic environment conservations specialists, has welcomed the launch of Scotland\u2019s Historic Environment Strategy (HES), \u2018Our place in Time \u2013 Historic Environment Strategy for Scotland\u2019, alongside the Historic Environment Scotland Bill<\/span>.<\/p>\n

IHBC President Trefor Thorpe said: \u2018We\u2019re delighted to see the launch of Scotland\u2019s new strategy for the management of its built and historic environment, together with the publication of the new Bill. It all marks a critical step forward in the debate around how best to look after our historic and valued places and fabric. It\u2019s a wonderful moment for Scotland, and I look forward to seeing development there, not least as they can play an important role in informing our own similar debates in Wales\u2019.<\/p>\n

IHBC Scotland Branch Chair Stuart Eydmann said: \u2018Of course this is just the start of a much more complex and challenging ambition: to deliver on the plans identified in the Strategy. In particular for the IHBC in Scotland, we’re looking forward to contributing to how we can shape the \u2018mainstreaming\u2019 agenda so it offers additional capacity for hard-pressed local conservation processes and services.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Partnerships are critical to the strategy\u2019s success, including those between clients and services both inside and outside government. No less important to effective outcomes is better education, training and standards across mainstream development practice. And of course effective local regulatory and regeneration processes and capacity all lie at the heart of these cross-cutting agendas.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The IHBC has played a central role in getting plans to this stage – as witnessed not least by our citation in the Strategic Environmental Assessment accompanying the Bill as well as in the Strategy itself – and we\u2019ll continue our strategic and advisory contributions to the evolution and implementation of the plans\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018We will also continue to highlight the practical implications of any initiatives, so that practitioners, owners, users and stakeholders all can get the best out of these important developments. In that context connections between policy \u2013 such as our Scottish Historic Environment Policy (SHEP) \u2013 and practice \u2013 including enhanced synergies between public and private sectors \u2013 will remain central in our particular ambitions and concerns.\u2019<\/p>\n

Built Environment Forum Scotland (BEFS) has also offered the following update attached to its close engagement with government on behalf of the built and historic environment sectors:<\/p>\n

The Historic Environment Bill Scotland has been published, along with the new Strategy for Scotland\u2019s Historic Environment \u2018Our Place in Time\u2019. The purpose of the Bill is to enable the merger of HS and RCAHMS and creation of a new body Historic Environment Scotland (HES). A taskforce has been established by BEFS to follow the detail of the Bill and at a recent meeting the taskforce agreed to focus on the functions of Historic Environment Scotland (HES).<\/p>\n

Other points to note relating to the Bill are as follows:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Functions are written in broad terms \u2013 examples of functions are provided in the explanatory notes to the Bill
\n\u2022 Collections have a distinct prominence within the Bill
\n\u2022 Amendments will be considered if they are deemed to be \u2018within scope\u2019 \u2013 ie consistent with this purpose of creating HES
\n\u2022 The key change in relation to the advice provided by HES is that it will come directly from HES staff rather than from Ministers
\n\u2022 Future sponsorship arrangements between central Government (HEPU) and HES will ensure strong linkage to HES expertise
\n\u2022 Acquisitions and disposals \u2013 there will be no change in arrangements \u2013 properties in care remain the statutory responsibility of Ministers
\n\u2022 Conflicts of interest \u2013 the policy intention is that the new arrangements are more transparent. The ethos of HES will be more as a partner rather than arbiter
\n\u2022 Concerns have been raised in the past over the impact of HES on rest of sector, particularly if it achieves charitable status. BEFS understands that Ministers, along with charity regulator OSCR are interested in seeing a healthy charitable sector, in line with the collaborative approach advocated by the Historic Environment Strategy.
\n\u2022 The board of HES will be a standard public body board with 10-15 members. Appointments will be regulated under public appointments procedures.<\/p>\n

The Scottish Government writes<\/span>:
\nYou may recall that in summer 2013 we carried out a public consultation on the draft Historic Environment Strategy for Scotland and the Outline Business case for the merger between Historic Scotland and RCAHMS. Since then both the Bill and Strategy teams have been working closely with stakeholders from the historic environment sector and more widely to help shape the final development of the Historic Environment Strategy for Scotland and the Historic Environment Scotland Bill.<\/p>\n

The Historic Environment Strategy for Scotland<\/span>: The new Strategy is a first for Scotland and an exciting move forward to ensure our Historic Environment is cared for, valued and protected in a sustainable way. It sets out a clear direction and vision, detailing how our historic environment will be carefully managed to deliver real and increasing benefits to Scotland\u2019s people. It will also support all parts of the historic environment sector to work collectively to enable the sector to reach its full potential.<\/p>\n

The Historic Environment Scotland Bill, to create a new Non Departmental Public Body<\/span>: Historic Environment Scotland has now been laid before the Scottish Parliament. This Bill will set out the new organisation’s functions and governance as well as changing some existing legislation to facilitate this?<\/p>\n

What happens next<\/span>?<\/p>\n

The Strategy
\n<\/span>We are now embarking on the process of appointing members to the Overarching and Operational boards to support delivery of the Strategy. Two working groups have already been established to look at specific issues affecting the historic environment (one considering \u2018how best to manage the historic environment\u2019 and one looking at \u2018heritage tourism\u2019) and we are in the early stages of setting up two additional groups to consider \u2018measuring success\u2019 and \u2018education and volunteering\u2019. Information about the groups has been included on the website, and will be updated as required.<\/p>\n

The Bill<\/span>
\nThe Bill will now follow due parliamentary process; Bill proposals will be considered and scrutinised by Parliament in a number of stages. The public can follow this process on the Parliament\u2019s website. Subject to the will of Parliament, the new organisation will become fully operational during 2015.<\/p>\n

To keep up to date on the Strategy delivery and the Bill process you can access up to date information from the Historic Environment policy unit website via the following link: www.scotland.gov.uk\/historicenvironment<\/a><\/p>\n

For the Strategy see HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

For the Bill see HERE<\/a><\/p>\n

Scottish Gov Publications<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Institute of Historic Building Conservation, the UK\u2019s professional body for built and historic environment conservations specialists, has welcomed the launch of Scotland\u2019s Historic Environment Strategy (HES), \u2018Our place in Time \u2013 Historic Environment Strategy for Scotland\u2019, alongside the Historic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ihbc-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7308","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=7308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7315,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7308\/revisions\/7315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}