Scottish Government

Report on Scottish Executive Consultation CON302

Appendix 1: revised guidance and criteria

Criteria for and Guidance on the Determination of 'National Importance' under the terms of the Ancient Monuments etc Act 1979

Preamble

1. The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 provides for the 'scheduling' of ancient monuments, the sole criterion being that they are of 'national importance'. A definition and operational guidance on how to determine whether or not a monument was of 'national importance' was approved by the Ancient Monuments Board in 1983. The guidance offered here is the fruit of a revision of these texts, taking account of the development of treaty, charter and practice, in the UK and abroad. While being based on the 1983 text, it also reflects the principles of Scotland's Stirling Charter (2000), which 'has been informed by, and builds on, the body of international conservation charters already in being'. One of the most influential of these is the Burra Charter (current edn 1999), which introduced the now widely accepted concept of 'cultural significance'. While taking into account national and international developments, the revised guidance has been written with the welfare of Scotland's archaeological and built heritage in mind.

2. The process of scheduling is undertaken by Scottish Ministers, and is discretionary. The selection of monuments to propose for scheduling is undertaken by Inspectors of Ancient Monuments and their proposals are vetted by professional and administrative officers within Historic Scotland. The primary aim of this document is to provide guidance to these officers so that they can determine that monuments are unequivocally of national importance.

Cultural Significance

3. For a monument or a class of monuments to be considered as of national importance it must, first, have a particular cultural significance: artistic; archaeological; architectural; historic; traditional (factors listed in the 1979 Act); aesthetic; scientific; social for past, present or future generations. Such significance is inherent in the monument itself, its fabric, setting, use, associations, meanings, records, related monuments and related objects.

4. For most of Britain's and Scotland's past, there are no 'national' prehistories or histories, as reflected in the built heritage; instead there is an aggregation of related prehistories and histories of different regions, which may have wider national or international links. It is through these linked regional histories and prehistories that the history of Scotland and the UK can be understood.

5. Cultural significance can be characterised by reference to one or more of the following; the characteristics are in three groups: Intrinsic - those inherent in the monument; Contextual - those relating to the monument's place in the landscape or in the body of existing knowledge; Associative - more subjective assessments of the associations of the monument, including with current or past aesthetic preferences. This is a separate process from identifying the sub-set of sites and monuments that are of national importance (para 7 below).

Intrinsic characteristics

6. Understanding of cultural significance may change as a result of the continuing history of the monument, or in the light of new information, or changing ideas and values. The concept of 'cultural significance' will apply widely and to different degrees to all of Scotland's historic environment, and should not be confused with the establishment of 'national importance', which is another process.

National Importance

7. The primary purpose of scheduling under the 1979 Act is the preservation of, and control of works on, monuments, the survival of which is in the national interest. The provisions of the 1979 Act are consistent with the principles of minimal intervention to ensure that a monument is preserved as far as possible in the state in which it has come down to us, and is passed on to future generations in as unchanged a state as is practicable, in accord with the principles of sustainable development. In general, those principles will only be set aside in circumstances where wider considerations are deemed, on balance, to be of greater importance to the national interest , rather than to any sectoral or local interest; in individual cases such considerations may include the needs of research into Scotland's past.

8. It should be noted that no period of Scotland's past and no part of Scotland's land is inherently more or less likely to produce monuments of 'national importance' than another.

9. The purpose and implications of scheduling are issues that require to be taken into consideration when assessing monuments for scheduling. Scheduling may not be the only, nor the most appropriate, mechanism to secure the future of all sites, even those that may otherwise meet the criteria.

10. The 'particular' significance needed to define the monument as of 'national' importance may be established in terms of one or more of the following:

Historic Scotland
December 2004

Appendix 2: substantive responses

Also, the minuted discussions of the Built Environment Forum Scotland workshop