Our groups

The Chief Executive's group comprises the Chief Executive's Private Office and Communications and Media, which is responsible for internal and external relations including media enquiries, eCommunications, publications, and communicating with staff and stakeholders.

The group also includes the Policy team responsible for managing consultation, development and production of policy documents produced by Historic Scotland, including the new SHEP series. As well as managing World Heritage Site nominations for Scotland, the team also provide policy advice to ministers on the historic environment more generally. Their areas of activity include both national and international policy.


The properties in care group (PIC) looks after more than 345 buildings and monuments on behalf of Scottish Ministers. Of these, 74 are staffed and charge admission, making PIC the largest operator of paid-for visitor attractions in Scotland. The group has three administrative regions - north, south and central. PIC also has a monument conservation unit plus teams of architects and technicians to carry out care and maintenance tasks. Other departments within PIC include education, travel trade,retail, events, functions, catering,membership and marketing.


Historic Scotland’s Inspectorate is responsible for protecting and providing advice on the management of the most important parts of Scotland’s historic environment, including listed buildings, scheduled monuments, wreck sites and gardens and designed landscapes.  It also gives grant-aid for the conservation and repair of ancient monuments and for rescue archaeology.

The Inspectorate is made up of several teams. The listing and scheduling teams are responsible for identifying buildings of special architectural or historic interest, archaeological sites and monuments and wreck sites for statutory designation. The casework team, which comprises four area-based teams and a gardens team, deals with listed building consent, conservation area consent and planning referrals from local authorities, scheduled monument consent applications and management agreements. It also compiles and maintains the inventory of gardens and designed landscapes.

The archaeology programmes and grants advice team runs the ancient monuments and archaeology grants programmes. The development assessment team (DAT) is responsible for taking forward Historic Scotland’s responsibilities for environmental impact assessment (EIA), strategic environmental assessment (SEA), and the co-ordination of responses to consultations from local authorities on their development plans.

The grants team provide grants for bodies and individuals repairing and maintaining the historic environment. They are also responsible for sponsoring events and activities that promote and improve our understanding of the historic environment.  

The chief inspector’s office and administration teams develop the strategic and policy framework for the Inspectorate and provide administrative support across the division.


The Technical Conservation Group (TCG) helps conserve, repair and maintain the nation’s historic environment through advice and research.

Their technical publications promote best practice and support training. TCG includes the Historic Scotland Conservation Centre, based at South Gyle in Edinburgh. Specialist staff provide the agency with a unique resource of practical expertise in the conservation of architectural elements, such as carved stonework and structural paintings. The conservators work primarily on Historic Scotland’s own buildings, sites and monuments, providing both skilled hands-on work and advisory and analytical services. TCG commissions and undertakes research in relation to the built environment which is then published and made widely available. TCG also leads the way in ensuring that craft skills and materials are available to conserve and repair traditional buildings and structures.

An enquiry service offers technical adviceto assist those undertaking repair projects and has a range of technical publications available to the public.

Best Value Review
We carried out a Best Value review of the Group. The full report is available here [pdf, 334kb] and the conclusions here [pdf, 46kb].



The systems unit and corporate development team are part of the finance group, which also covers financial management of the agency, payment processing, and the procurement team.


The human resources group, which provides operational policy in addition to human resources functions, also includes health and safety, training, office services team and other associated support services