Covid-19 crisis leaves £53m ‘hole’ in budget of Scotland’s largest heritage body

The coronavirus crisis created a £53 million “hole” in the budget of Scotland’s largest heritage organisation, MSPS have been told.

Historic Environment Scotland’s (HES) chief executive said Covid-19 had affected around 85 per cent of the body’s non-government funding, largely due to the drop in visitors.

The Scottish Parliament’s culture committee heard evidence yesterday from several groups involved in Scotland’s heritage.

MSPS heard the pandemic had also had an impact on the number of volunteers who worked at historic sites around the country, given their older demographic.

Alex Paterson, chief executive of HES, said: “We estimate that 85 per cent of our non-government funding has

been adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, largely related to the implications of visitors to sites and largely related to international visitors.

“So that’s created a hole of £53m in our budget for the year – quite significant and quite challenging.”

The organisation has had to reduce its costs and focus on “business-critical” activities, he added.

Last week, the Scottish Government announced £23m in funding for HES to support the reopening of its sites, money which Mr Paterson said is “very helpful”.

He continued: “We are comfortable and we are fine with the arrangements we have in place for 2020/21. But we are clearly already giving serious thought to how do budgets and sources of income look

for 2021/22 and thereafter.

“Of course an awful lot of that is predicated on how we think the visitor economy might recover in the next 12 months.”

Philip Long, chief executive of the National Trust for Scotland, said there had been concerns the trust faced an “existential threat” earlier in the year. However, support from Government and elsewhere meant he could now demonstrate the trust is a “going concern”, he said.

But Caroline Clark, director of the National Lottery Heritage Fund in Scotland, said there was a “deep concern” over the financial stability of Scotland’s independent heritage assets.

She said: “As an emergency response, we’ve spent over £6m supporting the sector.

“I have a deep concern that

now that we’ve drawn our funding to an end – that completed close on 31 July, in four months or less time, there will then be another cliff edge which the smaller, independent, community heritage organisations from across Scotland will have to face in the winter season when their visitor numbers would already be low.

“There’s a real second cliffedge approaching us which we will collectively need to think about how to solve.”

Stuart Mcmillan MSP asked how the organisations were responding to the Black Lives Matter movement and addressing Scotland’s role in the slave trade. Mr Long said the trust was working on ways it could address the legacies of colonialism and historic inequalities associated with its properties.