Introduction

This publication reports the number of assets in community ownership which are recorded by the Scottish Government. There are several initiatives which have been put in place to enable community ownership. 

The Scottish Land Fund, as it is now known, was founded in 2001. It now supports both rural and urban communities to become more resilient and sustainable through the ownership and management of assets. Legislation concerning land reform commencing in 2004 and 2016 enhanced existing community right to buy.

The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 introduced new legislation giving communities the right to request to buy, lease, manage or use land and buildings belonging to local authorities, Scottish public bodies or Scottish Ministers. 

Due to increased focus on community ownership the Scottish Government asked the Scottish Land Commission to review existing community right to buy mechanisms and recommend how best to enable community ownership.

Following the recommendations of the Scottish Land Commission a National Indicator on community ownership was developed and included in the National Performance Framework in 2019, and which is informed by this publication.

As at December 2022 the performance of the National Indicator on community ownership is maintaining, as the increase in the number of assets was less than 3%.

Please note that the statistics within this report which are for 2021 and earlier years have been revised taking into account updates which have been made to the underlying data. The statistics may therefore differ from those published in previous reports. No comparison should be made between the statistics presented in this report and the statistics from previously published reports.

These statistics are designated as Official Statistics in accordance with the Statistics and Service Registration Act 2007. They have been produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Further information on Official Statistics is published by the UK Statistics Authority.