Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 - part 5 asset transfer: findings report review

3. Asset Transfer Activity

3.1 Introduction

Part 5 legislation is a key part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to support communities gain more control of land and assets. The annual Community Ownership in Scotland report provides information on land, buildings and other assets owned by community groups in Scotland. The figures in the publication are based on ownership only, and do not include asset transfer lease or management figures. Ownership numbers can only be included in the publication once the transfer of ownership has been registered in the Community Transfer Body’s name.

The latest Community Ownership in Scotland 2023 report published in November 2024 provides summary statistics for 2023 and found that 840 assets are owned by 533 groups. These cover an area of 208,597 hectares (approximately the size of Stirling council area (218,616 hectares) or Angus council area (218,145) hectares, which is 2.7% of the total land mass of Scotland. Almost three quarters (74%) of land in community ownership is within Western Isles (Na h-Eilean an Siar) council area. The Highland and Argyll and Bute Local Authorities together contain over one third (36%) of all assets in community ownership.

Accurate asset transfer data is important to help inform community ownership information. Section 95 of the Act states that Relevant Authorities must publish an annual report by 30 June setting out numbers of asset transfers received, agreed, refused and those which resulted in transfer of ownership, lease, or rights in respect of land or buildings being transferred. The report must also include details of the number of appeals under Section 85 of the Act that have been allowed, dismissed, or resulted in any part of the decision of the authority being varied or reversed.

3.2 Data Activity

The Scottish Government has undertaken a range of actions since the legislation was introduced in 2017 to support Relevant Authorities as they have developed their asset transfer data recording mechanisms. As well as the asset transfer statutory guidance which includes information on annual reporting, examples of data reporting good practice have been shared by the Scottish Government with Relevant Authorities. Although there is no statutory duty on Relevant Authorities to return annual reporting information to the Scottish Government, since 2019-2020 the Scottish Government has issued an annual reporting template to the 95 Relevant Authorities to support reporting compliance. The template is reviewed regularly and has had input from the National Asset Transfer Action Group.

As not all of the Relevant Authorities return their annual reporting templates, the Scottish Government undertakes desktop research of the 95 individual Relevant Authority websites to gather as much information as possible to inform national asset transfer activity and sends follow up emails to request this information when unable to locate it. Although the majority of Relevant Authorities display information on their websites, in the course of conducting this review it became apparent that there are varying recording methods used, and furthermore, that decisions on asset transfers can span reporting years. Given these gaps and complications, it has not been possible to provide detailed quantitative breakdowns on asset transfer activity.

In addition, there is no data currently gathered by Relevant Authorities on asset transfer requests made outwith the legislation, the number of asset transfer requests that go to Local Authority internal reviews, or the volume of assets that have been transferred under the legislation. Therefore, existing data gathered may not present an exact figure of activity levels across Scotland and a key finding of this review is the need to collate robust data to better inform the impact of asset transfer legislation.