Research and data in the Scottish Borders: Place

Why is it important to have statistics about our neighbourhoods and community safety?

Local Authorities set their outcomes and objectives within the context of the Scottish Government National Performance framework, which states that we:

• live in communities that are inclusive, empowered, resilient and safe
• are creative and our vibrant and diverse cultures are expressed and enjoyed widely

Scottish Borders plays its part in the National Performance Framework by working towards making our region the best place in Scotland for every Scottish Borders citizen to live, regardless of their protected characteristics. For this, we need robust information to measure how we are performing as a society and within our communities.

Scottish Borders policy framework 

Our 2024-25 Plan is key to our policy framework on how we plan to deliver services in the next few years. It consists of six outcome priorities, which are informed by an evidence base, including the strategic assessment.  Neighbourhoods and Community Safety are referenced particularly in Outcome 4: Empowered, vibrant communities.  You can see how we are doing so far in delivering this outcome in our quarterly and annual performance reports.

We support people to build resilient communities to manage and look out for each other during emergencies or winter weather.

We also continue to build on our achievements from previous Council Plans.

Our Neighbourhoods and Communities objectives are managed by several different Directorates and departments within our organisation. Services to communities and neighbourhoods are very broad and include community planning and engagement, support for Area Partnerships and Community Councils, and our partnership with Live Borders.

Topic areas

There is a large amount of evidence from official statistics to inform our neighbourhoods and communities development for Scottish Borders, across a wide range of topic areas:

Community safety: recorded crime and clear-up rates

• the latest statistics on rates of recorded crime by crime grouping are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• the latest statistics on percentage crime clear-up rates by crime grouping are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• the latest statistics on rates of recorded domestic abuse and which include the recording of at least one crime or offence are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server 
• statistics on the rate of drug crimes recorded are available on the Drugs and the Health and Wellbeing profiles on the interactive ScotPHO Online Profiles Tool
• statistics on the rate of domestic abuse incidents and crimes recorded are available on the Health and Wellbeing profile on the interactive ScotPHO Online Profiles Tool
• statistics on the rate of violent crimes recorded are available on the Health and Wellbeing profile on the interactive ScotPHO Online Profiles Tool
• The SIMD 2020 Deprivation Due to Crime indicator, measuring the SIMD crime counts and rates used in the 2020 and 2016 SIMD, is available for all Scottish Borders and Scottish Datazones on the Scottish Statistics Open Data platform

Community safety: criminal justice

• the latest statistics on reconvictions by age and gender are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• the latest statistics on Community Payback Orders by gender and age group: Orders commenced and  Breach Applications are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• the latest statistics on Criminal Justice Social Work Reports (CJSWRs) are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• the latest statistics on Social Work orders commenced and terminated,by type of order, are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server

Community safety: perceptions of crime

• the latest statistics from the Scottish Survey Core Questions on perceptions of whether crime in the neighbourhood is better or worse than before are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• the latest statistics from the Scottish Household Survey on attitudes towards feeling safe when home alone at night are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• the latest statistics from the Scottish Household Survey on attitudes towards feeling safe when walking alone after dark are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• recent statistics from the Scottish Survey Core Questions on confidence in policing in the respondent's community are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server

Community safety: licensing

• statistics on number of personal alcohol licences and licensed alcohol premises, in total and for off-sales and on-sales, at Council level, are available on the Alcohol profile of the interactive ScotPHO Online Profiles Tool

Community safety: road safety

• the latest statistics on people killed or seriously injured on Scotland's roads by age and gender are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• statistics on hospitalisations and deaths due to road traffic accidents, at council, intermediate datazone or locality levels, are available on the Health and Wellbeing profile of the interactive ScotPHO Online Profiling Tool

Community safety: fire safety

• the latest statistics from the Scottish Household Survey on number of fires by type and whether accidental are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server 

Community safety: child safety

• statistics on unintentional injuries in under 5s are available on the Children and Young People profile of the interactive ScotPHO Online Profiles Tool

Neighbourhood perceptions and attitudes

• the latest statistics from the Scottish Household Survey on whether respondents feel their area has improved are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server 
• the latest statistics from the Scottish Household Survey on how respondents rate their neighbourhood as a place to live are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• statistics from the Scottish Household Survey on how respondents rate their neighbourhood as a place to live are also avaiable on the Health and Wellbeing profile of the interactive ScotPHO Online Profiles Tool 
• the latest statistics from the Scottish Household Survey on how strongly respondents feel they belong to their community are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• the latest statistics from the Scottish Household Survey on attitudes of respondents towards offerering and receiving help from their neighbours are available from the Scottish Official Statistics Open Data server
• evidence from the 2019 Scottish Household Survey on topics such as people's attitudes to their neighbours and neighbourhood, are available

Official statistics are available on these topics for Scottish Borders or sometimes below. If you are are a Scottish Borders student or are involved with a community group in the Scottish Borders and would like help accessing and using these statistics, contact the Research and Information team.