Research and data in the Scottish Borders: Place

Neighbourhoods and community safety

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

Community safety: criminal justice

Community safety: perceptions of crime

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

Community safety: fire safety

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

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.

Research and Data in the Scottish Borders

Research and information team

Contact the Corporate Performance and Information Research and Information Team for demographics research-related enquiries

Address: Council Headquarters
Newtown St. Boswells
Melrose
TD6 0SA

Telephone: 01835 824000