Building connections for safer communities

About Us

What is community safety?

Community safety means helping people feel safe and be safe where they live, work and spend time.

It’s often thought of as preventing crime and anti-social behaviour, but community safety is also about:

Home safety – preventing fires and accidents

Road safety – keeping drivers, cyclists and pedestrians safe

Water safety – staying safe near rivers, lakes or the sea

Online safety – protecting people from harm on the internet

Substance misuse – helping people avoid or recover from drug and alcohol problems

Child protection – keeping children safe from harm

Community justice and counter-terrorism – ensuring laws are followed and people are protected

Community safety also means building strong, welcoming communities where people feel included, supported and able to cope with challenges.

What is a community safety partnership?

A big part of our work is supporting the framework of Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) across Scotland.

A CSP is a collaboration between local authority departments (for example, community safety, social work and education), Police Scotland, and other public bodies such as emergency services, courts, prison services and local community groups. Together, they work to improve community safety in their local area.

Each partnership creates a strategic plan to achieve its goals, supported by action plans that outline specific activities to address local needs. Examples include Anti-Social Behaviour Strategies and Local Outcome Improvement Plans (LOIP).

What Do CSPs do?

CSPs often promote safety through prevention and education activities in schools and local community centres.
Some CSPs also work closely with Community Justice partners to support individuals who have committed offences, helping them reintegrate into the community and reduce reoffending.
All CSPs report into their Local Authority’s Community Planning Partnership. These partnerships were created under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, which requires all local authorities to work together with communities to plan local services.
Not every local area has a CSP dedicated specifically to community safety, but in these areas, community safety work is still carried out by individual agencies such as the police, fire service and local authorities.

Who We Are

SC Scotland was the national network for community safety.

SC Scotland — formerly known as the Scottish Community Safety Network — was a small charity established in 1997 and based in Glasgow. It worked as an apolitical, evidence-led intermediary organisation for the community safety sector, hosting events, sharing research, building relationships, and creating opportunities for interdisciplinary, cross-agency collaboration.

As Scotland's national advocate for community safety, SC Scotland held a unique, sector-wide view of the work happening across the country. The charity is grateful to the Scottish Government for nearly three decades of support, which helped establish and sustain its work until March 2026. The board then used the charity's reserves to extend operations for a further six months while exploring options for future funding.

With that period now at an end, the board took the decision to close the charity, with 30 September 2026 as its final operational day. This website remains as an archive of that work.