The basis for the assets now comprising the Scottish Crown Estate comes from various ancient rights, functions and assets that came to be owned by the
Scottish Crown, and later the
British Sovereign in Scotland. In 1790
King George III revoked his claim to the income from the crown estates in England, receiving in return an annual payment known as the
civil list from the Treasury. The Crown retained the income from estates in Scotland until 1830, when under
King William IV the hereditary land revenues of the Crown in Scotland were transferred from the
Barons of the Exchequer to the
Commissioners of Woods, Forests, Land Revenues, Works and Buildings and their successors under the '
(2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 112), the (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 86), and the ' (
5 & 6 Will. 4. c. 58). These holdings mainly comprised former ecclesiastical land (following the abolition of the episcopacy in 1689) in
Caithness and
Orkney, and ancient royal possession in
Stirling and Edinburgh, and feudal dues. There was virtually no urban property. Most of the present Scottish estate excepting foreshore and salmon fishing is due to inward investment, including
Glenlivet Estate, the largest area of land managed by the Crown Estate in Scotland, purchased in 1937, Applegirth, Fochabers and Whitehill estates, purchased in 1963, 1937 and 1969 respectively. After winning the
2011 Scottish election, the
Scottish National Party (SNP) called for the
devolution of the Crown Estate income to Scotland. In response to this demand, the
Scotland Office decided against dividing up the Crown Estates, but plans were developed to allocate some of the Crown Estate income to the
Big Lottery Fund, which would then distribute funds to coastal communities. Following the
2014 Scottish independence referendum, there were calls for more powers to be devolved from the United Kingdom Parliament to the Scottish Parliament.
The Smith Commission was announced by Prime Minister David Cameron, with Lord Smith of Kelvin asked to "convene cross-party talks and facilitate an inclusive engagement process across Scotland to produce, by 30 November 2014, Heads of Agreement with recommendations for further devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament". On 27 November 2014, the commission published a number of recommendations, which included that "responsibility for the management of the Crown Estate's economic assets in Scotland, including the Crown Estate's seabed and mineral and fishing rights, and the revenue generated from these assets, [should] be transferred to the Scottish Parliament." A bill based on the Smith Commission's recommendations became law as the
Scotland Act 2016 in March 2016. This made provision for the devolution for the management and revenues of Crown Estate assets in Scotland. Crown Estate Scotland was established by the '
(SSI 2017/36). Under the ' (
SI 2017/524), the existing functions of the
Crown Estate Commissioners and the rights and liabilities set out in the transfer scheme transferred from the Crown Estate Commissioners to Crown Estate Scotland on 1 April 2017. Prior to the handover, the Crown Estate owned a multi-million stake in the
Fort Kinnaird retail park which represented about 60% of the value of all Crown assets in Scotland. This was not passed to Crown Estates Scotland with other Scottish properties in 2016. Two years later, the Crown Estate sold its stake and used the funds to assume full ownership of the Gallagher Retail Park in
Cheltenham. The legislation that formally underpins Crown Estate Scotland was passed in 2019: the
Scottish Crown Estate Act 2019 (asp 1). In January 2022 Crown Estate Scotland announced the outcome of the "ScotWind" auction process, where 74 entities applied for rights to offshore wind generation in 17 areas of the seabed (covering a total area of 7,000 km2). The auction raised almost £700m for the Scottish Government, and covers sites estimated to be capable of generating over 24 GW of electricity in total. In April, all 17 winners had signed options. Crown Estate Scotland expects that the supply chain industry spends £1.5bn per project. ==Assets==