Author: Dr Calum Macleod

Community land ownership has captured Scotland’s political imagination to the extent of defining and dominating the debate on land reform over the last 20 years.  That debate centres on whether Scotland’s extraordinarily concentrated pattern of private land ownership inhibits or encourages land use that reflects wider, shared societal objectives for the common good.

Proponents of land reform argue that concentrated ownership enables the dominant exercise of economic, political and social power by large-scale private landowners that can run contrary to the wider public interest.  They consequently advocate democratising property rights through co-ordinated application of legislative and fiscal policy measures to redistribute these rights more widely within the context of an increasingly diverse and transparent pattern of land ownership in Scotland in support of sustainable development.         

There is undeniably much to celebrate in the evolution of Scotland’s community land ownership sector since the pioneering first wave of buyouts in the 1990s, notably in Assynt, Knoydart and Eigg.   563,000 acres are now in community ownership.  There is technical support from Highland and Islands Enterprise’s (HIE) Community Assets Team, financial support from the Scottish Land Fund and legislation exists to give communities increasingly extensive rights to buy land and assets.  Community Land Scotland, created in 2010 to represent community landowners’ interests, has 80 member organisations delivering affordable housing, local infrastructure and services, renewable energy and much else besides.  

Equally undeniably  – and despite that policy support – community ownership remains an essentially marginal activity within a highly concentrated pattern of private land ownership in Scotland that continues to survive remarkably unscathed.  That is a systemic issue that demands political action.   

How, then, might community land ownership look in 2050?  That’s a speculative exercise, of course.  However, it’s plausible to imagine the sector representing a larger geographical share of a significantly less concentrated, more diverse and transparent system of land ownership in Scotland as a means of creating and consolidating more resilient, inclusive and sustainable communities. 

Achieving that vision necessitates several requirements to be met.  Most fundamentally, it is crucial to avoid conflating community land ownership with the wider land reform agenda, the core aim of which is to apply measures to modify or change arrangements governing possession and use of land in the public interest.  Treating community ownership as a ‘magic bullet’ to single-handedly address that broader agenda risks obscuring the need for a co-ordinated programme of public policy measures for land reform that cuts across traditional policy silos and Government departments.   Measures which, in future, could conceivably involve changing fiscal arrangements regarding land taxation and payments; introducing a ‘right to buy’ for all tenants of agricultural holdings; limiting the size of land holdings that private owners may possess; and applying a public interest test to private land sales of particular scale.

Community ownership also needs to be normalised as a form of ownership for contributing to Scotland’s sustainable development; one that can be applied throughout Scotland, rather than being seen as the preserve of the Highlands and Islands.   Recent legislative extension of the Community Right to Buy into urban as well as rural geographical locations marks an important development in terms of mainstreaming ‘community’ as a form of ownership.   However, that alone is unlikely to accelerate the process of normalisation.  

Other pre-requisites include continuing political and associated institutional and technical support, both for land purchases and further development of the type that HIE in particular has provided over the last 20 years, but on a Scotland-wide basis.  That support is essential to build wider awareness of the social, economic and environmental benefits that community ownership can bring and to help fully realise the development potential of purchased land and assets.  However, that support must be aligned to a broader programme of land reform to have a widespread transformative effect. 

Arguably too securing the role of community land ownership as a driver for sustainability will require further legislative changes to the Community Rights to Buy land in line with the general interest, as stipulated in the European Convention on Human Rights.  The point is that property rights are not absolute in nature.  Rather, they are capable of being modified by the State in pursuit of the public interest, which spans the exercise of individual and collective human rights.  

Normalising community ownership also requires trust in communities to develop and deliver sustainable outcomes for themselves, whether directly or in partnership with others.  ‘Community empowerment’ is high on governmental agendas.  However that empowerment (whether in terms of Community Right to Buy legislation or financial support through the Scottish Land Fund) is shaped from the centre of the political system.  It promotes agency on the part of communities, but in a highly structured way according to conditions of legislation and funding schemes.   

 A more radical approach to empowering communities would be to give them an automatic pre-emptive right to purchase land when there is a willing seller and fund the land purchase without the necessity of a detailed business plan being produced to support funding applications.   More broadly, it is vital to reinvigorate and reimagine governmental and civic institutions in ways that devolve power to shape urban and rural geographical spaces into the hands of local communities that live in or near these spaces.                       

An expanded and maturing community land ownership sector also invites consideration of future ways in which it may interact with the State and other organisations in managing local services, development opportunities and public goods to better reflect local communities’ needs and aspirations.   An example of that approach already exists in relation to the financing and community ownership of a new school building in Strontian in west Lochaber.  It’s an approach with potential for further application in both rural and urban settings to provide services such as healthcare or renewable energy supply that are more attuned to local needs and demand.   

Thinking about community land ownership as both a rural and urban issue is helpful in making it an increasingly normal way of doing things.  That breadth of perspective does, however, bring to the fore underlying tensions regarding the relationship between land, assets and demand. 

An upsurge in urban community demand for buying mainly built assets may have a detrimental impact on the scope for larger-scale land purchases in rural contexts whereby ownership of the land asset is a pre-requisite for further asset development on that land.  That has implications for the continuing evolution of community ownership in both urban and rural settings.   In the likelihood that future public resources for community buyouts remain scarce, communities will have to explore a wider range of potential funding mechanisms to support purchases (such as crowd-funding or community share offers).   These underlying ‘rural-urban’ tensions further reinforce the need to position community land ownership as one aspect of a wider, on-going programme of interconnected land reform policy measures.    

 One further intriguing but still largely unexplored aspect of how community land ownership could evolve in the future relates to whether it might assist in re-populating rural areas previously containing human settlements but now conceptualised and in some instances classified as ‘wild’ land.  That possibility raises an interesting question about the potential roles that communities of interest, in particular, might play in that regard.  It raises still more interesting questions about interpretations of ‘sustainability’, the social construction of landscapes and the appropriation of territory in the interests of ‘stewardship’ that have a particular and profound resonance in relation to the Highlands and Islands.    

Ultimately, thinking about the role that community land ownership might play in 2050 requires some idea about the kind of society Scotland aspires to be in the mid 21st century.  That means addressing some fundamental interlinked and overarching issues.   

One concerns the relationship between people and the land and the balance between the public and private interest; essentially a recalibration of rights and responsibilities in relation to land ownership and use to better serve the public interest.  Another relates to the characteristics of governance structures in society and the extent to which power in decision-making is devolved to the local level to genuinely empower people; essentially an issue of democracy and civic engagement.  Still another relates to the relationship between the State and other organisations (including but not limited to community landowners) in achieving outcomes that add to rather than subtract from the sustainability of local communities, the Highlands and Islands, and Scotland as a whole.            

Note:

This is an abridged version of a discussion paper on ‘The Future of Community Land Ownership in Scotland’ prepared for the national Strengthening Communities conference held in Aviemore on 21st and 22nd September.  The full paper is available at:  http://www.hie.co.uk/community-support/community-conference/presentations.html

Dr Calum MacLeod is an independent sustainable development consultant based in Glasgow.  Website: calummacleod.infoe: calummacleod.info

Author: SAPP

Thank for your enquiry about the Scottish Alliance for People and Places. SAPP brings together a wide range of organisations from across the planning and placemaking sector in Scotland to articulate a united and compelling vision for a more inclusive, respected, holistic and innovative system of planning.

Many of SAPP’s members are deeply integrated into Scotland’s communities, and we want local people to be involved in the planning system. We want communities to be active participants in the decisions which affect them, rather than being passive recipients of planning decisions.

We are looking to develop a new way of planning and to have a system that is based on constructive, front loaded discussion and on agreement of a shared vision and route map to achieve that vision.

This needs us to move away from engagement being about objecting and people saying what they don’t like about something to giving people the opportunity to set out what they want for their place, and focusing on giving people the right to plan.

This is not about tinkering around the edges and introducing new duties but about turning the system around so that it becomes a new way of public renewal and democratic engagement.

We welcome any members who can sign up to these principles and support them as the bill moves through Parliament.

With best wishes

Scottish Alliance for People and Places

Secretariat

Author: The Ferret

The Scottish Government is set to announce a ban on fracking, ending six years of fierce controversy.

Ministers are putting the finishing touches to a permanent ban, replacing the moratorium they started in January 2015. This will spell the end of industry’s plans to frack for shale gas under swathes of central Scotland.

An announcement has long been pencilled in for this week, before the parliamentary recess and the SNP annual conference. But The Ferret understands there’s a small risk it may be postponed by last-minute legal complications.

 But there is no doubt about the government’s intention. A ban is seen as the best way to fulfil the SNP 2016 manifesto promise not to allow fracking “unless it can be proved beyond any doubt that it will not harm our environment, communities or public health.”

The manifesto, echoing the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, also said the SNP was “deeply sceptical about fracking”. The programme for government launched on 5 September promised a decision “in the coming weeks”.

The Scottish Government is also committed to putting its verdict to the Scottish Parliament, and abiding by its decision. Only the Tories support fracking, and MSPs voted 32 to 29 in favour of an “outright ban” in June 2016, with the SNP abstaining.

There is huge opposition to fracking across the potentially impacted communities and amongst SNP members. There were more than 60,000 responses to the Scottish Government’s recent consultation, and the vast majority of those were expressing concerns.

“All roads now lead to a ban and I expect a ministerial statement to parliament this week,” said Mark Ruskell MSP, Scottish Green environment spokesperson.

“The current moratorium is on shaky legal ground and any permanent ban has to be watertight to withstand sustained attacks from the fracking industry.”

As yet, the details of the proposed ban are unclear. Close observers say that the main options are a legal ban, a policy ban, or something in between.

Friends of the Earth Scotland, which has led the campaign against fracking, strongly favour a full legislative ban. “Such a ban would be met with huge celebration and much relief,” said the environmental group’s head of campaigns, Mary Church.

“Given the strength of feeling against fracking in the country, and the First Minister’s well-documented scepticism about the industry, it’s hard to see how the Scottish Government could do anything other than announce an outright ban.”

Fracking was “bad for public health, pollutes the environment and damages the climate,” she argued. “We are looking to the Scottish Government to take the strongest stance possible and pass a law banning fracking for good.”

She added: “This will ensure the strongest protection for communities under threat from the industry, and send a clear message that no new frontiers of fossil fuels are acceptable in the context of the climate crisis.”

Another pressure on ministers is a bill to ban fracking being put forward by Scottish Labour. The party’s environment spokesperson, Claudia Beamish MSP, is promising to push forward the proposed legislation if the SNP ban is weak.

“Anything less than an outright ban of onshore fracking, in all its forms, would be a betrayal by the SNP Government of our climate change commitments, our communities and the job opportunities now and for future generations in clean, renewable energy,” she said.

“When the SNP Government finally make a statement, after so much delay, I will be looking for absolute clarity on how it will proceed to a total ban. Otherwise, I will continue with my Member’s Bill to ban onshore fracking.”

Communities opposed to fracking have come together under the banner of the Broad Alliance. News that ministers were planning an imminent announcement would be a “vindication” of their campaigning, said alliance chair Donald Campbell.

“Communities across Scotland will breathe a sigh of relief that their concerns have been heeded. We are confident that we have made an overwhelming case for a full legislative ban.”

He added: “Communities worked together to ensure their voices would be heard, as evidenced by over 60,000 responses to the consultation process.”

Fracking – hydraulically fracturing underground rocks to release pockets of shale gas – first reared its head in Scotland in 2011. It emerged that companies, most of which no longer exist, were looking at drilling sites in central and southwest Scotland.

The focus of their initial interest was extracting coalbed methane, a technology that doesn’t necessary involve fracking. But there were two fracking licences for sites near Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway.

Plans for coalbed methane exploitation at Airth near Falkirk ended up at a public inquiry in 2014. But as political and community opposition grew, Scottish energy minister, Fergus Ewing, announced a moratorium on fracking and coalbed methane in January 2015.

There was also a flurry of interest from oil tycoon, Algy Cluff, in setting fire to coal gas under the sea in the Firth of Forth. But this technology, known as underground coal gasification, was ruled out by the Scottish Government in October 2016 after an expert study

The company with the most to lose from a fracking ban is the Grangemouth petrochemical giant, Ineos, led by the fossil-fuel entrepreneur, Jim Ratcliffe. It now has most of the 28 licence applications for fracking around Grangemouth and across the central belt.

It recent months, though, the company has been focussing its efforts on its licences in the north of England. In Scotland it has made much of its “dragon ships” that are bringing ethane from fracking wells in Pennsylvania in the United States.

Ineos has repeatedly highlighted how much better it would be if it could get fracked gas from Scotland. There have also been veiled threats that the long term future of Grangemouth, which employs more than 1,300 people, could be thrown into doubt.

Ineos said that Scotland needs its own natural gas supply, as well as renewables. “The expert reports have made clear that the moratorium can be lifted immediately and we await the government’s decision in due course,” said a company spokesperson.

The industry body, UK Onshore Oil and Gas (UKOOG), also argued that fracking should be allowed to go ahead. “There isn’t any reason to justify continuing with the moratorium,” said UKOOG’s chief executive, Ken Cronin.

“The industry believes the science is clear and regulation competent to deal with the safe roll out of the shale industry in Scotland. At present, there is no viable or affordable alternative to Scottish natural gas from shale other than importing significant quantities of gas.”

A fracking industry could also help meeting climate targets and keep people in jobs, he claimed. “We strongly believe that onshore exploration and production provides a significant economic opportunity for Scotland,” he added.

“Our conviction is underlined by the fact that 30 wells have been drilled in the last 20 years and gas has been produced in the central belt of Scotland. This has happened without incident – to the environment or to public health.”

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government said: “Ministers are considering the evidence, including the results of the consultation, and will put their recommendation on the way forward to the Scottish Parliament for MSPs to vote on this important issue before the end of this calendar year.”

Author: SLCU

The first Scottish Credit Union was founded in Drumchapel by Bert Mullen, a painter & decorator, in February 1970. Originally named Western Credit Union it later became Drumchapel Credit Union Ltd.

Bert Mullen was a painter & decorator who lived with his wife Alice and their family, in one of Glasgow’s new housing schemes, Drumchapel, which had been built in the early 1960’s as part of what seemed a courageous vision to remove the blot of urban slums from the centre of the city.

Providing housing was the chief priority of the time but insufficient consideration was afforded to the provision of facilities for this new population and Bert and his friends, the McSevneys, were very conscious that there were no affordable, financial services available to the working-class residents of their community.

Bert soon learned of credit unions and the exceptional impact that it was having on the lives of ordinary people through his Irish relatives. Convinced that it could work for the good of the community in Drumchapel, he contacted the Irish League of Credit Unions, the World Council of Credit Unions and anybody else who would listen to him.

Western Credit Union (later to become Drumchapel Credit Union) was launched in February 1970.  Over the following months and years, Bert’s encouragement and inspiration to others saw the launch of many more Credit Unions all across Scotland.  At the point of his untimely death in 1986 – which as a loss to the whole of the Scottish Credit Union movement – there were 130 Credit Unions operating in Scotland.

Fast-forward to 2017 and Bert’s legacy lives on through the 100 Credit Unions, serving around 330,000 members with collective savings of around £500 million and providing around £283 million of affordable credit.

Every two years, the Scottish League of Credit Unions host an event called the ‘Bert Mullen Lecture’, named after and in honour of Bert Mullen who helped start the first Credit Union in Scotland, in 1970.

The purpose of the event is to connect Credit Unions and like-minded community organisations with an inspiring Guest Speaker who positively changes the lives of others through their words and actions, as Bert did all those years ago.

 Stuart Cosgrove

We’re delighted to announce that writer and broadcaster Stuart Cosgrove will deliver this year’s Bert Mullen Lecture and talk about his forthcoming book, ‘Memphis 68’, the second part of his epic trilogy on sixties soul.

In advance of the 50th anniversary of the assignation of Martin Luther King, the lecture promises to be rich in history, social change and soul music (live solo performance before & after the Lecture)

DATE:  Friday 6 October

ARRIVE:  6 pm (Nibbles & refreshments)

START:    7 pm (Lecture will begin)

DURATION:  for around 1 hour

VENUE: Stirling Court Hotel

COST: Free

Author: Jamie Hailstone, NewStart magazine

Sue Baxter is the chairman of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), which represents town and parish councils across England. She talks to New Start about why town and parish councils provide ‘ultra localism in action’.

 How do you see the role of town and parish councils evolving in the future?

Local (parish and town) councils are already a vital part of local government and at the heart of community life. At NALC, we see their role evolving into helping more principal (county, district, borough and unitary) councils and national government address many of the profound challenges facing us today. As the first tier of local government, these councils can help provide local solutions in areas like housing, local economic development, health and wellbeing, environment, and transport as well as help build up social cohesion. Local councils are getting more involved in service delivery than in previous years and are being asked to do more by residents and principal councils, who are faced by the challenges of austerity.

Can they engage with communities in a way that maybe other tiers of local government cannot?

They can engage with communities in ways that other parts of the public sector cannot because they are at the heart of many local areas in England. They are the closest tier of local government to communities. So this gives them a unique understanding and insight into the demands and needs of local people. Also they have the additional advantage of not being unwieldy bureaucratic goliaths, so they can implement services or provide leadership on a more effective and efficient basis.

They provide our neighbourhoods, villages, towns and cities with a democratic voice and a structure for taking action; real people power at grassroots level. In fact we need more hyper local democracy, with more empowered people and place. It is ultra localism in action.

How can town and parish councils help to encourage inclusive growth?

There is a perception that the only route to local economic development, productivity and growth is by billions of pounds being ploughed in by various Whitehall departments. Now of course modern transport systems and research and development are essential for a successful complex economy. However what often gets over looked is what communities and very local government can achieve for this goal.

For example Sevenoaks Town Council runs a theatre and commercial cinema, attracting 300,000 visitors per year. The council has developed a bus service linking a National Trust property to the town centre, and orbital town centre bus extending to neighbourhood villages. As well leading in the regeneration of the train station and are building a new conference centre.

How much of an issue is affordable housing for parish and town councils?

Affordable housing is a massive issue for parish and town councils just like it is for communities and people. With these councils being closest to their community, they feel the issues around this very keenly.

We want to introduce a more ambitious annual target for the number of new affordable homes built in communities and even more bespoke dedicated affordable housing funding programme. This is where the localism act comes into its own. I am talking about neighbourhood planning here. Local councils up and down the country are using this form of grassroots planning not only take on more housing in their area but try to ensure an element of it is affordable. Councils such as Thame, Uppingham and Newport Pagnell have done just this. Over 90% of all neighbourhood plans are led by local councils. In areas where there are neighbourhood plans, there is on estimated 10% more housing being built. So this skews the arguments that local councils are nimbys (not in my backyard).

Would more parish and town councils help bolster their communities?

Yes, we positively believe so. We would like to see all communities in England consider having a local (parish, town or community) council.

Local councils are the most local tier of government – they’re at the very heart of the community, giving neighbourhoods a voice and helping people feel more involved in the decisions that affect them. They take localism to the next level by giving people a democratic voice that goes beyond just voting in elections. And yet, only a third of the population is covered by one. We want to change this and see more of England join the tens of thousands of local councils already in existence.

It is fastest growing part of local government, with nearly 300 new councils being created since 1997. Recently there have been new urban local councils created in London, Birmingham, Swindon and Lowestoft.

Some of the benefits of creating new local councils include:

•             Meeting local needs: services managed in the community typically suit its needs better and are more responsive than those managed from elsewhere. It is easier for local councils to find out what people want from a service and how they use it. It can more readily be adapted to local requirements,

•             Fostering community action: the process of starting or saving a service usually pulls people together and generates a sense of local pride. This may, in turn, create further community actions.

•             Improving access: it may be that without the local council taking action a service used by the community would only be available some distance away or not at all.

How important is it that the voices of town and parish councils are heard in the devolution debate?

This year we have seen the election of new metro mayors in England, which is a brilliant development creating a real focus for devolution away from Westminster and potentially Brussels. We want to see this devolution cascade to neighbourhoods.

We believe the wider devolution agenda remains disjointed and confusing as the picture varies so widely from place to place. Many communities and neighbourhoods up and down the country feel disconnected from the project and sceptical of its benefits.

We call on the government to re-launch the devolution project ensuring it is effective and engages all local communities. So from this we would like to see the government and those in power in other parts of the public sector to think even more positively to the contribution that local councils can make within devolution.

•             For more information visit: www.nalc.gov.uk

Author: SLC

Scottish Land Commission –  Driving Land Reform

Click here to see the three year plan

Click here to read the Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement

Author: Scottish Government

People to have say in the design of their area.

Communities across Scotland can bid to take part in a new £325,000 scheme to regenerate their neighbourhood, Local Government Minister Kevin Stewart has announced.

The Making Places Initiative will help bring communities together to agree improvements for their area based on local need and priorities.

The expanded scheme has grown from the success of a previous Charette programme which teamed local people with design professionals to look at what would improve their places and communities.

This new initiative will continue to offer support for events of this type alongside more comprehensive support to deliver on these ideas.

Minister for Local Government Kevin Stewart said:

“From the Borders to the Western Isles, the people who live, work and socialise in our communities have the best local knowledge to consider how that place should evolve and regenerate and I would encourage people across the country to consider applying.

“This new Making Places Initiative allows more opportunities for communities to choose what works for them. It takes the success we’ve seen through community collaboration and increases the focus on encouraging and enabling more and more people to become involved.”

Making Places prospectus click here

Making Places Application Form click here

Author: Scottish Govt

Extract from Programme for Government . Chpt 3 – Building a Fairer Scotland

Citizen’s basic income

Several Scottish local authorities are considering how they can pilot elements of a citizen’s basic income, a radical form of social assistance. One of its attractions is that it may help those on the lowest incomes back into work or help them work more hours, while providing an unconditional ‘basic income’ as a safety net. We believe that bold and imaginative projects like this deserve support but we also recognise that the concept is currently untested. Therefore, we will:

·         establish a fund to help these local authorities areas develop their proposals further and establish suitable testing

·         ask the Poverty and Inequality Commission to consider how it could help to draw together findings from local authorities to inform the government’s thinking

Author: The Edinburgh Reporter

Earlier today NHS Lothian announced that they have sold the building to a developer, DowningGroup, and that the sale will finalise when the new building at Little France is ready.

The 4.01 acre site owned by NHS Lothian and Edinburgh and the Lothians Health Foundation charity lies just beside the Meadows is iconic and the buildings are listed.

A community right to buy bid now appears to have been thwarted.

Marchmont and Sciennes Development Trust (MSDT) had previously asked Scottish Ministers to use this new law to give them first refusal to buy the site.

MSDT’s  formal bid was held up after complex land ownership issues around the 122-year-old hospital revealed that although the four-acre facility is being marketed as one site, the ownership was split between the two bodies.

The group has spent the last few months addressing this, and other issues raised, and submitted a revised application to the Scottish Government on 7 September 2017.

On September 14, The Scottish Government told MSDT it had issued a notice to NHS Lothian by recorded delivery to say that, under the terms of the legislation, the Sick Kids sale process should be paused.

But this morning NHS Lothian announced it had reached a deal with the Downing Group and that missives were concluded on 5 September 2017.

Affordable co-operative housing, healthcare and nursery facilities, space for social enterprises and a multi-purpose community hall were among the ideas for the Sick Kids suggested by MSDT – the community body representing local residents.

A MSDT spokesperson, said: “We are gutted that we have not even had the chance for our application to be judged by the Scottish Government, which appears to be in the dark about this sale.

“Only yesterday (Thursday) the Government’s community land team told us they had issued a prohibition notice to NHS Lothian which would have forced the sale process to be paused while our application was being considered by ministers.

“It turns out the sale had already been concluded by NHS Lothian ten days ago.

“This application was considered by many as an ‘acid test’ for the new urban right to buy laws and we feel very disappointed, as will many people in the community around the Sick Kids, that we did not get the chance to show how it would work.

“The reality of this decision is that only the bare legal minimum of the sorts of things local people suggested for this site – such as the affordable housing, more space for the local school and community facilities – is likely to happen now.

“You only have to look across The Meadows at the luxury QuarterMile development for an example of how this could now turn out for those hoping for more community facilities.

“The application process has been dogged by delays on The Scottish Government side, well beyond what the legislation states, and a string of technical challenges which the Government and Holyrood must look at again to help other communities which want to use this law.

“This is not the end of the road for MSDT and we will be in touch with our supporters in the coming weeks to gauge the appetite for engaging with the preferred bidder, and other ways we can transform our local area.”

Jacquie Campbell, Chief Officer for Acute Services, NHS Lothian said: “The decision to move the services from the current site and dispose of the site was not an easy one to make. The legacy of the Royal Hospital for Sick Kids dates back to 1863 and since 1895 the hospital at Sciennes Road has been home to thousands of children and their families in the building many have grown to call ‘the sick kids’.

“Although the site has a developer lined up to take ownership of the site, patients and their families can rest assured that no changes will be made to the current facilities until they are set to move to the their new location in the £150m Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Little France next year.”

David Fraser, partner with Ryden, adviser to NHS Lothian said: “The property was put up for sale in November 2016 and naturally generated a great deal of interest which resulted in 21 formal bids being received in early 2017.

“After carefully consideration, six bidders were invited to provide additional clarifications whereby the Downing Groups was selected as preferred bidder.”

Jane Ferguson, Director, Edinburgh and the Lothians Health Foundation added: “On behalf of the trustees of the Edinburgh and Lothians Health Foundation, I am delighted that the process to sell the buildings that make up the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Sciennes has reached its conclusion.

“This step is an important one in the hospital’s relocation to Little France, Edinburgh, together with the Department of Clinical Neuroscience and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

“The trustees have already committed over £2m to the development and realisation of the Art and Therapeutic Design programme for the new building, helping to creating a home for the hospital every bit as iconic as the old ‘Sick Kids’.

“The proceeds of the sale of the trustee-owned buildings at Sciennes will be used to continue to support our vision of healthier, longer lives for the people of Lothian.”

The terms of the legislation means that NHS Lothian would appear to have acted within the law, as the public body selling a building is not obliged to stop the sale until the Scottish Government issues a ‘prohibition notice’.

Author: DAVID POWELL NEF

You don’t need to be an expert in adult social care to know that it’s in deep trouble. High-profile, distressing exposes like that from Panorama reveal a sector on the verge of –perhaps already in – full-blown crisis.

People are living longer. In the UK the number of people over the age of 85 is expected to double by 2030. Yet thanks to Government cuts and the dysfunctionality of our care system, council spending on adult social care in England fell 8% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2016-17. More funding from national Government is the obvious place to start. But take a look under the bonnet of the care system and you quickly find that it is in need of a major overhaul.  A fifth of all publicly funded care homes in the UK are provided by the five biggest private chain providers. As we found back in March, £115 million of every £2 billion of public spending on social care will disappear straight into the pockets of investors and shareholders in those five companies alone. This is classic ‘leaky bucket’ syndrome: money spent locally, to meet local needs, but which is siphoned off.

Yet there is a different way. After all, care is a major economic sector, employing 1.4 million people and contributing over £40 billion a year to the UK. Our aging population pretty much guarantees that care is a sector that will continue to grow over the years ahead. And with a new emphasis on industrial strategy, there are major win-wins from treating care not as a depressing ‘cost’ but instead to lavish it with the attention usually given only to shiny economic totems, like technology or pharmaceuticals. Care could get tens of thousands into work around the whole of a local economy – in a new generation of small, locally-rooted and highly valued community-scale providers.

In a new report written for Localise West Midlands, we look at a part of the country where 25,000 extra jobs will be needed by 2025 alone. The newly-constituted region’s approach to economic development has so far been largely defined by the GDP-first focus handed to it by the Treasury as part of its devolution deal: attracting export-led, high-end and glamorous industries. Yet we show that community-scale social care is well placed to help public money spent locally do far more good in local economies.

Instead of dominance by a handful of ‘too-big-to-fail’ care providers, we propose that the new Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, focuses on building a new ecology of community-scale care providers. The resilience of the sector as a whole would be sharply improved, as would the quality of care. The Care Quality Commission, which regulates social care in England, rated the quality of community-scale social care providers as the highest in the sector, and smaller homes as better than larger ones. It’s a natural gateway to a career rich with the potential for skills development, and is a sector well-suited to social enterprise. 86% of all of the social care enterprises in the West Midlands employ fewer than 50 people, and two-fifths employ fewer than five.

Encouragingly, Mr Street – once the boss of John Lewis – promised in his election pitch to give more priority to co-operatives, mutuals, and social enterprises. Our report gives him some ideas.  Smaller providers struggle to compete with massive private chains. They are better ‘value for money’ – keeping money flowing locally; delivering higher standards of care – but this can be hard to prove via labyrinthine commissioning processes. Leadership is needed to position smaller care models as a way to do far more than just meet needs – to help skills development, employment and wellbeing agendas right across the region. And local authorities like those in the West Midlands should go out of their way to help new models seed and thrive, with innovation funding and a major push to market careers in care to school and college leavers.

A focus on new models of care could be a win-win in difficult times. To be clear: none of this excuses the need for national Government to put a proper amount of funding into the system. But for pioneering local areas, care could be the engine of a new approach to economic development that starts from the needs of communities, not big investors – and which could provide jobs, skills, wellbeing and of course better care to the heart of the communities perpetually left behind by economic plans.