Author: Camille Dressler

The Scottish Islands Federation has been awarded £18.500  by the Scottish government, a sum which will allow its voluntary board to employ the staff it requires to fulfil its ambitious targets.

Federation chair Camille Dressler said: “we warmly thank the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment, Richard Lochhead MSP, for his recognition of the part that the Scottish Islands Federation has played in helping to raise islands needs and issues at all levels of governance. We are now looking forward to promote a greater engagement of island grassroots organisations in all the issues that are important to them, and help and help them make their islands leaders in low carbon, sustainable communities.”

Michael Russell , MSP for Argyll & Bute which has more inhabited islands than any other Scottish constituency, and invited the Scottish Islands Federation to the Scottish Parliament in 2013,  said : ‘ I am delighted that the Scottish Government has recognised the importance of the Scottish Islands Federation and the work that is done to bring together those who live and work on the islands in order to share experiences and find ways of moving forward.   The links that exist with islands in other parts of Europe are also important and the collaborations on energy, employment, tourism and other issues that are already arising are pointing interesting ways forward,.   The Scottish Government knows that islands need special support and this grant is not only proves that point, but also opens the door to new possibilities.”

The Scottish Islands Federation is now recruiting staff to carry out the tasks agreed with the Rural Communities team. A description of the job and its responsibilities can be found here.

Author: GRAEME STRACHAN, The Courier

Dilapidated public toilets saved from closure and turned into an art gallery have proved an overwhelming success in an Angus village.

The Wee Gallery in East Haven – affectionately known as the Loo-uvre – has opened again for spring after proving to be a great example of a community taking ownership of a public space.

Originally built in the early 1970s by Angus County Council, the toilets are now run by local charity East Haven Together, which is headed by Wendy Murray.

The idea of a community partnership arose when the local authority had to consider the long-term viability of its network of public toilets across Angus.

The toilets were transformed into an art gallery by locals after volunteers modernised and decorated the building.

Volunteers take responsibility for a week at a time, opening and closing the toilets, maintaining stocks of supplies and cleaning the facilities daily.

They also provide soap, hand towels and hand cream.

Wendy said the response from the public since opening last year has been overwhelming and far exceeds any expectations they had at the outset.

She said people constantly tell them how wonderful it is to find a clean toilet and how much they feel it reflects well on the whole community.

Wendy said she feels quite strongly about public toilet closures and has called for more to be done by the Scottish Government.

She said: “I think it is about health and well-being and also about Scotland’s tourism strategy.”

Author: Maria Arnold, EVOC

Before Christmas I wrote a blog, full of hope that the risks of competitive tender were being taken seriously by Edinburgh Council. The decision of whether to award contracts to a UK wide organisation in favour of three local organisations, which had grown up from within their communities over thirty years, was deferred. Another meeting was set for 14th December to allow the issues we raised to be explored in more detail.

On behalf of Edinburgh’s Substance Use Network (SUNE), EVOC had voiced the extent to which the principles underpinning an 18 month process of collaboration had been undermined by a starkly one-dimensional competitive tender process. A tender process which was presented by procurement officers as the only way forward, when the reality was not so black and white. Investigating further we discovered additional concerns. Service users had not been consulted about the decision to put the recovery hub service out to tender, as the Scottish guidance makes clear they should be. GPs, who have very close working relationships with these organisations, had not been consulted either. The considerable risks to vulnerable service users of the likely transition of services had not been raised in the Equality and Rights Impact Assessment, nor had they been taken into account in any other part of the process.

Procurement decisions are being wrongly presented as black and white, with the phrase ‘EU legislation’ being used to intimidate people out of arguing for an alternative. But EU procurement legislation does specify that contracting authorities may take into account factors such as the need to ensure continuity, specific needs of different categories of users, and the involvement and empowerment of users.  Aside from this, EU legislation is broad, it has social as well as economic dimensions and compliance with procurement law is not to be allowed to hinder social justice and protection.

The local communities in question objected to what was being taken from them. In one of the three areas over 500 people signed a petition in the space of a week. Signatories included Richard Simpson MSP (a psychiatrist with a history working within addiction medicine), as well as many service users and family members.

One person commented:

“A community service should be exactly that, something that has grown up in the local community. What the decision makers don’t seem to appreciate is that when we are not well, we struggle with change, familiarity and consistency keeps us well, it is important for us to be able to trust the service that we confide in”.

We raised these concerns on 14th December in a deputation to Edinburgh’s Finance and Resource Committee.

We asked that in the rush to avoid the risk of not going to tender, the risks of going to tender were not ignored. The risks to locality working, total place and coproduction, the risks of losing organisations which have grown out of communities in response to their needs, the risks to the relationships carefully built with the third sector and moreover the risks to the very outcomes these services work to achieve for vulnerable people. We asked that in this balancing act, these risks be recognised and given the weight they deserve.  

Also making a deputation was John Budd, a GP speaking on behalf of the Deprivation Interest Group[1] (DIG) – a broader group of GPs working with the most deprived communities. He did not mince his words and spoke of the shock expressed by DIG members about the way in which this decision had been made. Among a range of points he relayed the concerns expressed about both the decision but also the attitudes it displays about the Council’s approach to partnership working.

He said:

“I would suggest that you are putting the goodwill and faith of GPs at risk through this decision. And certainly they will think long and hard before they commit their time and efforts into engaging in a process that seems so easily undermined. Now I have never had a response from GPs like that before”.

In the end, it seems that the points made were not deemed sufficient for the Council to admit that they had made a mistake. With the exception of Green councillor Gavin Corbett, whose amendment was not seconded, councillors stood firmly together behind the decisions already made. The Council’s main point of rebuttal seemed to be that coproduction does not mean co-delivery, and this is entirely accepted by all involved.

Surely though this is not what coproduction looks like either? Working in partnership with small organisations understood as being ‘not equipped to handle a full tender process’ to the point where their expertise and local knowledge has been downloaded. Whereupon a procurement process is implemented which firstly cannot take into account their (apparently valuable) local knowledge and secondly which was identified in advance as being likely to exclude them from future business. This is not the griping of one organisation which lost a contract. It simply illustrates that a rigid insistence on competitive tenders will systematically wipe out the diversity of service providers, and favour large organisations which write slick tenders.

It is very disappointing that the contradictions of this process were not fully acknowledged. In the struggle to find a balance between coproduction and competitive tender, coproduction has undoubtedly lost this match and made casualties of NEDAC, CHAI and Castle Project (and possibly the goodwill of GPs to boot). I would like to use this opportunity to recognise the immensely valuable work these organisations have delivered for the communities of Edinburgh.

It’s a new year and so we will look ahead. We have an offer from the Council to participate in a review of these issues, as well as new guidance due from Scottish Government. At EVOC we hope to use the lessons learnt here to work with partners to show what coproduction should look like, improve the way decisions are made, and ultimately the outcomes for the people of Edinburgh.

Watch the 14th December webcast here.

[1] John Budd is also a board member of NEDAC, and he stated this during his deputation but offered evidence of broad concern expressed by DIG members and other GPs.

Highland Council

Agenda – 10th March 2016

Proposal to Establish a Commission on Highland Democracy

Background

1.1 The Highland Council has taken a keen interest in the work of the Commission on Strengthening Local Democracy and the report it published in 2014: ‘Effective Democracy: Reconnecting with Communities’ . The Council debated the report at the Council meetings on 30th October 2014 and 12th March 2015.

1.2 The report contained 25 recommendations. They are appended. Most require consideration nationally (some now feature in the Community Empowerment legislation) and others are aimed at local government and Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs). For local government it is recommended that Councils revisit their scheme of decentralisation and adopt a process of participatory budgeting. For CPPs it is recommended that CPPs work with communities to design and implement a clear empowerment scheme and that they develop an approach to community scrutiny to complement existing arrangements.

1.3 Importantly the Commission saw its work as the start of a process and called for new conversations to rebuild democracy, and for that to bring in many voices and perspectives ‘..to come together to learn, challenge, and explore inspiring ideas. To be effective that must be genuinely inclusive of communities of interest and place, and with cross party buy in.’ (p37) The Commission sees the work required as a long term endeavour, over a 10 to 15 year period and called for new democratic experiments across Scotland.

1.4 From March to December 2015 strengthening local democracy has been raised at every Council meeting. In October 2015 Members agreed a localism action plan that includes:

 • The establishment of seven new local committees with new and emerging local powersi . They will all have met for the first time by the time of the Council meeting in March 2016.

• New joint work with partners to develop local community planning arrangements.

 • Trialling participatory budgeting (PB) in several locations. By the end of March 2016 PB will have taken place using ward discretionary budgets in Lochaber, Caithness and Nairn, with events being planned for Sutherland, Skye, Inverness West and possibly Badenoch and Strathspey. A masterclass for Members is scheduled for the afternoon of 24th March 2016.

• Establishing a strategic Committee for Communities and Partnerships with a remit that includes overseeing the approach to implementing the new duties on the Council arising from the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act, 2015.

• A programme of work to implement the Act including how to respond well to participation requests from community bodies and supporting asset transfers to community organisations.

• Developing transformation projects that support community participation in service delivery.

 • The development of a training programme for staff, partners and Members to support local community planning and new public participation methods.

 • Campaigning activity that seeks further devolution of power to Highland including providing views on a proposed Islands Bill, Scotland Bill and Land Reform Bill and supporting the Seven Cities Strategy and City/Region Deal.

1.5 At the December 2015 Council meeting the first revisions to the Scheme of Delegation were agreed and Members noted that a proposal for a Highland Commission on Democracy would be brought back for consideration.

 1.6 All of these actions support the commitments in the Highland First Programme to strengthen local democracy, empower communities including in the running of services and develop local community planning.

1.7 The Highland Community Planning Partnership also has a commitment to engage in dialogue with communities in order to empower them to participate in service planning and delivery. It has new duties arising from the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 to involve people and communities in decisions affecting them.

1.8 It is worth noting that there is appetite among the Highland public for greater involvement in decisions that affect them. In 2014 the results from the Council’s Citizens’ Panel showed that:

• 77% were interested in the democratic process;

 • 69% would like to be involved in decisions-making in their area or in the country; and

• 48% agreed that every citizen should get involved in democracy if it is to work properly However the survey also showed that:

• only 20% agree that the Council involves people in how it spends money; and

• only 18% feel they have any influence over decision-making in their local area.

2. Proposal for a Commission on Highland Democracy

2.1 It is proposed that the Highland Commission would follow up the national Commission’s recommendation to continue conversations locally about the kind of democracy we want to have in the Highlands. This could include gathering a wide range of views from communities, community councils and community organisations on how best to enable public participation in decisions about public services and how to encourage good democratic practise. It could help to inform the development of the Council’s localism action plan and generate increased public interest and turnout in elections.

 2.2 The questions the Commission could pose might include:

 1. Are the current and new arrangements the best arrangements for community choice and voice in Council decision-making and, if not, what alternatives would communities wish to see?

2. What is engagement like with other public bodies and do communities seek to engage differently with them?

3. Specifically, if change is necessary, is it to the spatial scale and empowerment of local decision making; is it about making the process more accessible and “user friendly” to communities; is it about ensuring no-one is excluded; is it about attitudes, behaviour and practice; or is it about other factors (such as financial constraint)?

4. Do communities feel well supported to participate, and do they feel that their participation would actually have an impact? If not, what support and facilitation would be necessary to give communities the confidence that participation is possible and worthwhile?

5. Do communities want to be more directly involved in the running of local facilities and public services and, if so, what sort of involvement do they want and what sort of support do they need?

6. More broadly, what can we learn from research and international evidence on areas similar to the Highlands about innovative and effective models for decentralisation, public participation and community empowerment?

2.3 The views gathered on these questions could offer insight not only to the Council in how it should operate but also to others, including Community Councils, our community planning partners (public bodies and third sector organisations) and potentially influence policy at a national level. The Council has an ambition to be at the forefront of bringing democracy closer to communities and the Commission would support this aim.

2.4 Following the example of the Commission nationally it is proposed that up to 15 Commissioners with a range of perspectives would be appointed to explore these issues with communities across the Highlands. These would not have to be paid positions.

2.5 The Council Leader has engaged Rory Mair CBE, the former Chief Executive of Cosla and resident of the Highlands, to develop the Commission proposals further. As part of this he will liaise with Group Leaders to discuss a range of issues around the establishment of the Commission, including the identification of potential Commissioners. He will also engage with external stakeholders, especially community planning partners.

2.6 A number of key issues will be explored in the course of this engagement, including:

• What should the provenance of the Commission be and who would it report to?

• How independent should the Commission be, or need to be?

• How should the Commission’s proposals inform the Council’s new design work?

• How to involve our community planning partners in supporting and engaging with the Commission, potentially to affecting their current practice too?

• Would the Scottish Government be interested in supporting it?

• Are there other issues for the Commission to explore?

• Are there areas that should be out of scope for consideration?

 • How would Commissioners be selected and to reflect diversity?

• How should the Commission be resourced?

2.7 A further report providing members with an update on progress will be brought to Council in May.

Author: The Equality Trust

Dates of Screenings around the country

Community Screenings

If you can’t see a screening of The Divide near you, then we can help you organise your own!

We charge £150 + VAT for private or community screenings, slightly more for festivals/political groups or workplace screenings depending on audience size.

This fee goes towards recouping the costs of production, and to pay for the distribution of the film as we are independent producers and not bankrolled by a big studio or distribution company.

The fastest and easiest way to set up your screening is to click the link here and fill out the form with all the details about the screening.

We also have a ‘How To’ document which you can download here, which gives you a step by step guide on how to organise your screening of ‘The Divide.

Alternatively, if you can’t fill out the form or have any questions please do email screenings@dartmouthfilms.com with The Divide in the subject line.

Once you have paid for your screening, we will send you a copy of the The Divide in the post and you are ready to go!

Any money you make from your screening is yours to keep. We suggest an entrance charge, however small, to reflect the value of the film and the labour involved in making it.

By booking your screening after our official release date (April 2016), we can assist with helping promote your screening by advertising it on our website, Facebook and in our newsletters.

We can also help to arrange a Q&A with the filmmakers.

This will incur extra costs however, which may include travel expenses.

If you’d like to know more about acquiring a license, then please email screenings@dartmouthfilms.com

Author: Community Land Scotland

As part of a Global Call to Action, a campaign to double the global area of land legally recognised as owned or controlled by indigenous peoples and communities by 2020, an inspiring new short film about the community buyout on the Isle of Eigg has been released.

The film covers the story of Sarah Boden, who has returned to Eigg after leaving the island to work as a music journalist in London and features Maggie Fyffe of the Eigg Heritage Trust and Community Land Scotland’s very own Peter Peacock.

Over 300 organisations are signed up to the Global Call to Action.

Author: Scottish Government

Easy read guide to the consultation

Community ownership or control of land and buildings can make a major contribution to empowering communities.  It helps to provide stability and a sustainable base from which a community organisation can develop its activities, and can create a stronger sense of community identity, cohesion and involvement.

Part 5 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 provides a right for community bodies to request the transfer of land and buildings belonging to public authorities. The Act sets out a framework for the asset transfer scheme and gives the Scottish Ministers powers to make regulations to fill in the detail of the procedures to be followed.  This paper seeks views on draft regulations for making and responding to requests, for review or appeal of decisions, and on registers of land.  It also provides an indication of guidance and best practice to help relevant authorities develop or update their procedures.

Why We Are Consulting

It is important that we create a system for asset transfer that will work for everyone involved and all types of request. We have worked with a Steering Group of stakeholders with experience of asset transfer, from public authorities and community organisations, to develop these draft regulations.  We are now seeking wider views on the proposed procedures from relevant authorities, who will be required to implement them, and community bodies who may wish to use them.

Online survey

Author: Catriona Stewart, Evening Times

FIFTEEN years ago today campaigners entered Govanhill Baths for what would turn into the longest occupation of a civic building in British history.

To mark the milestone, the Govanhill Baths Community Trust is launching a new multimedia exhibition – The Children of the Occupation.

And activists are invited to bring along their own memories from the occupation to add to the Baths’s growing archive.

There were many children who were part of the campaign – on the picket line, at the gala day, on marches and demonstrations.

At the exhibition launch there will be repeated screenings of documentary United We Will Swim… Again.

Visitors will be taken to see the largest swimming pool and guides will be explaining plans for the baths to reopen in 2018.

As well as celebrating the children of the occupation, organisers will be recruiting people to help raise the final £200,000 for the renovation in a sponsored swim campaign I am a Govanhill Swimmer.

As previously told in the Evening Times, the scheme asks people to take part in an international sponsored swim at their own pace.

No matter whether they are at Troon beach or Bondi Beach, people are asked to get involved – and send in a selfie with their written pledge.

Musician Tom Urie has already taken part by sending in his selfie and others have arrived from as far away as New Zealand.

The Govanhill Baths Community Trust has sourced £4million to reopen the pool but still needs a final push to raise the remaining cash.

Last year the Trust was gifted £500,000 apiece from Historic Environment Scotland and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Govanhill Baths was closed 14 years ago by Glasgow City Council, despite fierce opposition from the local community, including the occupation of the building.

After forming in 2003, the Trust has been working to reopen the venue as a wellbeing centre.

Under the new plans there would be a swimming pool and Turkish Baths, the former steamie turned into a theatre venue and community events and arts space with a cafe for local people.

Author: David Ross, The Herald

For generations people in towns and cities across Europe, about now would be starting to think about heading to their cabins out in the woods or countryside.

They would leave their daily lives behind, so they could open their wooden doors to nature each morning, and be the better refreshed for it. They have few Scottish counterparts today, although between the world wars many working people escaped Scottish cities and built their own huts in the countryside.

It has been estimated that one in 12 Swedes, one in 18 Finns and one in 33 Danes can claim a rural bolthole.Meanwhile more than half the Norwegian population has access to such a rural hut or a ‘hytte’.

However the last major survey 16 years ago found Scotland, with a slightly larger population, had fewer than 700 holiday huts or DIY cabins left, most famously those at Carbeth near the Campsie Fells. But things are about to change.

The campaign to give the public greater freedom to erect huts in rural areas with a target of 1,000, has made significant progress.

The idea of a hut has been written into Scottish planning policy, and those behind Reforesting Scotland’s ‘Thousand Huts’ campaign last month launched a new huts planning guide at Holyrood last month, with Richard Lochhead Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment in attendance. He said he very much welcomed the publication of the guide “which I hope will provide an important opportunity for many more people in Scotland to enjoy the recreational benefits associated with huts and hutting.”

But as yet there is still no official route by which to build such structures. Further changes have to be made.

Currently, if you want permission to build a simple hut with sleeping accommodation you have to comply with the same building regulations as for building a house.

The Scottish Government has proposed an amendment which would make hut building simpler and more affordable by exempting huts from most building regulations. The responses to the consultation on this move, have just been published showing considerable support. This has been welcomed by Karen Grant, of Reforesting Scotland’s Thousand Huts campaign.

She said: “It’s very encouraging to see that across Scotland’s local authorities, the responses to the Scottish Government’s proposals to exempt huts from building regulations are overwhelmingly positive. The consultation responses also show endorsement of the proposals by major organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. We’re optimistic that this broad support from key stakeholders will help move us towards a regulatory framework for huts which is appropriately light-touch for these simple, low-impact buildings.”

However there are still issues to be resolved. Not least whether a “raised floor or platform” should be allowed for sleeping. This is still under discussion.

Bernard Planterose raised it in his submission. He runs a business North Woods Construction Ltd in Wester Ross which makes huts and cabins, having lived in such informal structures on and off for 20 years.

He said “The building standards people are just trying to protect the public from danger which is, after all, their statutory function and this is commendable. However perhaps they are being a bit too careful when it comes to sleeping platforms.They are common in the whole hutting and bothy tradition.

“I am a veteran cabin user and I try to to help others realise their hutting dreams. The most important thing about huts is that they allow people to stay out in the wilds, almost under the stars, in safety if not comfort. A hut is a modest bolthole rather than a second home and can play a positive role in connecting people with the natural environment ”  

He said that he was pleased with the attitude of the Scottish Government and officials: “They are working as hard as they can to ensure that building standards catch up with the changes to planning policy accommodating huts. But we still have a wee bit to go.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The consultation responses will be analysed over the coming weeks to identify if there should be any adjustments to the emerging policy. It will be for the in-coming government to then establish the next steps for the policy.”

Author: Scottish Government

Our land is our biggest asset and the Scottish Government has set out how best to meet its potential for effective, economic and environmentally sustainable use. The revised Land Use Strategy sets out policies and proposals for the next five years and beyond, ensuring that communities are fully engaged.

‘Getting the best from our land’ is Scotland’s second land use strategy and comes at a time when focus on the way we use land is stronger than ever. The recently passed Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act have paved the way for this revised strategy, which sets out the importance of:

• Management of natural resources with an ecosystems approach to land use

• Partnership activity to bring a range of interests together to consider land use at a local level in both rural and urban areas

• Developing and implementing activities to promote climate friendly farming and crofting

• The relationship between ownership, use and management of land

• Continuing to explore the potential of catchment based approaches for managing land

A wide ranging public consultation highlighted an appetite for establishing a strategic vision for Scotland’s uplands and setting up an urban pilot project for the first time to explore community engagement with land use. These are two of the key actions highlighted in the strategy.

Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Dr Aileen McLeod said:

“Land is a fundamental resource for the nation and we all benefit from a more integrated and strategic approach to land management. Land use is crucial to our economic prosperity as well as how we mitigate and adapt to climate change. With such a precious asset, it is hugely important for us to balance the growing demands on our land and make informed decisions about the way it is managed – Scotland’s revised land use strategy provides the best framework for this.

“New legislation – the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 – demonstrate the dynamic nature of the debate on land in Scotland. Our new Land Use Strategy, ‘Getting the best from our land’, represents a bold and ambitious programme and I look forward to seeing its positive impact on land use in Scotland over the coming years.”