Our Land is an initiative created by Common Weal, Women for Independence, Scottish Land Action Movement, Radical Independence, land reform campaigners Andy Wightman and Lesley Riddoch. Administrative help has been volunteered by Laura-May Kennedy of Common Weal Angus.

“Our Land aims to highlight the problems of dereliction in cities and emptiness in the countryside that flow from an elitist system of land ownership that allows a handful of individuals, quangos, insurance companies and trusts based in offshore tax havens to dictate the price, availability and use of land in Scotland – from the remotest islands to the busiest city centres. We will have actions and events across Scotland in the last two weeks of August to illustrate the social problems that stem from land shortage and to showcase the benefits of more diverse ownership and more community control.” Lesley Riddoch

 Why Land Reform Matters

The quasi feudal way land is owned in Scotland affects rural and urban communities. 50% of private land is owned by 432 people, from large sporting estates to empty buildings and derelict land in our towns and cities. It affects everyday lives by pushing up the cost of housing — 40-50% of new build costs are the cost of land. That is very different in most other European nations. The inability to buy means long term residents are turned into short term tenants with very little security or ability to plan or improve their homes — in urban and rural areas. In large parts of the Scottish countryside locals know they will never, ever be able to buy land for a business, community development, affordable housing for their own children or modest weekend hut.

Yet the owners of these sporting estate don’t currently even pay business rates. In cities, the high cost of land – because of its scarcity — encourages dereliction and land or buildings kept vacant for years or decades as a kind of ‘land bank.’ All of this damages Scotland’s claims to social fairness because we are one of the few countries on earth without a fair and progressive form of land taxation and no

transparency of ownership.

Currently only 26% of land is registered and many landowners are based outside of Scotland for tax avoidance purposes. A land reform bill is being introduced to Holyrood this summer but it’s very modest provisions have already been dismissed

as “a Mugabe style land raid” by representatives of Scotland’s large landowners. Political consensus tends to accommodate the noisiest interests – so we think it’s time supporters of land reform made their voices heard and pinpointed some of the biggest problems arising from such a tiny concentration of landowners (private and public) as well as some of the successes of alternative ownership patterns.

The Campaign

• Activities will run for the last two weeks inAugust, with the bulk taking place over the weekend of 29/30th August.

• Events will be held across Scotland – cities and countryside, mainland and islands, on land and beside rivers.

• We’d like your help to post 1000 Our Land signs across Scotland – beside empty land or vacant buildings the wider community needs to use. Signs will be available for you to erect or (legally) attach and we’d encourage you to take selfies/group photos by your chosen places and post them on Twitter using the hashtag #OurLand or post on the Our Land Facebook page https://www.facebook. com/groups/999295353466699/ from the “Glorious Twelfth” (August 12th) onwards.

Take as many as you can.

• We would also love to hear the story of why you have chosen a particular building or piece of land. A bit of research may be necessary and Andy Wightman’s website

www.whoownsscotland.org.uk is a useful tool. You can subscribe to this site for £5

per month or £10 for a year. There will be a discount code available for the unwaged. But for everyone else it is a great way to support Andy who has been a long time campaigner for land reform in Scotland.

To give you some ideas here is a list of events that are already being proposed

• Gathering/festival at Abriachan

• Paddle protest by sea kayakers

• Walk to the deserted township of Grulin, Trotternish, Skye.

• Flash mob and bike ride on an estate in Duns

• Mass picnic on disputed/derelict land in Angus.

• A salmon or brown trout fish has been discussed because most of our great rivers are timeshared into the next century and inaccessible to local people. Some folk want to test the authorities’ appetite for arresting folk who want to demonstrate how exclusive the ownership of rivers has become. Folk may get arrested or the whole action might shame the police and landowners into letting folk fish.

• Members of all political parties are welcome as Our Land supporters – but we didn’t want the campaign to be organised by any single political party. This is a grassroots campaign deploying networks established during the indyref to reach out to Labour and Lib Dem supporters of land reform. We are a group of volunteers, so please help us keep the workload manageable by sending updates to Laura-May.

Contacts –

If you have questions do contact;

Common Weal – katie@common.scot

Women for Indy – info@womenforindependence.org

Our Land admin – lauramay77uk@yahoo.co.uk 

To read more about Our Land click here

Sutton Coldfield will have a new Town Council with powers handed down from Birmingham following a huge referendum yes vote.

Almost 70 per cent of those who voted in the postal referendum chose to set up a directly elected Town Council with greater independence from Birmingham.

There was a strong turnout of 39.6 per cent of residents in the Royal Town, which is higher than in many local elections.

And now Birmingham City Council bosses have agreed that they will vote to legally establish the new organisation in September and agree a timetable for elections and the handover of responsibilities.

And council leader Sir Albert Bore said that the implications could be far reaching if other parts of the city decided they too want to have their own local councils.

A Town Council, will take on responsibility for a range of local services and charge households an average of about £50 per year on their council tax to run them. Birmingham will retain powers over major policy areas such as transport, planning, social care and housing – although the new council can be consulted over policy.

While critics have said that the new Council will be costly and only have responsbility for parks, community centres and litter collections, campaigners say the huge show of support means there is a strong case for more powers or influence, such as over planning applications, to be passed on from Birmingham City Council.

Campaigner Ken Rushton, who chairs the group which raised a 10,000 name petition and triggered th e vote, said: “We’re very pleased with the show of support. It is a clear sign from residents that they want to see change in the way our town is run.

“The reason we wanted this is that Sutton Coldfield is not getting any funding and have decided that we will have to do ourselves.”

He called on everyone with an interest in supporting Sutton Coldfield to help them get on with setting up the Town Council and making it work.

 Chairman of the Sutton Town Council Referendum Group Ken Rushton (fourth left) and Coun Rob Pocock (third left) who is supporting campaign

Birmingham council leader Sir Albert Bore (Lab, Ladywood) said: “This is a clear cut result and the turnout in the ballot was fairly high. That decision could have an impact beyond Sutton Coldfield.”

He added that with other constitutional changes underway in the wake of last year’s Kerslake review of the council ‘this is a watershed moment in the way that Birmingham is governed’.

Chairman of the council’s Sutton Coldfield district committee Anne Underwood (Con, Sutton Four Oaks) said: “We are delighted with the turnout of 70 per cent at the ballot that reflects the interest our residents have always shown in the governance of the Royal Town. The result is a resounding Yes and we would assure residents that we will support its establishment and take an active part in ensuring that it makes a difference for the residents of Sutton Coldfield.”

And Lib Dem group leader Paul Tilsley (Sheldon) said he hoped residents in other neighbourhoods and districts might also consider town councils. “The ballot showed conclusively that the residents want devolved local democracy and are prepared to contribute £1 per week for the creation of the Town Council.”

Full result

Number of eligible voters – 75,431

Total number of votes cast – 29,908

Turnout – 39.6%

Number of votes found to be invalid – 57

Total number of valid votes counted – 29,851

Number voting YES – 20,871 (69.9%)

Number voting NO – 8,980 (30.1%)

Author: South Seeds

Introduction to Energy Snapshot for full report click here 

South Seeds is a community led charity based in the south of Glasgow. We work in partnership with residents and local organisations to help improve the look and feel of the Southside of Glasgow. Our main effort goes into helping local residents tackle climate change by taking practical action such as improving home energy efficiency, cutting energy bills and tackling fuel poverty. Alongside this we work with local residents to bring underused land back into use as both gardens and food growing areas. As one newspaper described it, we’re “tackling Glasgow’s substandard homes with peas, beetroot and thermal imaging“.

 In 2012 South Seeds received an award from the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund to reduce the consumption of carbon in Govanhill, Crosshill, Queen’s Park and Strathbungo here in the southside. We know that the overall energy use of a household depends on the physical fabric of the dwelling plus the behaviour of those living there. This report marks a starting point for our work to identify where we need to focus our efforts by drawing out from background data the types of buildings, housing condition and tenure in our project area and pulling this all into a single source: our Carbon Savings Map.

Here’s what it tells us: most of the housing stock we’re looking to improve is Victorian, built at a time when coal mines were being worked underneath the streets we still walk down. Time and circumstance have not always been kind to our area, and make action to cut energy use more difficult. Many of the buildings are rated by the Scottish Index of Multiple Depravation as in poor condition. We have a lot of Victorian sandstone tenements in the area which suffer from being in a poor state of repair, and some blocks of tenements in the project area have the highest percentage of private lets in the whole of Scotland. However, we have a good proportion of housing maintained by registered social landlords which is in good condition, and a programme of repair and regeneration work which is slowly but surely making its mark here.

This report first sets out some essential information about our project area, then we map out the main features of our area, and then examine the main housing types we will be working in, and what opportunities exist across our area for cutting energy use and bringing local land back into more productive use.

One final point before we begin: one thing the map doesn’t show, but we know will be critical to our success, is the fact that we have local residents looking for solutions to help them cut energy bills and energy use, and we have a strong network of community groups, housing associations and agencies ready to help us in this work. We will be using this Map to guide us in this work, and while we know that we have a number of challenges to overcome, we also know that we are part of a community up for the task.

Author: Oliver Wagner, Kurt Berlo

To read a copy of the full text click here  

After a wave of privatizations in the end of the 1990s, the electrical power supply of many municipalities in Germany has been returned into public hands. Many municipalities discover chances and possibilities for local action, which arise with remunicipalisation. The local policy-makers realize that remunicipalisation offers the opportunity of implementing an independent energy policy at local level which is critical in creating a transformation to a sustainable energy system based on energy efficiency and renewable energies. The municipal ownership allows a strong governance towards more political influence in the local energy market. In addition, there is a clear opinion of the population: 81 % of citizens surveyed say they trust their local municipal utility, compared to only 26 % who say they trust corporations (VKU-Survey, 2010). In summary, there are many good reasons for local politicians to establish their own municipal utilities. The payback for municipalities is tangible when the local utility focuses on reliably providing affordable energy rather than on increasing its returns. The new municipal power utilities stimulate competition and contribute to the renewal / restructuring of the traditional energy market. The founding of 72 municipal utilities since 2005 leads us to ask for the reasons. The study reviews the German trend towards municipal ownership of local utilities, assessing their performance based on 10 targets related to the energy transition, climate protection, and the local economic impact:

1. Achieving environmental objectives and organization of the local “Energiewende”.

2. Higher local added value.

3. Harnessing tax regulations for improving municipal services.

4. Improving the income situation of the city.

5. Democratization of supply and stronger orientation towards the common good (public value).

6. Creating and protecting good jobs.

7. Acting in social responsibility in energy supply.

8. Expansion of eco-efficient energy services.

9. Harnessing customer relations and public image.

10. Materialising synergies with other sectors. Based on expert opinions, the study finds out that the likelihood of these targets being reached is “high to very high”. The aim of this article is to provide a compact and basic understanding of the possible reasons for the phenomenon of remunicipalisation. 

Author: Community Development Foundation

Trust in Democracy: How community groups bridge the gap between people and politics

Our latest research finds that community groups hold the key to rebuilding trust in politics and revitalising democracy.

About Trust in Democracy

Trust and engagement with UK politics are at an all time low. People are disconnected from remote national political structures, feeling they have little influence over them. Our research finds that only 25% of people “trust” Parliament, but 50% trust the overall democratic process.

How can we bridge the divide?

We found trust improves at a local level – with over half of people trusting their local MPs and councillors. The more community based the picture becomes, the better – 93% trust other people in their local area.

Community activity helps bridge the gap by giving people meaningful opportunities to get involved in things that matter to them. Perceptions of influence increase for those involved in their community. Volunteers are 46% more likely to feel they have an effect locally.

We surveyed hundreds of community organisations and a third of them said that their community involvement led onto more political roles, such as a councillor, school governor, or magistrate. One even went on to become a Deputy Mayor.

How can the new Government rebuild trust?

So we are calling on government to encourage and enable voluntary work for those not already involved, recognising and supporting the powerful role community groups have in building trust. The Government’s commitment to enabling more volunteering through employers could be a real force for change towards this aspiration, especially if it means more volunteering at a very local level.

Only then can we bridge the divide between people and politics – and start rebuilding trust in democracy.

How the research was conducted

Trust in democracy: how community groups bridge the gap between people and politics is a research report based on mixed research methods, undertaken by the Research Team at CDF.

The research methods comprised of three main strands:

•             We ran an online survey of groups and individuals from the community sector who receive CDF’s monthly newsletters. The survey was completed by 593 respondents.

•             We commissioned Coventry University to analyse data from the Community Life Survey 2012-13.

•             We conducted interviews with six individuals whose community involvement led to more formal roles in local civic activity.

Download the report

Download the report in full: Trust in Democracy: how community groups bridge the gap between people and politics

•             Download the Trust in Democracy summary document

Author: SAGS

FUTURE generations of growers will be able to feed their families from their own veg patches after the standard size of an allotment was protected by law.

Green fingered enthusiasts will continue to be offered a 250 square metres (820 sq ft) plot after a hard-fought campaign by allotment holders.

Members of the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society celebrated after ministers accepted last minute changes to new legislation.

They had feared the Scottish Government’s Community Empowerment Bill would spell the end of the standard plot by encouraging local authorities to offer smaller areas in order to reduce lengthy waiting lists.

But ministers accepted a series of changes shortly before a final vote on the Bill.

The campaign’s Mark Thirgood said: “We have come a long way, and the revised Bill recognises the unique nature of Scotland’s allotments and the contribution they make to food policy, health and well-being, social justice, CO2 emissions reduction and enhancing the natural environment.

“It should serve Scotland’s allotment community well going forward.”

He added: “We would like to thank the Scottish Government for supporting legislation that recognises the importance of allotments in the modern world.”

The Community Empowerment Bill defines the standard plot as 250 square metres (820 sq ft), a size accepted for the past 50 years.

However it allows people to request a smaller patch if that is too big for them to manage.

The new laws also oblige councils to “take reasonable steps” to increase the amount of land available for allotments if people face a five year wait or if the number waiting exceeds 50 per cent of a local authorities total plots.

Councils will also have to charge a fair rent and consult ministers before closing an existing allotment site.

The measures give greater protection to allotments in Scotland than the rest of the UK, reversing a position which has allowed 90 per cent of the country’s plots to disappear since the Second World War compared with around half in the rest of the UK.

Before the final vote, ministers accepted changes proposed by opposition MSPs during committee stages of the Bill.

Labour MSP Ken Macintosh said: “We know how beneficial allotments are for our health and wellbeing and I am hopeful that this Bill will make a big difference in meeting the growing demand that exists in Scotland.

“What’s interesting is that it has been the direct involvement of ’empowered’ allotment holders that has rescued this proposed legislation from several potential pitfalls.

“Of course the real test will come when we put the act into practice, will it deliver more allotments, fewer people waiting and more people with a plot of their own.

“If it does we should all thank SAGS for their efforts”.

The new legislation will also extend the existing community right-to-buy scheme to urban areas.

Ministers aim to make it easier for community groups to bring derelict public land and buildings back into use.

It is hoped groups will grow their own food, develop play facilities for young people.

As MSPs debated the Bill, ministers also agreed to launch a consultation on possible future legislation to help football fans play a greater role in running – and potentially owning – their club.

Mr Biagi said: “This bill is a momentous step in our drive to de-centralise decisions and give people a stronger voice in their communities.”

Author: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

UNDERSTANDING EVERYDAY HELP AND SUPPORT

To see report click here

This study examined low-level or everyday help and support and the role it can play in allowing people to lead ‘liveable’ lives. It explored the ways in which the need for (and availability of) such support is shaped by social context, biography and relationships. It also looked at how support actually happens (or not) and how it is sustained over time.

Key points:

 • Small acts of help, support and kindness were often mundane and barely noticed (even by those involved), but had fundamental consequences for individual and community well-being.

 • Although this everyday help was often practical, it could have important emotional consequences, creating opportunities for talk about feelings or simply through physically ‘being there’.

 • The physical characteristics of residential and public spaces shaped everyday help and support by creating and restricting opportunities for engagement and civility. However, the perceived image of places and neighbourhoods also played a role in facilitating or constraining interactions.

 • Individual circumstances, life stage and life events (e.g. parenting, ill health, retirement) created needs for informal help and support, but also ways of potentially meeting those needs.

 • Powerful emotions and moral considerations attached to these apparently straightforward acts, particularly notions of reciprocity and who should be considered deserving of help. These surfaced most clearly when rules or expectations about helping or being helped were breached.

 • Many of the perceived risks of helping or being helped related to people’s concerns about their self-image or how others saw them. Strategies and practices to manage these complexities included helping ‘by the by’, and ‘helping the helper’ by accepting some offers of help even when not needed. • Collectively, these acts and relationships of everyday help and support had an ‘infrastructural’ quality. They made possible other aspects of social life, but needed attention, maintenance and repair in their own right

Executive summary of report

Everyday help and support – low-level, ordinary and often routine acts and relationships that help us to manage the practical and emotional challenges of our daily lives – is little noticed, studied or understood. Much of this takes place in the realm of the wholly interpersonal. But there is also a ‘middle layer’, between the interpersonal and the world of formal service provision. This consists of diverse groups, associations and organisations which typically lack any formal remit for help and support but which nevertheless make an important contribution to an overarching ‘infrastructure of kindness’. The main report from the Liveable Lives study focused on experiences of everyday help and support involving family, friends, neighbours, acquaintances and even strangers. This supplementary paper looks at the related issue of the wide range of local ‘middle layer’ groups, organisations and associations and at the role these play in enabling, sustaining or constraining such relations. Specific settings examined included a supermarket, a library and a group working to create a community garden. The middle layer has an important role to play in creating the conditions for ‘ordinary kindness’ simply by encouraging social interaction. Groups, organisations and associations in this realm draw people together through shared interest or purpose; they provide spaces within which interaction can happen, and sometimes actively facilitate access to those spaces. As such, they serve as junction boxes, connecting diverse strands of community and social networks. But spaces and opportunities in this layer are experienced differently by different people and in different social and economic contexts. For example, the research suggests that those from middle class, professional backgrounds may feel more confident about engaging with self-organised groups and associations, such as ramblers, book groups or other interest-based activity. Those in a predominantly working class area like Maryhill can set greater store by known, informal connections; and there is a greater role for ‘provided’ spaces and activities, such as those based in local community centres. While there may be an apparent fit between the not-for-profit sector (such as the library) and notions of everyday help and support, ‘ordinary kindnesses’ are evident in 4 corporate or commercial settings too – whether a supermarket, café or corner shop. The significance of all these middle layer settings varies from one community to another, depending on what other facilities are available and the extent to which people live highly local or more geographically extended lives. Within the more formal organisational settings of the middle layer, it is often when individuals transcend their formal or scripted roles that there is the greatest scope for small acts and relationships of help and support to emerge. While this might carry some risks for organisations – if for example, staff in a library or supermarket are distracted from the core tasks of lending books or selling groceries – it can also be seen as congruent with good customer service and as part of what attracts people to those particular settings in the first place. Groups, organisations and associations at this level can also learn something from the way that everyday help and support is navigated and negotiated between individuals – for example, about the difficulty that people have in acknowledging vulnerability and asking for help; the way that help and support often happens most easily ‘in passing’; and the scope to derive benefits that are mutual from participation and engagement in community settings. A sense of achievement and social connection reported by members of the community garden is an example here.

Author: Community Energy Scotland

Statement from Community Energy Scotland   

We join with Scottish Renewables and the Scottish Government in condemning this move, which places thousands of jobs in Scotland at risk. The arguments made by the UK Govt against wind are that it is too expensive, yet it’s far cheaper than the offshore wind and nuclear CfD strike prices which continue to be backed.

We are deeply concerned about the impact that the ROC cut will have on community wind projects. Westminster has not recognised that there are community projects of this scale out there, despite the strong examples we have in projects like the 9MW Point and Sandwick scheme, shortly to be commissioned. Without ROC support projects of this size would not be viable, and the competitive auction process of CfDs is not an economically viable prospect for wind projects around 5-15MW. If the UK Government does not reverse this decision, it is essential that there are additional grace periods put in place for community groups, regardless of whether they have yet secured grid, planning consent or option agreements.

CES is also particularly concerned about the hints that FiTs will be scrapped for onshore wind later this year. We urge the UK Govt to end this uncertainty by publishing their proposals for the future of ROCs, FiTs and CfDs within the next week, as this speculation and delay is crippling investment decisions.

If wind FiTs are to be scrapped, the proposed exemption for community projects is essential. CES was instrumental in persuading DECC to amend their narrow definition of a community group to ensure that it included charities and their wholly-owned trading subsidiaries; if we hadn’t secured this then the majority of new community wind projects being developed in Scotland might have found themselves ineligible. We believe that this definition should be extended to include partnership projects between community groups and charities that would separately be eligible, such as at Hoprigshiels.

In order to ensure that community groups aren’t restricted in their aspirations, and to ensure a continuation of support to larger schemes under development such as the 6.9MW Fyne Futures project, the FiT scheme should be extended from the current 5MW up to 15MW. A move to increase the FiT scheme from 5-10MW was proposed then rejected by the last Government on the grounds of ‘unjustified cost’, but the early closure of the ROC scheme is a significant moving of the goalposts. A further FiT band from 5-15MW, set at the current equivalent ROC rate, would help secure planned and future developments by communities, charities and housing associations in Scotland.

Author: The Guardian

Citizen Income is the best solution to the injustices of our current tax and benefit system; but as Abba Eban once said, “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.” So, it may be some time before we are ready to recognise the folly of our current system and the wickedness of what the current Government is trying to pass off as ‘welfare reform’. However the fact that the Green Party has included the idea of Citizen Income in its 2015 manifesto is certainly a hopeful sign.

In essence the idea is very simple: replace the current mess of benefits, tax credits and allowances with one simple system where each individual receives an unconditional income. It is like getting £200 every time you pass Go.

This idea seems radical to some, impossible to others, but its benefits could be enormous. The Centre for Welfare Reform is committed to promoting Citizen Income and so, in order to encourage debate I thought I’d provide a summary of its main benefits. Here are my top twenty reasons to love Citizen Income.

1. Justice – Each of us has a basic right to exist. Citizen Income gives each of us enough to live on.

2. To Hell with Poverty – Citizen Income directly attacks poverty, by establishing the highest feasible minimum income.

3. Simple – The current benefit system is so complex that about £17 billion goes unclaimed because people don’t know what they are entitled to receive.

4. Affordable – The funding necessary for Citizen income is already being spent on benefits, pensions, tax credits or hidden inside tax allowances.

5. Cheap – The current system is incredibly complex and expensive to administer.

6. Rational – The current system is so complex that even the people running it don’t understand it. The DWP even claimed it was impossible to calculate the impact of their policy changes on disabled people. This makes rational policy-making impossible.

7. Universal – We all need income security and we all need to remember that we are one community – bound together by common rights and duties.

8. Respectful – The current system is shaming for people who need benefits, damaging human dignity and also increasing social division.

9. Liberating – Citizen Income frees people from a whole range of poverty traps that make it harder for people to earn, save, form a family or take risks. Strong foundations enable people to do more for themselves and others.

10. Adaptable – Citizen income can be adjusted to transparently reflect the differences in age or disability that may be relevant to income.

11. Secure – Ultimately the only real securities on earth are the ones we give each other. Citizen Income commits us to work together to ensure everyone has their basic needs secured.

12. Living Wage – Better wages will come when people are not forced by fear and destitution into the labour market.

13. Family – Giving a citizen income to each parent and recognising the work of parents who care for their children or other relatives makes for strong families.

14. Community – Citizen Income makes it easier for people to contribute to their communities in ways that make sense. Volunteering, neighbourliness and community development all become easier.

15. Capacity – In order to win a modest increase in income many disabled people are forced through pointless or harmful hoops – all to prove they ‘cannot work’. This whole inept system could be swept away.

16. Business – Currently Government tries to increase employment by a schemes and incentives which merely increase bureaucracy and reduce efficiency. Citizen Income lets people set up their own business or strike their own deals with employers.

17. Creative – Too many people are not making the most of their skills and gifts for fear of losing a job they hate. Citizen Income could unleash human creativity.

18. Sustainable – The fundamental failure of the current economic system is that it creates and distributes new money via banks through the creation of debt. Citizen Income is democratic Keynesianism – money goes to people, not banks.

19. Global – There is a global movement for Citizen Income which will also help restore global justice and enable the spread of effective human rights around the world.

20. Scrap the DWP – Integrating the tax and benefit system means that we can finally close down the worst Government department in Whitehall – the Department of Work and Pensions.

In time Citizen income will seems as natural and right as the NHS or a free school education. It is an idea whose time has come and anyone interested in making society better must pay it attention.

Author: Andy Wightman

There is a lot of complete nonsense being spun in the media today about the alleged refusal of Scotland to contribute to the financial support of the Royal family. Front page splashes on the Times and the Telegraph has been gleefully picked up by broadcasters and others. The population  has now been led to believe that Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government are somehow snubbing the Queen and refusing to pay a fair share of the costs of maintaining her in the style to which she is accustomed,

We have been here before.

Last December, the journalist Hamish Macdonnell spun stories in the Daily Mail and the Spectator. I debunked them here.

So what are the facts?

The Crown Estate is public land and the Crown Estate Commissioners a statutory corporation responsible for managing the Crown Estate. The net revenues from the Crown Estate are public revenues which are currently paid to HM Treasury.

The Royal Family is financed by through a Sovereign Grant established under the Sovereign Grant Act 2011. Section 1 of the Act provides that the Grant is paid by the Treasury each year from funds voted by Parliament (the UK Parliament).

The Scottish Government has no responsibility whatsoever to provide any funding for the Royal Family since it is a reserved matter. Scottish taxpayers pay towards the Sovereign Grant in the same way as they contribute to all areas of reserved expenditure.

The sum of money comprising the Grant is calculated by reference to the net surplus revenue paid to the Treasury by the Crown Estate Commissioners. The first step in the calculation (Section 6 of the Act) is to calculate 15% of the revenue in the financial year two years prior.

The money is not paid directly from the net Crown Estate revenues. That would be illegal. The Crown Estate revenues are merely used as a reference point. Other reference points could (and should have) been used.

I suggested at the time the Bill was rushed through Parliament (see here and here) that the profits of the Stilton cheese industry might be a candidate. Ian Davidson MP suggested GDP. George Osborne himself said “I completely accept that I could have brought other mechanisms before the House, but the Crown Estate is a large commercial property company that is run in a pretty conservative way. It is not a bad proxy for how the country and the economy are doing.”

With the proposed devolution of the management and revenues of the Crown Estate in Scotland the net profits remitted to the Treasury will shrink slighty from any given base and thus the 15% will reduce very slightly (Scotland only contributes around 3% of the net revenue).

The UK Parliament and the Treasury are free at any time to alter the formula and the Smith Commission recognised that it might be necessary. Indeed, a statutory review is due in April 2016. The problem they have at the moment is in fact that the Sovereign grant has grown faster than expected due to the London property market and George Osborne and the Royal Trustees are busy negotiating a reduction in the Grant.

The Palace official who briefed the media would, in a more distant age, probably have been taken out and shot. Quite why the Palace wants to pick an entirely unfounded and counter-productive attack on the Scottish Government is not clear.

Meanwhile, confusion reigns at precisely the moment when, with the Scotland Bill being debate in Parliament, we need calm negotiation.

UPDATE 2130

Buckingham Palace has released a statement as follows.

“Sir Alan Reid Keeper of the Privy Purse said today: “Yesterday’s media briefing on the Sovereign Grant report 2014-15 was intended to highlight some of the issues that may arise when the first review of the Sovereign Grant begins in April next year. The comments and observations were about a principle and never intended to be a criticism of Scotland or of the First Minister or to suggest that the First Minister had cast doubt on the continued funding of the Monarchy.

The principle is about what happens if profits from certain Crown Estate assets, such as those in Scotland, are not paid to the Treasury and the impact that may have on the calculation of the Sovereign Grant in future years. This question will form part of next year’s review.

As we made clear at the briefing, Scotland contributes in many ways to the Treasury’s consolidated fund – out of which the Sovereign Grant is paid. We said explicitly that to imply Scotland would not pay for the Monarchy was simply wrong and we accept unreservedly the assurances of the Scottish Government that the Sovereign Grant will not be cut as a result of devolution of the Crown Estate.”

To read more on matters related to the transfer of the management and revenues of the Crown Estate to Scotland click here