Author: Isabella Kaminski, The Guardian

The River Ouse is on course to be the first river in England to be granted legal rights, as part of a growing movement to bolster protection for nature through the law.

Lewes district council passed a rights of river motion acknowledging the rights of nature as a way of improving the health of local rivers by giving them similar protection to people, and agreed there was “a case to be made for considering our interactions with our local waterways”.

A charter on the river’s rights is now being developed, which will be sent to the council to endorse within the next two years. This is likely to be based on the Universal Declaration of River Rights, which says rivers should have the right to flow, perform essential functions within the river’s ecosystem, be free from pollution, feed and be fed by sustainable aquifers and have native biodiversity, as well as the right to regeneration and restoration.

The Ouse, like many other rivers around the country, gets filled with effluent and wastewater when sewage treatment plants along its route cannot cope with heavy rain. In 2019, every river in England failed to meet quality tests for pollution.

The move to grant the River Ouse rights was spearheaded by Matthew Bird, a Lewes town and district councillor. He told the Guardian he had become increasingly frustrated with the framing of discourse around water pollution. “The water companies are not taking their responsibilities seriously; there’s a policy vacuum at government level, and the Environment Agency, who are the river’s legal protectors, are not protecting it. At the same time, local communities feel powerless and vent frustrations in protest or take part in sporadic orchestrated meetings with Southern Water with no action followed up.”

Laws of natu

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The council had already passed two earlier motions highlighting clear evidence that water quality had deteriorated due to sewage pollution and recognising its obligation to protect local rivers. Bird said this was a response to growing public concerns for the health and wellbeing of water bodies and a determination to hold companies to account.

Attempts to give part of the River Frome in Somerset legal rights failed in 2020, prompting Bird to seek a new approach. After a mapping exercise held during a popular river festival, and with support from the Environmental Law Foundation and other experts, he drafted a motion he hoped would bring the whole community and a neighbouring local authority on board.

Despite initial opposition, Bird said an “impassioned speech” by a Conservative councillor in favour of the motion convinced most to vote for it. “That was quite amazing, and good to think that feelings towards the river can be stronger than politics,” he said.

Work on the charter will involve local people and environmental groups and will be discussed at the next catchment partnership meeting of organisations involved in protecting the water environment. Bird said there are still many unanswered questions about how the rights will work in practice. “But that’s fine. We have two years to work out an answer,” he said.

The motion was supported by local organisations including the Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust and the Sussex Wildlife Trust.

Laws giving natural features such as rivers and mountains, or ecosystems, legal rights have been enacted around the world, from Ecuador to New Zealand.

Author: Mark Shucksmith, Jane Atterton and Jayne Glass

In Britain, people imagine poverty as mainly an urban phenomenon. We think of poverty as rundown housing estates or tower blocks, far from the idyllic countryside scenes of shows like Escape to the Country.

But this is only part of the picture. Poverty in rural areas is more widespread than people might think. Fifty per cent of rural households experienced poverty at some point between 1991-2008 (54% in towns and cities). Surveys by the Financial Conduct Authority, an independent regulatory body, revealed that 54% of rural dwellers were financially vulnerable in 2018.

We have found that low pay, insecure employment, unaffordable housing and poor public transport infrastructure are all factors driving rural poverty. But the figures used to measure poverty (and determine where state support goes) are not always appropriate for rural contexts.

For example, the index of multiple deprivation, which governments use to identify areas where poverty is concentrated, can miss rural poverty, which is typically more dispersed. Such indices also use data on lack of car ownership to help measure an area’s poverty – but in a rural area, a car is essential even for poorer households.

Our new book Rural Poverty Today: Experiences of Social Exclusion in Rural Britain shows the reality of rural poverty in Britain, and how the current cost of living crisis is exacerbating it. And while families everywhere are suffering, those in rural areas have more difficulty accessing state support through the welfare system.

Rural cost of living

A 2021 report by Loughborough University found that for households in remote rural areas in Scotland, the minimum income standard is typically 15-30% higher than it is for urban households.

Rural living costs are higher largely because of fuel costs for heating and transport, and higher prices for food and other essentials. A 2020 study mapped “double energy vulnerability” – the combination of high fuel costs for transport and for heating – in Britain. The researchers found that rural households face the greatest financial pressure, as they pay a higher proportion of their income on these fuel costs. Rural homes tend to be older, larger, poorly insulated, difficult and costly to retrofit with insulation, and are often not on mains energy supplies.

In 2022, rural households had a higher fuel poverty rate (15.9%) and a larger fuel poverty gap (£956) than households in towns and cities. The fuel poverty rate was even higher (20.1%) for rural households off mains gas, who have to rely on expensive electricity or oil tanks instead.

Estimated fuel poverty rates for rural households in 2023 are higher still. Modelling by York University in early 2022 found that 57% of households in the Western Isles of Scotland (also called the Outer Hebrides) were experiencing fuel poverty, and they estimate that this has now risen to over 80%.

This has real human impacts. In our research, we found older people unable to put on the heating, people collecting firewood and only heating one room, and families unable to afford to refill their oil tanks (which have a minimum delivery of 500 litres) in midwinter. Urban households do not face this problem, as their houses are more commonly on mains energy.

The welfare state and rural poverty

Welfare – in the form of benefits and universal credit – should be a source of support for vulnerable households. But in our research, we’ve found that the welfare system is less able to support rural residents who may have unpredictable incomes, don’t have digital connectivity, or who do not have the skills to navigate a complex online system.

There is also a stigma attached to claiming benefits in small communities, where seeking welfare advice or claiming benefits is more visible and may lead to being perceived as lazy and not deserving of neighbours’ help

Many of the challenges welfare claimants in rural areas face are similar to those in urban areas – the complexity and flawed design of the online system, payment delays and unpleasant experiences at assessment centres. But some issues are worse for rural claimants. We heard repeatedly of the inability of the benefits system (both legacy benefits and universal credit) to deal fairly with the volatility and irregularity of rural incomes from tourism, retail, or casual farm and estate work.

This can make household budgeting difficult, and in the most serious cases, increases the risk of debt and destitution. When benefits are overpaid, a frequent occurrence for people on irregular or volatile incomes who are unaware of the error, the overpayments are then deducted from subsequent months’ payments. This “clawback” can leave families with too little to live on.

Distanced from support

Many people are unable to access the very systems which should help them receive support, particularly if they live far from welfare offices. Rural claimants with a long-term physical or mental illness or disability will face strenuous, lengthy journeys to attend work capability assessments, a requirement to receive disability benefits.

In the Western Isles, where there is no assessment centre, residents can wait up to a year before an officer visits the islands, unless they can travel to Inverness or Skye. And as the benefits system moves mostly online, those who don’t have or can’t afford broadband access will struggle to get the help they need.

Reaching and supporting the most vulnerable in rural communities is likely to become even more difficult as the cost of living crisis continues. Meeting the challenge should be front of mind for political parties as they compete for the rural vote in the next election.

Author: The Herald

A UNITED Nations body has begun a probe into whether the Scottish and UK governments have broken international law through a failure to give the public the right of challenge over planning decisions that would damage the nation’s precious environment, landscape and wildlife, it can be revealed.

A coalition of campaign groups from Planning Democracy, Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, Friends of the Earth Scotland and RSPB Scotland, submitted a formal complaint over the failure at the end of last year about the Scottish and UK governments to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC), a United Nations body tasked with upholding environmental rights saying there is a breach of international law.

They say that the general public should have the same rights of appeal over planning decisions as developers. If successful it could give the public the right to lodge appeals on everything from wind farms and major housing schemes to the erection of a wall that is over two metres.

They believe that there has been a precedent set in Northern Ireland where the ACCC found that an absence of equal rights of appeal was a breach of the Convention and that recommendations made must be applied in Scotland and the UK.

They say the crux of that decision states: “…it is clear that for a planning decision in Northern Ireland subject to article 6 of the Convention, the developer is entitled to a full merits review of that decision by a specialist planning body, whereas other members of the public seeking to exercise their rights under article 9(2) are not. This situation is clearly not fair within the meaning of article 9(4) of the Convention.”

It comes as the complainers said a bid to address the alleged non-compliance with the Scottish Government informally, failed. They say that contact was made on several occasions and that the ministers indicated that it did not intend to address it.

It has been confirmed that the committee has found the complaints to be admissable and has now provided a five month time limit for governments to provide written explanations.

The concern is that the Scottish and UK Governments are in breach of the Aarhus Convention – an international agreement that sets out an obligation to ensure public consultation on decisions by the government or public sector that will impact on the environment.

The Compliance Committee can issue cautions if there are found to be breaches.

The convention which came into force in 2001 and was ratified in the UK four years later is the world’s most far-reaching treaty on environmental rights.

It seeks to promote greater transparency and accountability among government bodies by guaranteeing public rights of access to environmental information, providing for public involvement in environmental decision-making and requiring the establishment of procedures enabling the public to challenge environmental decisions.

Scotland and the UK has come under fire for failing to meet a legal responsibility “to remove or reduce financial barriers to access to justice”.

The main way to challenge decisions, developments or policies which may breach environmental laws is by raising judicial review proceedings in the Court of Session.

But presently it still incurs a huge financial risk which conservation charities have to think and long and hard over as environment cases generally do not qualify for legal aid.

The groups’ say the general public should have the same rights of appeal as those who are applying for planning permission, usually developers.’

Currently only the applicants have the right of appeal usually at low or no cost.

The only legal recourse for affected communities is an expensive statutory review or judicial review in the Court of Session.

But they say the legal route does not allow for a full review of the merits of any planning decision.

Only the legal validity and procedural regularity of decisions are considered by the court rather than the substance of the concerns about the planning proposal, which they say leads to additional setbacks for affected communities.

The groups said: “This results in an uneven playing field, where people most affected by poor planning decisions are unable to make their voices heard. The aim of introducing equal rights of appeal is to confer statutory rights to communities so that they are empowered to appeal poor planning decisions.

“Equal rights of appeal would encourage developers to meaningfully engage with local communities and propose developments that are informed and consistent with development plans. It would encourage environmental considerations to be given their proper weight, leading to improved environmental and social outcomes as well as sustainable development.”

They say that planning appeals rights in Scotland are “not fair” and are therefore in breach of the convention.

A survey by Planning Democracy last year of 228 people including 175 community councillors across Scotland found that people feel they have very little influence over planning decisions.

Some 65% said there were a lack of opportunities to participate in planning decisions.

Over half (56% )felt generally negative about their ability to influence decisions. A third reported feeling they had absolutely no influence over them.

Some 79% said that being heard or listened to by planners – those who make vital decisions over neighbourhood developments – was a significant or very significant challenge.

In 2011, an official analysis by Scotland’s nature agency shows that Scotland  failed to meet 11 of 20 agreed UN targets to protect the environment while one in five animals and plants deemed important to the nation by ministers are under threat.

Conservation charity John Muir Trust has previously spoken out of its concerns about the rights to environmental justice after its attempt to challenge a windfarm development five years ago led to it facing a near £700,000 bill, although this was eventually negotiated down to £275,000.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The Scottish Government is aware of the preliminary finding by the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee on the admissibility of a communication concerning the absence of a third party right of appeal in the Scottish planning system.

“We will take time to consider the terms of the communication and respond appropriately in due course.”

Author: CoDeL

Join us for the launch of the Uist Beò website on facebook live (https://fb.me/e/2yGzHzEZh) on 8 March 2023 at 6:30pm.   This is the related opinion piece that appeared in the the award-winning local community paper, Am Pàipear.

If I look through a window and you look through it – for all the outlook is the same, we will see and remember different things from that view.

This month sees the launch of the Uist Beò website to showcase a dynamic and vibrant Uist, through the eyes of young Uibhistich – entirely an insiders’ view.

Do we really know what’s going on in our own community?  Are we seeing different things?

For long the dominant perception has been that we are in terminal decline.  If the projected future population trends for the Outer Hebrides prove true in Uist, we will be turning out the lights before 2050.

But even five years ago this did not feel right.  Gathering a list of 469 young Uibhistich in their 20s and 30s, we discovered half were returners or new to Uist: not the exodus of young people our community always assumed (“to get on, you have to get off”).

Why were so many in the prime of their working lives making Uist their home?  The very first returner we asked gave a simple answer: “my social life here is so much better than in Glasgow”!

The ‘night time’ economy is not just for cities. Regular sessions from Saturday nights at Creagorry to the fortnightly Accordian and Fiddle Club as well as ceilidhs and fund-raising events, often with our many award-winning musicians.  Are you dancing? Tuesday night Carinish, Saturday St. Peter’s, Sunday Stoneybridge, and that’s only for the adults!

Are you interested in art, crafts or archaeology, or sports (athletics, running, football, badminton, squash, golf, swimming indoors and outdoors, paddle-boarding, kickboxing, yoga, etc.)?  Ceòlas, now at Cnoc Soilleir, has more than 100 joining their Gàidhlig classes.

Primary school children are spoilt for choice, especially in sports and music, Highland and Irish dancing.  They could be at an activity every evening of the week, and at a fraction of the costs in a city, some even free.

So does the window you look through have an old frame or is it newer?  Of course older generations hold memories of much greater numbers, from schools to dances.  But how about the last decade?  Last year we had only 9 fewer primary school pupils in Uist than 10 years earlier, out of more than 300.  In Barra the number of primary pupils last year was 19% higher than in 2010!  And this is likely to continue.  Cothrom Òg Gàidhlig nursery has 26 children signed up and a waiting list. All pupils entering Daliburgh School for the last two years are in Gàidhlig medium.

Sustaining the number of younger children for a decade is a remarkable success.  In Grimsay one child started primary school a decade ago, today there are 15 children.  No, it’s not what is was 40 years ago, but it is more than 10 years ago.  Locheport, with only 3 children recently, now has 13, with 3 more expected soon. 

It’s too early to say whether the decline has bottomed out.  For historical reasons we have a high proportion of elderly people, so there will be more deaths than births.  But for many returning or making Uist their new home, the view through the window is looking exciting and vibrant.

Take all the young businesses.  North Uist Distillery, set up by two young returners, now employs 13 people, bringing life back to one of Uist’s most historic buildings.  We have award winning young businesses, e.g. Coral Box and Studiovans, who recycle plastic from our shores to create modular units for vans. As the Uist Beò website will show, we have young people and families in crofting, culture and music; beauty, health and wellbeing; photography, art and architecture.  We have numerous PhD students, and many who work online, e.g. in the medical sector or web-based design.  And the islands have the highest density of community enterprises per head of population in all of Scotland.

In hospitality the Politician, Croft & Cuan, the Bistro, Grimsay cafe, Westford Inn, the Dunes Cabin, Lochmaddy Hotel, the Berneray shop, the Wee Cottage Kitchen have all recently been taken over or set up, often by young people with children, showing confidence in the local economy.  Many young people have told us that they see so much opportunity here. 

The narratives we tell ourselves as a community are really important.  Nobody would say we don’t have our fair share of challenges, what with ferries and housing!  Many include jobs also, although the greater challenge is filling the many vacant jobs we have at all times, providing plenty of opportunity for people if they can only find somewhere to live.

Whether we view our glass as half empty or as half full has real impacts.  Past ‘official’ narratives, of decline, a place to leave, or of a romanticised empty place to retire to, both undermine our future.  Who wants to be in a place where the lights are going out soon?  We don’t need to look far from our islands to see other islands now abandoned.

Whether here or in other island communities, we always first ask people, why are you here, in spite of the many challenges you obviously face?  Many of us could join the numerous Hebrideans in Glasgow and elsewhere, but we choose to live here.  Why?  It isn’t because of ferries, shopping malls, ice rinks, diverse global foods.

More important factors are influencing our life choices, factors that came to the fore during Covid: land, sea and croft; community and family; wellbeing and resilience, freedom and safety; Gàidhlig and vibrant culture; dynamic community groups and activities; small class sizes and dedicated teachers; being valued for who we are, a sense of equality; our strong sense of identity and belonging, of being there for each other; etc. etc.

Many of us have lived elsewhere, including when young people leaving school go to experience life elsewhere.  So we can recognise how valuable all those factors are, how at home we can feel here, and how envious people elsewhere are of what we have, and share.

So let us all, from individuals and community groups to agencies and CnES, ditch managing decline, rationalising and centralising, and instead invest in our future, by building on these great foundations, including a more assertive community that no longer kowtows to distant powerholders or outdated narratives.

Author: Jack Marley, Environment commissioning editor, The Conversation

Author: Andy Wightman

On 1 March 2023, NatureScot announced a £2 billion private finance pilot designed to secure landscape scale restoration of native woodlands.

The project involves NatureScot and private companies Hampden and Co., Palladium and Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe) Ltd.

NatureScot has provided me with a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the agreement of the investment partners. It is worth a read – it is only 5 substantive pages.

In the MoU, signed in February, the parties agree to explore the potential for a significant investment in woodland creation in Scotland focussing on the Scottish Borders and the Atlantic Rainforest.

The parties aims are inter alia to “catalyse private investment into the project at significant scale”, to deliver “high integrity carbon investment”, demonstrate how government policy and subsidy support can enable private investment into nature restoration” and “maximise the benefits for nature and communities from the investment”.

Hampden and Co will provide finance for the project via Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs).

Palladium will design the project, establish SPVs and lease with partners on the ground to agree terms of investment and carbon contracts.

Lombard Odier Asset Management Europe) Ltd. will be responsible for selling carbon credits.

The project will provide financial returns for landowners and investors whilst claiming to “deliver significant and lasting community benefit“. See the NatureScot media release for a full FAQ on the project

This blog is not so much about this project which will at least provide some greater transparency around how carbon markets may evolve in Scotland but about the assumptions and policy decisions which appear to lie behind it and other activity undertaken by Scottish Ministers to promote carbon markets and private investment.

Carbon Offsetting

Scottish Ministers have stated an ambition to develop carbon markets in Scotland as a means of securing private investment in nature restoration and contributing to the statutory net-zero climate targets. Offsetting is the means by which polluters can buy carbon credits to offset their emissions. Carbon credits are typically sold by brokers on behalf of landowners whose management activities (such as tree planting and peatland restoration) lock up carbon or (in the case of peatland restoration), curb existing emissions.

The development of a carbon market is seen as key to attracting the kind of investment represented by the financiers behind this project as as has already taken place by financial companies such as Aviva and Standard Life.

The problem with this whole approach is that there has been no comprehensive assessment made of to what extent carbon offsetting should be part of Scotland’s net-zero plan. Every ton of carbon that is sequestered by woodlands (for example) and offset against emissions by cement factories or fashion companies, is a tone of carbon that is contributing nothing in the long term to net-zero since it has been sold as an offset to a polluter enabling them to continue polluting.

How much of Scotland’s land shoudl we allow to be used for this purpose?

No answers have been forthcoming from Government and yet it is a central player in this market since it provides the key means of validating claims about carbon credits through its Woodland Carbon Code and has provided guidelines for investors through the Interim Principles for Responsible Investment.

In the FAQ associated with the project, NatureScot claim that carbon offsetting is an important part of global agreements on climate change. However, there are no legally-binding agreements in place that govern who can use offsetting. The MoU claims that an ethical framework will be developed to ensure that offsets are used only by “legitimate businesses who have credible carbon reduction pathways in place”.

Even more fundamentally, even if offsetting is a legitimate means of companies with unavoidable emissions achieving net-zero, why should then be expected to acquire offsets rather than simply, for example, having their emissions assessed by Government as unavoidable. Such registered emissions would then be accounted for within national carbon budgets with no need for a private, unregulated market in carbon offsetting.

The £20 billion finance gap

Central to the Government’s argument is the so-called “finance gap for nature”. In NatureScot’s media release, the Minister, Lorna Slater is quoted,

Biodiversity Minister Lorna Slater said: “The finance gap for nature in Scotland for the next decade has been estimated to be £20 billion. Leveraging responsible private investment, through valuable partnerships like this, will be absolutely vital to meeting our climate targets and restoring our natural environment. Scotland is well placed to take a leading role by offering investors the opportunity to generate sustainable returns from the restoration and regeneration of our landscapes. This investment will generate multiple benefits: ending the loss of biodiversity, improving water quality, reducing the risk of flooding, regenerating local communities and creating green jobs.”

What exactly is this £20 billion finance gap? The figure derives from a report published by the Green Finance Institute, an “independent, commercially focussed organisation backed by government and led by bankers”. In the “Finance Gap for UK Nature” report, published in October 2021, the gap between required spending and committed spending by Government to deliver nature restoration is claimed to be between £44 and £97 billion. For Scotland, the gap is £15-£27 billion with a central estimate of £20 billion.

The nature-based outcomes covered by this gap are illustrated below (figures are UK-wide).

The breakdown in the finance gap for Scotland is illustrated below.

The finance gap thus covers a wide range of outcomes of which, for Scotland, the largest (£9 billion) is bio-resource efficiency (making land use more carbon neutral principally though better fisheries management and soil management). The second largest is the protection and restoration of nature (£8 billion). Woodland creation is only one part of this with others including protecting endangered species, restoring freshwater habitats, ensuring seafloor habitats and healthy and sustainable and achieving biodiversity net gain.

Should we be planting trees?

Of the £20 billion finance gap, £8 billion of for the restoration of habitats and only part of this (the Finance Gap for UK Nature report provides no further breakdown) is for woodland creation and management.

In addition to the unanswered question of what role (if any) offsetting should play in Scottish climate finance, is the question of whether we even need all of this private investment in the first place. Clearly we do need private investment. Over 85% of Scotland is privately-owned and the public is not in a position to make all the investment that is required.

It is at this point, however, that there appears to have been no detailed analysis by Government as to how nature restoration could be supported. Instead, it has jumped onto the rapidly growing carbon offsetting model.

There are alternative means of restoring nature. Here are some.

• Landowners could be placed under legal obligations to restore nature (the damage to which has been caused in large part through their management activities) through the tenure system or through policy instruments such as the Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement.
• Government could implement the recommendations of the Deer Working Group to reduce wild deer densities to the level required to allow forest regeneration.
• Reform agricultural support to require nature restoration as a condition of agricultural subsidy.
• Strengthen biodiversity gain through the planning system.
• End damaging actives such as muirburn.
• Reform land and property taxes to deliver woodland, water and peatland restoration

Regulating existing ownership and use of land in ways designed to restore nature and contribute to net-zero has huge potential to achieve nature restoration goals. Much of this will be at no cost to the public purse and will not involve global financial corporations becoming partners in any such activity.

Currently, government is sleep-walking into a future of global capital and carbon markets with no clear policy on whether and why offsetting should even be supported and no clear plan as to the extent to which alternative policy measures could deliver landscape scale nature restoration.

This blog has been supported by donors to my defamation crowdfunder who kindly donated their eligible refunds to my work on land reform.

Author: The Inverness Courier

SNP leadership contenders Kate Forbes and Ash Regan have both said at a hustings in Inverness that Highland Council should be broken up into smaller, more locally representative bodies. Ms Forbes said that in “the Highlands and Islands, the approach to social care … the approach to local government, the approach to fill in the potholes is going to look different in Portree than it does in Inverness”, while Ms Regan agreed that Highland Council is “clearly enormously large and it means that people don’t feel connection in the way that the decisions are made”.

Author:  Michael Orton, Senior Research Fellow/Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick

The annual setting of council tax rates invariably generates media headlines and 2023 is proving no exception. But 2023 also marks the 30th anniversary of the introduction of council tax and it is timely to reflect on issues which don’t often feature in public debate but perhaps should.

There’s an element of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ but underneath the surface, the foundations of council tax look increasingly shaky. Most obviously, the tax is based on hopelessly out-of-date property valuations. Another issue is the regressive impact of the tax. In 2020/21 local taxation accounted for 5.9% of gross household income for those in the lowest quintile of the economic distribution but only 1.4 per cent for those in the top quintile.

But what might be a better system of local taxation? Reform of council tax is possible with an extra band having been added in Wales and ratios between bands revised in Scotland. But such steps don’t address problems inherent to the fundamental structure of the tax and periodic reviews (e.g. 2007 Lyons Inquiry in England, 2006 Burt Committee in Scotland, 2015 Scottish Commission on Local Tax Reform and most recently 2021 work by the Welsh Government) have considered three further options.

Option one

First is a Local Income Tax (LIT). LITs are well established around the world and are used in half of OECD countries. The link to income means a clearer relationship with the ability to pay. The need for property revaluations ceases to be relevant.

On the downside, LITs impact more on people in work than those with accumulated wealth. Yield can be unpredictable. Unfairness can be felt if income is limited to wages but if the responsibility rests with councils that creates difficulties. The Welsh Government review concluded a Welsh LIT would require a whole new administrative infrastructure for collecting income information including universal self-assessment tax returns. A LIT is therefore not as straightforward as might first appear and its introduction would require overcoming a series of complex practical issues.

Option two

The second option is Land Value Tax (LVT). The basic idea behind LVT is that pieces of land get their value from their location and surrounding infrastructure rather than the quality of the development on them. This infrastructure has not been paid for by the landowner but by generations of taxpayers. Proponents of LVT argue it captures an uplift in value gained by landowners, it is a progressive form of taxation and is economically efficient.

Again drawing on the Welsh Government review, the finding was a local LVT in Wales could raise enough to replace current local taxes and would be more progressive than council tax. But the review also found that data requirements for implementing LVT are not currently met, information is needed on property characteristics, property transactions, precise mapping, plus evidence on agricultural land ownership (with caution urged about the accuracy of current land value estimates). The conclusion was that LVT offers a number of opportunities but would require significant resources to implement.

Option three

That leaves a third option – a new local property tax. Detailed plans have been put forward by the Resolution Foundation and Institute for Public Policy Research. Proposals are based on a proportional tax on the capital value of properties e.g. 0.5%, 0.7%, 1% etc. It is argued that increases in house prices would be captured, disposable income would rise in the bottom half of the income distribution and 80% of households would benefit from the change.

There could also be scope for local discretion, use of new technologies for regular revaluations and additional variations such as regional tax-free allowances. In terms of practicalities, a new property tax certainly presents a lot less challenges than a Local Income Tax or Land Value Tax.

After the traumas of Poll Tax, political will regarding changes to local taxation is in short supply. But if the foundations of council tax become increasingly unsteady, other options are certainly available.

Author: We Love Stornoway

Great Bernera may become the first community to actually use ‘right to buy’ legislation to force the sale of the land they live on from an obstructive landowner.

That’s the view of Tom Arthur, Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, speaking in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday evening.

He was responding to a debate initiated by Western Isles MSP Alasdair Allan about the problems being encountered by the Great Bernera community in taking over their land.

The motion brought by Alasdair Allan asked the Scottish Parliament to recognise the work of the Great Bernera Community Development Trust in its attempts at a land buyout from Cyran Mirrless, described as a 26-year-old Frankfurt-based, absentee landowner. To date these attempts have been unsuccessful and MSPs debated how the community could be best supported to achieve a buyout that was voted for by 85% of the community.

The minister stated that Scottish Government policy was that there should be a greater degree of collaboration and community engagement in decisions about land.

As “the Great Bernera Community Development Trust feel that this isn’t being followed, then there is the crofting community right to buy.  The trust have already been investigating this route and have been in discussion with Scottish Government officials.”

Although it would be preferable to negotiate a settlement with the landowner: “I recognise that it is the view that the time has now come for a more forceful line of action.”  Officials are currently considering how the trust could access this route and will continue to do so as they did in the Pairc case and the Galson case, where the threat of an enforced buyout seemed to unlock the negotiations and enable the communities to succeed.

The minister congratulated “Great Bernera Trust for continuing to persevere in the face of adversity and to encourage them to pursue this by any means at their disposal.”

In response to Alasdair Allan’s detailed request, the minister said he hoped the Scottish Land Fund “will now be able to enter into more detailed discussions with the buyout trust to examine the options that they wish to pursue.

“The crofting community right to buy has never been used to completion but maybe it’s about time that it was.  In this case, it might be able to bring the owner to the negotiating table but, if not, then I feel this community is the type to follow through on their plans and take this as far as they can until they become the owners of the land.”

He had earlier pointed out that the success of the Pairc and Galson buyouts was less to do with the details of law, and more to do with the determination of the communities to succeed.

He commented: “It really should never be the case that any landowners should be able to exert such control over the lives of those who open to live on land that they own and that is especially so in this case, given that the previous owner had already given the community first refusal to purchase Great Bernera following his death in 2012 and when it was put to the community, 85% of them turned out to vote on the buy-out and a total of 142 backed the purchase of the island, with 37 against.”

In his speech to Parliament, Alasdair Allan stated that he had been contacted by a number of constituents in recent months regarding the ongoing issues they are experiencing with the Bernera Estate. These included, he said, demands for payment of thousands of £s before allowing legitimate transactions to proceed, and ignoring correspondence from crofters seeking to exercise their legal right to purchase their own individual crofts. 

Allan concluded his opening speech for the debate by expressing his hope that Bernera would one day be in the hands of the local community, saying:  “The island of Bernera should belong to the people who live there, and to those whose families have worked the land there and fished from the surrounding seas for generations. Morally and culturally, the land is already theirs – we must now continue to do all we can to support the Great Bernera Community Development Trust to successfully take legal ownership, so that the island’s community can begin to develop and thrive once again.” 

Following the debate, a representative from the Great Bernera Community Development Trust said: “We are very grateful that the challenges we have experienced during our lengthy and ongoing process of Bernera’s Community Buyout have been recognized and are being addressed by Members of the Scottish Parliament. We look forward to working more closely with the Scottish Government to tackle the issues raised and to find a way of moving forward.”

However, Labour’s Highlands and Islands MSP Rhoda Grant was not impressed and condemned SNP ministers, saying they were accusing the Great Bernera community of not trying hard enough in their attempts at a buyout.

In the chamber she said: “This situation arises wholly from the failure of the Scottish Government to legislate to make the community right to buy possible in the face of a hostile landlord.

“They have had 15 years to do this and they must urgently bring forward a new land reform bill. The battles, particularly in Pairc, showed that the 2003 legislation while well-intentioned, was far too complicated in the face of a determined landowner. If there was serious intent to help communities like Bernera, this would have been fixed long ago.”

Mrs Grant described how Bernera was in desperate need of jobs, housing and ongoing investment in order to tackle depopulation and that this could only be done with responsible landownership.

She said: “It is scandalous, in a place which has so long been associated with a history of resisting landlordism, that it is still cursed by the 21st century version of absentee landlordism without Government lifting a finger to stop it.  Cyran Mirrlees should not be put in charge of a cat, far less people’s future and wellbeing. Indeed, there are more powers in Scotland to remove a cat from a bad owner than there are to remove land.”

Following the debate Mrs Grant expressed her disbelief at what she had heard.

“There is something seriously wrong when a community comes to their Government asking for help because the legislation they put in place isn’t helping, and that Government responds by shrugging it’s shoulders and saying ‘Try Harder’.

“It’s shameful and embarrassing. When are the SNP going to stop behaving like Tories by proxy?”

 Mrs Grant added: “This case shows us what is wrong with Scottish land-owning patterns and while the Scottish Government procrastinate, people suffer.”

Author: Locality

Creating Health and Wealth By Stealth

Overview

Creating health and wealth by stealth explores the role of large, well established community organisations in promoting good health and preventing disease in their neighbourhoods. Working with 20 CAOs across England and 10 service designers and commissioners across local, regional, and national health systems, we found four distinct areas of learning:

• Maximising good practice – across pandemic partnerships learning, peer-led health promotion, and co-location of clinical services in CAO settings.
• Finding the right delivery approach – including ‘Integrated Health and Wellbeing Services’, and social prescribing.
• Achieving collaborative commissioning – through inclusivity and cultural competence, asset-based community development, and capacity and capability building.
• Measuring outcomes usefully – by understanding the impact of services on the wider determinants of health, and collecting data and monitoring impact in a meaningful way.

The report contains real-life examples demonstrating good practice across these four areas that can be repeated across the country. But there are also warnings of the pitfalls that threaten this progress.

We present 12 recommendations for the health system across the four areas above – at Primary Care Network, Integrated Care System, local authority, and national level. If embraced, these can help capture the significant and sustainable impact that CAOs have on the health and wellbeing of local people. We have also developed a set of five recommendations for CAOs themselves. These aim to support the increase of their involvement in health system prevention services, including by:

• Understanding and communicating to the health system the value of the CAO approach for the wider determinants of health
• Find the right contacts within Integrated Care Partnerships
• Connecting with local Primary Care Networks
• Tackling local priorities with other VCSE partners
• Demonstrating their ability to meet the rigours of current health system contracts