The battle has been raging in Scotland for hundreds of years and once was fought with clubs, staves and other weapons.

Now it appears a war of words in a court of law will be required to settle a dispute that is one of the most enduring in this country’s history – ownership of the land.

The Hill of Alyth is an unlikely battleground but the tangled history of land ownership in this part of Perthshire between Kirriemuir and Blairgowrie serves to demonstrate how, despite land reform, this remains a controversial and convoluted matter, possibly involving the use of a seven-figure sum of public money.

Andy Wightman, the leading land reform campaigner, has uncovered documentary evidence to show that Scottish ministers paid nearly £3 million of public money to buy land at the Hill of Alyth – despite half of the land never belonging to the sellers.

It is common land, which the community had tried to defend for generations, on one occasion in the 18th century with “clubs and staves and other weapons”. In 1949 more than 500 turned out to take direct action. They cut down fences that had been put up on land they believed had been theirs for 600 years.

In his new book, The Poor Had No Lawyers, being serialised by The Herald and Sunday Herald, Mr Wightman traces how in the 1920s one of Scotland’s oldest aristocratic families assumed it could include parts of this land with its neighbouring properties, near the village of Alyth.

The author reveals that in 1977, when the Earl of Airlie’s trustees came to sell two parcels of this common land, they admitted in the deed of sale they had never claimed the disputed area they were selling on the Hill of Alyth was part of their property. They simply claimed it could be “construed” to be.

They also conceded in the deed “we or our predecessors in title have at various times disponed [made over or conveyed legally] parts of the subjects known as The Hill of Alyth to which we or they may have had a right but granted no warrandice [legal guarantees, including that the seller can validly transfer ownership]”.

So, despite not being able to prove they owned it, they sold it to another landowner who then sold it to the Scottish Government, whose lawyers approved the purchase.

In 1998 leading estate agents FPD Savills marketed another part of the common land on the Hill of Alyth as part of a farm for sale and were completely frank that the sellers could not prove they owned it.

According to the particulars, they had acquired title “from previous heritable proprietors to the Hill of Alyth without warrandice. The purchaser will be given title to the hill on the same terms.”

Mr Wightman believes the Hill of Alyth is one of a multitude of cases where common land was taken by private landowners, but without anyone acting illegally; their actions having been legitimised by laws from the 17th century.

He claims that for the past 900 years, common land has been “legally stolen” in this way, with property law serving the interests of the powerful. He believes the Hill of Alyth is the perfect modern example of this: “The whole point is that it is legal, but it clearly shouldn’t be.”

According to Mr Wightman, there were repeated attempts to divide the land on the Hill of Alyth by landlords who wanted to acquire it: “But the process stalled and, by 1843, the hill was noted as still being a commonty [a piece of land in which two or more people have a common right] in the New Statistical Account of Scotland. Since then, no further actions have been raised to divide the commonty and it therefore remains a commonty to this day.”

However neighbouring landlords had never accepted this, and went about their annexations and sales. These now have the imprimatur of SNP Scottish Ministers, albeit a process set in train by the previous Labour-Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive.

The land was bought for the Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) but there is no evidence that body knew the history of the hill.

A spokesman for FCS said of the Hill of Alyth: “We are always open and willing to consider any new documentation that might support a claim of commonty. We are always open to discussing options with anyone who can demonstrate that they have legitimate rights to carry out specific activities on the national forest estate.

“While FCS titles are, on a purely historical basis, subject to any commonty rights and rights of grazing which can be substantiated, the existence of such a burden on the face of the title does not necessarily imply that such rights exist or are enforceable. The onus of proof in respect of such rights rests with any claimant.”

He said FCS had previously requested further evidence that would support this claim of commonty, but so far had not been provided with any. But he concluded: “It is likely that this issue will only be resolved once a legal decision has been taken.” 

‘There are more than 9.4 million acres of land held by a mere 969 landowners’

In his 1996 book Who Owns Scotland, Andy Wightman identified the ownership of some 65% of Scotland and examined the complex story of the power that accompanied the ownership of land. His new book, from which the following is an extract, continues the story.

What is revealing is the persistent pattern of very concentrated private ownership of land, which has remained virtually static since 1970.

The number of owners of 60% of private rural land in Scotland has decreased since 1970, from 1180 to 969 in 2010. The reason for this decrease is probably the steady amalgamation of farms and the acquisition of multiple holdings.

Were the analysis to continue to 70% of private rural land, it is almost certain the same increasing concentration would be observed, though a close analysis of the data would be required. Today there are more than 9.4 million acres of land held by a mere 969 landowners, and over 10 million acres of land are held by a mere 1550 private landowners in estates of 1000 acres and larger.

Just as the pattern of private ownership is largely unchanged, so the ownership itself has changed little. Of the 251 estates of 10,000 acres and larger in 2010, only 14 (5.5%) have changed hands since 1995, 3.5% of the acreage. Of these, two have been by inheritance and 12 by sale. Remarkably, in the top 100 landowners of 2010, Hugh MacLeod, who inherited Dunvegan Estates from his father, is the only newcomer.

The most significant change since 1995 is the marked increase in the extent of land owned by community organisations and, to a lesser extent, by conservation bodies. Community ownership has more than doubled and conservation bodies such as the RSPB have increased their holdings by 44% since 1995. The bulk of expansion in landholdings of these two types of owner has been in the north and west Highlands and Islands.

Ownership of land by overseas interests remains controversial and poses challenges to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Around 80 estates covering around 905,000 acres are held by overseas individuals and offshore trusts. Periodic calls for tighter regulation or abolition of overseas ownership (particularly land owned in offshore tax havens) have failed to lead to reform.

Many of the institutional owners, such as Eagle Star and Prudential, have sold their land in Scotland and the extent of such ownership is much reduced from what it was in the 1970s. Pension funds still include land as part of their investment portfolio but now seem to prefer urban to rural. Forestry investment by pension funds is still prevalent and institutional or industrial ownership of forests by the timber industry has been growing steadily.

Scottish Ministers, the legal name for the Scottish Government, is the largest landowner in Scotland, owning 1,901,607 acres of land (9.8%) of Scotland’s land area. Land held by Scottish Ministers consists of two main holdings – the national forest estate managed by the Forestry Commission and the agricultural estates managed by the Scottish Government Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate.

The agricultural estate is dominated by large estates principally in the Western Isles, Skye and Sutherland, acquired early in the 20th century to create smallholdings and crofts. An additional 8895 acres of land on Barra was acquired in 2003 when MacNeil of Barra gifted it to the government.

For a copy of the full report, “Radical Scotland”, click here

Scottish public services could save money and improve outcomes for citizens by taking a radically different approach to reform, according to a report published today by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA).

The report, “Radical Scotland” recommends a ‘New Community Status’ that provides greater freedoms and responsibilities for leading local authorities and health boards to develop new approaches in public services that are both better and cheaper. This status would require the Scottish Government to set out bold strategies for reform in three critical areas of public services: health, justice and social care.

Without radical reform the costs of providing current levels of services in Scotland are set to rise by £27 billion over the next 15 years, due in particular to an ageing society and the prevalence of certain ill-health conditions.  In this same period, the Scottish Government will have £42 billion less to spend. To make services more sustainable, radical reform needs to become a more significant part of the Scottish Government’s strategy towards spending reductions.

Current responses to the UK Government’s spending plans are not sustainable given the limits of traditional efficiency measures and the cost of rising demand for public services. The report reviews a range of highly contentious money-saving measures discussed in the Independent Budget Review, and demonstrates that they would still require the Scottish Government to find a further £1 billion in spending reductions by 2014-15.

The report highlights a number of innovative approaches in Scotland that can save money by better managing demand and preventing problems. In the areas of health, social care and justice alone, even a small shift towards more effective approaches could make substantial savings, for example:
• In health, a reduction of 1 per cent in the costs associated with drug and alcohol-related abuse would generate savings of around £200 million.
• In Social Care, even a 10 per cent reduction in the cost of emergency hospital admissions each year would save £560 million.
• In Justice, a 10 per cent reduction in the costs of the prison system would suggest savings of £200m.
In order to achieve this, NESTA’s report envisages a new relationship between central government, deliverers of public services and local communities.  The proposed ‘New Community Status’ between certain public bodies and the Scottish Government would grant new freedoms to local service providers such as local authorities and health boards. They would have access to investment, support and greater independence to innovate, in return for a commitment to return a proportion of the projected savings from innovation to central government and to share their experiences with others.

NESTA Chief Executive, Jonathan Kestenbaum said: “Numerous examples from Scotland demonstrate how services can be refocused at a local level to prevent longer term problems. Scotland must make radical reform of its public services the driving mission.” 

Case studies
Some of the examples used in the report include:
• Pilton Community Health Project in Edinburgh – a charity that runs a number of community health projects with NHS Lothian  and the City of Edinburgh Council, promotes community engagement in targeting mental health, improved diet and physical activity.
• School, Social Work, Police and Community (SSPC) in East Renfrewshire – brings together all local agencies involved in tackling youth offending alongside the offenders and their families to address the inter-generational and social aspects of violent and anti-social behaviour.
• Partners for Inclusion – assists service users throughout Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire to access the full range of available services, including community services, local social networks and the relationships within people’s lives.
• West Lothian’s Community Health and Care Partnership –developed an electronic self assessment tool – ‘Safe at Home’ – that has expert knowledge built in to calculate and provide a prescription of services targeted to the specific service user.
• Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) in Glasgow – a two-year intensive programme with the aim of dramatically reducing gang violence in Glasgow’s East End.
• Reaching Older People in Renfrewshire (ROAR) – a local mentoring and befriending service for older people, actively connecting them into a community and skills exchange.

Author: Jim Harvey, Blog on website Fresh Thinking , New Ideas

A few months ago, I was asked to provide a comment for this website on the launch of Fresh Thinking, New Ideas.  The three big issues I highlighted then were affordability for tenants; sustainable funding systems; and tackling the root causes of inequality in our communities.

Like everyone else, I’ve now had time to read and reflect on the consultation document… so what’s the verdict?

On affordability, simple arithmetic means that less subsidy to build new houses will produce higher rents.  For many landlords, this will mean charging higher rents for new houses and higher rents for the rest of their housing stock, too, to make the figures add up.

Keeping rents affordable, while covering the costs of services and investment, has been one of the great successes of Scottish housing associations.  We need to preserve that. Letting rents and housing benefit take more of the strain in paying for new social housing is not the right policy for tenants or for the public finances.

Value for the public pound is understandably high on the Government’s priorities. What happens after this Housing Policy Discussion will shape the future of Housing Association Grant (HAG) in Scotland.  I have serious doubts about whether the current policy direction will allow housing associations to continue to build new houses in a way that is financially sustainable.

GWSF has recently set out a number of ideas for getting better value from HAG – but it’s also vital to recognise that the HAG system has underpinned the achievements of Scottish housing associations for more than 30 years.

Increasing tenants’ rents and landlords’ debt levels across the board are not sustainable ways of financing social housing.  After the collapse of the banks, the last thing we need is a housing policy that requires social landlords to take injudicious risks with their assets.  Those ‘assets’ are of course tenants’ homes.  Tenants are entitled to expect that their homes will be maintained to modern, energy-efficient standards and that this is not put at risk by short term thinking about how to finance new building.

As the Ministerial Foreword recognises, good quality housing helps bring about better educational and employment opportunities and a more prosperous and equal society.  But in our most disadvantaged communities, good quality housing by itself is not enough to achieve these things.

Achieving real change in the communities our members work in is about much more than housing.  It’s time for housing policy to recognise that community regeneration is an integral part of what many housing associations do – and that it’s something we could do more of, with the right support from central and local government.
 
Jim Harvey, Director Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations
www.gwsf.org.uk

As chief executive of an organisation which some consider an early pioneer for coproduction I’ve been asked to outline some thoughts on what I see as the challenges for coproduction.

I thought I might focus on a big one – people believe it is nothing new.

Having taken part in a variety of forums, discussions, networks et al whose primary focus has been to prepare the way for scaling up or mainstreaming coproduction I am consistently exposed to the mantra “we have always done this but we haven’t called it coproduction before”.

Wrong. Of course some of our methodologies share common principles and coproduction certainly lies somewhere on the service-user involvement continuum (sharing common ground with the ever growing family of co’s, design, collaboration, etc) however I understand coproduction to have a fundamental difference -coproduction changes the axis upon which services are delivered.

The challenge will be when people come to fully understand how coproduction alters the relationships between commissioners, providers and users. That it challenges our view of who the customer is.

Since it is the customer that creates the demand for any service provided it is for me, the most important question and we don’t ask it nearly enough. A relative easy step when we think of coproducing a community centre in the leafy suburbs, perhaps not so easy when we want to coproduce a criminal justice service.

We think we deliver services within a marketplace of supply and demand, albeit skewed. We don’t.

An overcomplicated system

We have traditionally confused identifying needs as the same thing as demand for an intervention. They are very different things. Rather than identifying, codifying and making the case for resources to meet ‘needs’ and then looking to get these needs purchased by a third party (the commissioner who we often regard as the customer) we should be focusing our efforts on creating demand. We have created an overcomplicated system.

Any reasonably experienced professional can identify need; we do it all the time. We then outline a case for funding based on how the identified need will improve the lot of an individual, a community, a ‘user’.

Once the cash (supply) is made available what happens? We have to find our beneficiaries and sell, cajole and persuade them.

Too many times our system means we are behind the curve. Our experts need to be salespeople, ‘we have the product we had now better find the user and quick!’

I am (a little) overweight and you can tell me, measure me, get a grant or even better a contract and try to persuade me, create lovely posters, run fabulous sessions but until I want to do something about it there isn’t actually a demand for your wares irrespective of whether you have identified the need or not.

Coproduction is a way of building demand from, by, and with.

We are attempting to establish a much firmer footing for providing services that are alive and thrive and not a range of products aimed at meeting unclaimed needs that need to be sold to a disconnected ‘end-user’.

It will be challenging, it will mean conducting ourselves in ways which reinforce the value in all and, we will have to invite everyone to play their part in ways that we have never done before.

Sam Hopley is chief executive of the Holy Cross Centre Trust which has been delivering co-produced services for the past four years

All wind farms in the Western Isles should in future be community owned, according to former isles MP Calum MacDonald.

This view was expressed by Dr MacDonald in Stornoway last Thursday evening when delivered the inaugural Angus Graham Lecture in memory of the former island councillor.

Dr MacDonald is the secretary of Eco-Heb, an umbrella organisation which represents six different community wind farm projects in the Western Isles at various stages of development.

He said: “We often hear that the Western Isles have the best renewable energy resource in the whole of Europe.  But the question that we have yet to get to grips with is this: how do we develop that resource to gain the maximum benefit for the community?

“My argument is that, in the case of onshore wind farms, community ownership is by far the best way forward.  Indeed, my personal conviction is that from now on we should strive that all the wind farms built in these islands are community owned.”

Dr MacDonald said the current Stornoway wind farm proposal, for a development on land owned by the Stornoway Trust and run as a partnership between Amec and EDF Energy, should now be handed over to community ownership.

He said the current offer on the table for community benefit from the 90-megawatt development was £360,000 a year, but if the entire project was under the auspices of the community it would generate £9 million per annum.

Dr MacDonald warned that if the simply relied on companies like Amec and EDF to develop renewable energy on the islands, the long-term economic impact was going to be “marginal’.  He added that £360,000 a year was not going to make a fundamental or long-term difference to the islands economy. 

“Once the wind farm is built and the construction workers have gone home,” he said, “the jobs and income left behind by conventional development is too small to make a substantial impact.

“But if we develop the same land and the same wind resource through community ownership – and after all it is the community’s land in the first place – we transform the economy of our islands.”

He added: “To put these figures in perspective, £9 million a year is comparable to the annual income into the Shetland Fund and we all know what an impact the oil income has had upon the Shetland economy.  Community-owned wind can have the same impact here and, unlike oil, the wind will never run out.”

Dr MacDonald was speaking in the run-up to a conference on co-operative groups in the Western Isles and said that in relation to the wind farm he was directly involved in, Point and Sandwick Power, the Co-operative Bank had agreed to debt-finance the £12 million capital costs.

“Legislation is now going through parliament which opens a new door of opportunity for the council by becoming a developer in its own right, representing the whole of the Western Isles as only the council can,” he said. “I am hopeful that the council can and will rise to this new challenge.”

The community of Comrie took ownership of the 90 acre site on 20th September 2007. Since that historic day Comrie Development Trust has been working towards the community vision that evolved from the many, and ongoing, community meetings and idea exchange events. It is hoped that the project will be a model of sustainable development for rural communities across Scotland. The many facets of the project are progressed by a team of local volunteers and CDT staff who are dedicated to deliver all the lasting benefits for our village this project can offer. The development of Cultybraggan includes:

• Allotments
• Food production programmes for local school children
• Community Orchard
• Sports and recreation facilities
• A ‘Back to the Future’ Centre highlighting our local history and plans for a low carbon future
• Biomass Heat plant
• Solar PV farm
• Anaerobic digestion plant
• Green Tourism
• Ecological building construction methods
• Renewable energy sources for the site and village
• Biodiversity areas and woodland planting
• Footpath and cycle ways to the site
• Holding learning events in the village on all aspects of sustainable development

The sustainable development of Cultybraggan is a £ multi million project. The progress on this project has been managed by local volunteers on the Trust’s Cultybraggan Working Group, paid staff members and contracting in local professionals. The Working Group, comprising of highly skilled local individuals, has also been supported by a team of local advisors who, like the working group, have offered their skills on a voluntary basis. This Advisory Group has met at key points as the project has progressed with individuals offering considerable personal input outside of those meetings.

Phase one works was possible through the generosity of our funders . This phase of the development was the major infrastructure works (drainage, electricity, water and telecoms), the conversion of nine nissen huts to make 12 units for local businesses and the refurbishment of the central mess. Contracts were wherever possible awarded to local contractors and were completed on time and within budget all due to the hard work and professionalism of all those involved. The creation of community allotments on site also happened at this time which are flourishing and now have a waiting list for plots!

We currently have an eclectic mix of people and businesses occupying the nissen huts and former central mess building .

With the backing of a recent ballot , the Trust will pursue a short-term action plan, which is being agreed with key funders that will make Cultybraggan Camp a financially sustainable project. CDT will continue to take forward the strategy, taking into consideration the comments received made in the consultation.

Key actions include:
• Sports facilities and a Museum at the Camp
• Off-road route to the Camp
• Greater emphasis will be placed on encouraging community involvement, local events & volunteering on the Camp

And a financial focus on:
• The Trust has recently announced that preparations are in hand for marketing the two house plots on the edge of the Camp, following the planning consent being granted earlier this year. As part of this the land is being cleared before it is put on the market. Buildings which comprise the former Sergeant’s Mess occupy the site of the house plots. Please note that demolition of these buildings will now be undertaken with works starting shortly.
• Interest will be invited in purchasing plots in the commercial quad-rant for business work-spaces  The plans will be taken forward to seek funding for the Biomass Heat Plant as part of the “Green Energy” project
• New businesses and community enterprises will be identified to take advantage of this “Green Energy”
• A detailed business case will be developed for the Eco Lodges looking at both the hillside and the Camp

The argument about the shape of public services in the future has been further fuelled with the release of a report from a leading  think tank that says people must provide their own services in future.

In a report that will be music to the ears of the coalition government, with its idea of a Big Society replacing many services now provided by the state, the 2020 Public Service Trust is calling for a “complete reconfiguring of public services around the needs and capabilities of citizens, based on the principle of social productivity”.

It argues that existing public services are increasingly unsustainable. The body has been running a series of investigations into the relationship between the state and the citizen, through its commission on 2020 public services and now wants to see “greater social responsibility and more intelligent collaboration between citizens and public services”.

The report says fundamental reform of public services is needed to address the impacting of an ageing society and rising inequality, which, it says, could add the equivalent of an extra 4%-6% of GDP onto public spending in the next 20 years.

It proposes three major shifts in public services policy:

• Local people should set up mutuals and cooperatives to run public services, including parks, leisure centres and libraries. The report says school curriculums should be “community-determined”.
• There should be a radical shift in power from central government to the most local level. “Where possible, citizens should commission services themselves using individual budgets and choice advisors. Neighbourhoods should control their own integrated services.”
• Public finances should be more open, transparent and understandable to citizens, with an “online statement of contributions and benefits … available to everyone”.

But the report does not provide unqualified support for the government’s Big Society ideas. It says public service reform will be unsustainable without up-front investment and will also require strategic, locality level commissioning and local accountability. Otherwise, it acknowledges, reforms in health, education and elsewhere could “unwittingly entrench existing service silos and undermine efforts to integrate and streamline public services”.

The report says there are a number of factors that will help change public services, with technology the foremost driver.

People’s ability to get far more information, far more quickly, about services, together with the ability to deliver more services online, is changing rapidly the relationship between the state and its citizens, argues the report. It also notes a “new understanding about place” and the paradox that increased global mobility has made more important the places where people choose to live and work.

Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSA, where the trust is based, said public services will in future be judged by whether they help people be more resourceful.

While the report chimes with the government’s ideas on increasing co-production of public services, many politicians remain sceptical that there will be enough volunteers to run local services.

A copy of the full report can be obtained from click here

Extract from The future role of the third sector in social and economic regeneration: final report

3.10 Larger community based social enterprises which often own or manage assets can also have a unique role in building and strengthening communities, acting as an anchor in the community for the provision of services and facilities for the rest of the community sector as well as generating wealth for the community, as set out in paragraph 3.24.

3.11 Building on the consultation and this evidence gathered during the third sector review, the Government is proposing a new strategy for building stronger and more active communities through investment in a thriving community sector and community activity and volunteering. The primary responsibility for strengthening communities lies with Local Government, and over the coming years it will be critical that Local Authorities continue to build on the principles of Local Compacts and the Local Government White Paper to develop relationships with the third sector. To support this work, the Government will also make several strategic investments to build the environment to enable community based organisations to thrive and to work with Local Authorities and other local statutory bodies.

3.12 The strategy therefore contains the following mutually reinforcing elements:
• work to further build relationships between the local third sector and Local Authorities;
• investment to improve the level and quality of small grant funding available to community groups;
• investment in community anchors to enable greater enterprise and sustainability;
• continued investment in building a culture of volunteering and mentoring and, capacity building – investing in provision to support smaller community based organisations and volunteers.

Author: Susan Smith, TFN

A MAJOR fund of at least £200m is  needed over the next five years to ensure  that Scottish communities benefit from  the dramatic growth in the renewable  energy industry, heralded by first minister Alex Salmond this week.  The investment could generate a net annual income of at least £20m to communities, such as declining towns and villages in throughout Scotland.

The move would also help to boost Scotland’s diminishing rural population and ensure that Scottish people benefit from the huge potential of renewable energy.  As the First Minister this week heralded  the growth of Scotland’s renewable energy  industry as a “turning point in human history”, national bodies supporting community ownership and voluntary organisations urged the govemment not to repeat the mistakes made with North Sea Oil.

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) and Community Energy Scotland (CES) demanded the government ensures that ordinary Scots as well as  big businesses benefit from the renewables  revolution.  Alison Cairns, SCVO’s rural development manager, said: “We are concerned  that the current predominance of the private  sector energy industry is short sighted and  means that many more long term, sustain-  able opportunities for the people of Scotland are missed.

“Broadening and deepening the opportunities for Scotland’s existing voluntary sector to own the production of  renewable energy (on shore and off  shore) offers multiple outcomes. It simultaneously builds greener energy,  achieves greater public buy-in and  , helps strengthen communities and  public services.”  In cases where communities have  joint or full ownership of renewable  installations such as Gigha, Eigg, Fintry and Neilston, the financial benefits  are regenerating and empowering their  communities.  Profits have been re-invested in  community organisations and activities that include infrastructure and key  services for vulnerable groups.

These  include building affordable housing,  community transport schemes, keeping a petrol station or local shop open,  even funding and expanding meals on  wheels, befriending, care and child-  care services in their communities.  The First Minister announced late  last week that the government was  aiming for 80 per cent of Scottish electricity consumption to be generated by  renewable energy by 2020.

Following the announcement,  Nicholas Gubbins, chief executive of  Community Energy Scotland, high-  lighted that it is currently supporting  140 community groups across Scot-  land to develop their own revenue generating wind and hydro projects.  “Eighty per cent of electricity consumed is a big target reflecting the  scale of the Scotland’s renewable energy resource,” Gubbins told TFN.  “The enthusiasm and voluntary commitment of Scotland’s communities is  another great resource but communities need help to build their confidence, skills and capability to engage  and develop projects.”  He said existing community plans:  “Will require investment of over  £200m over the next 5 years but if successful could generate a net annual  revenue of around £20m. This will be  transformational income for Scottish  communities – reaching places that  public services cannot normally  reach.”

Speaking at this week’s Low Carbon  Investment Conference in Edinburgh,  rural affairs minister Richard Lochead  said the government would consider  introducing a loan scheme to secure  community ownership of renewable  energy schemes.  “It is vital that Scotland can unlock  the huge potential this country has for  the local ownership of energy production which would reap such great community benefits,” said Lochhead.

“This Government is determined that communities should share in the opportunities opening up before us and we will be consulting shortly on a range of options to ensure these benefits are secured for the people of Scotland.”
 

A study of the CSR policies of 12 of Scotland’s largest listed companies, found that spending year on year on corporate good citizenship increased in defiance of the tough economic conditions. They included Standard Life (+12%), Weir Group (+8%) and Wood Group (+5%), even though the latter two companies were found to be among the least active in the area relative to their size. Cairn Energy, Alliance Trust, Aberdeen Asset Management and Stagecoach all also claimed to have maintained or increased spending. This came at a time when spending on advertising in the UK plunged, down 12% between 2008 and 2009.

Jane Wood, chief executive of charity Scottish Business in the Community, said the findings were reflected across the board. She said: “Around 70% of chief executives say the recession has resulted in sustainability becoming more important.”

She said ethical behaviour was becoming increasingly important to consumers, especially in the wake of the banking crisis, and that businesses would in future be penalised for not taking their responsibilities to the communities in which they worked seriously.

The study revealed that consumer-facing companies put more effort into CSR than business-to-business companies, suggesting that the general public is more swayed by corporate behaviour than business clients.

Wood said the rising importance of CSR meant it had a role to play in the UK Coalition Government’s controversial vision of a Big Society, stepping in where the public sector would have to retreat in the wake of the coming cuts. She said: “Where you go into a local authority area and they maybe need to do a project with schools such as mentoring or interview skills, we can get the private sector to deliver it.

“There’s environmental work, supporting charities, community engagement. We are missing the role that employers play in getting their employees to contribute to stronger societies.”

Professor Jan Bebbington, a specialist in accounting and sustainable development at St Andrews University, disagreed. She said: “Why should a publicly-listed company do the job of government, and where’s the democratic accountability if they don’t do it? It’s unfair and unreasonable to expect these companies to make it part of their duty to do good.”

She also questioned the CSR sector’s logic that 1% of profits should be spent on it – a level that Cairn Energy exceeded among the surveyed companies that provided data.

Bebbington said: “If business does a good job of fairly paying people and producing products that are good for society, why would you expect that they giv e 1% of their profits to charitable purposes? Surely they pay taxes and then the Government decides what to do with the proceeds? I am not sure we should be outsourcing that duty to the private sector.”