Author: South Lanarkshire Council

More than 2600 bags of litter and 310 tonnes of illegally dumped waste were removed from roads in South Lanarkshire in March.

The month-long programme of work marked the council’s ongoing commitment to clean up roadside litter, as well as fly tipped material, from council land.

In support of Keep Scotland Beautiful’s roadside litter campaign, Grounds Services teams embarked on the spring clean on mainly rural road verges. Fly tipped material was also targeted at a range of rural and residential areas at more than 450 locations council-wide.

Among the haul was roughly 900 tyres, representing the largest single item dumped across the authority.

The work – which cost the council almost £100,000 in traffic management measures, manpower and disposal – took place over four weekends mainly in East Kilbride and Clydesdale, alongside targeted visits to collect fly tipped waste in 453 additional locations.

The breakdown of waste removed includes:

Fly tipping

• Sites attended – 45
• Tonnage of fly tipping uplifted – 310 tonnes
• Cost  – £52,372

Road closures

• bags collected – 261
• Traffic management and disposal cost – £44,107

Alistair McKinnon, Head of Facilities, Waste and Grounds Services hit out at those responsible. He said: “The waste collected was all illegally discarded or dumped highlighting the extent of environmental crime across South Lanarkshire. Worse still, many see such action as a victimless crime; nothing could be further from the truth. This completely avoidable additional work cost the council £96,479, a sizeable amount of council tax payers’ money that could have been much better spent.

“There are thousands of litter bins across South Lanarkshire, especially in rural and tourist areas, and there really is no excuse for throwing fast food wrappers out of a car window, any more than there is for dumping tons of waste on a back road.

“While the council and its partners will always lead on the ways and means of keeping South Lanarkshire beautiful, we need each resident and visitor to step up and take personal responsibility for their actions and the effects they have on their communities. Take your litter home if you can’t bin it safely, use our household waste recycling centres for larger items, or book a special uplift. If each and everyone of us did that, we could genuinely make a difference.”

With weather improving, and covid-19 restrictions and travel bans easing, there’s also a message for visitors to parks, recreation areas and tourist sites as part of the council’s new anti-litter campaign – ‘don’t be an eejit’!

Added Alistair McKinnon: “We love nothing more than to see our amazing parks and open spaces being well-used in the sunshine. Unfortunately, that increasingly means not just used but abused with many people thinking it’s acceptable to leave their litter behind them. Clear-up teams spend hours each day picking up after visitors, trying to maintain safe and clean spaces for those who genuinely want to enjoy and protect their environment.

“Our campaign aims to put this simple message back on the agenda while highlighting the consequences for choosing to ignore it.”

Author: Chris Creegan and Adam Lang

Chris Creegan and Adam Lang FRSAs argue that, amid all the fault lines which have characterised the build up to the campaign and its opening shots, there is one thing everyone seems to agree on: this is the most important election since the Scottish Parliament was created 22 years ago.

The continued centrality of our constitutional future to Scottish politics is indisputable and unavoidable. And that makes it challenging, even foolhardy, to attempt a critique beyond the ever more febrile election narrative which comes with it. Yet whatever one’s view on that issue, there is another obvious reason why this contest matters so much: Covid-19.

For many in Scotland’s political sphere, the constitution and pandemic recovery are indivisible. In one direction or another, it will be argued that the outcome of the first is essential to the efficacy of the second. But viewed from outside the tent, regardless of any political preferences, there is a problem with this co-dependency.

Constitutional binary or not, it is this moment, as we navigate our way out of the immediate crisis, which provides post-devolution Scottish politics with its biggest test yet; one that was scarcely imaginable when our parliament was created. Whatever the election outcome, we still need to work out what sort of country we want Scotland to be in a post-Brexit world. And the enormity of the rupture created by Covid-19 has given that question unforeseen heft and urgency.

This raises a fundamental question: is our politics up to the job? Can we finally make real on the much-vaunted promise of a new – more consensual – political culture that we heard so much about in 1999? Can we transcend the divisions that have come to characterise the everyday churn of Scottish political life?

The last year has been unimaginable, marked by sacrifice, loss and anxiety on a scale few can remember. Our response has been marked by community endeavour, individual bravery, frontline heroism and institutional innovation. It has been far from plain sailing but we have proved that we can do things differently and that, in the face of a crisis, we can shift from process to a focus on outcomes in shorter order than we had previously thought possible. Using real time data, we have at times been bolder, moved faster and collaborated across sectors better than at any point in the last two decades. But has this happened because of politics or in spite of it?

We will be rightly scrutinising the tumultuous events of the last 12 months for years to come. And there are certainly questions that need to be answered, not least the resilience of our institutions, which for all the commendable endeavour on display, has sometimes been tested to breaking point. But right now, looking to the future is more urgent than it has ever been. We face not just a public health crisis but also an existential climate emergency alongside a host of long-standing and intractable social and economic challenges.

The speed of progress

Despite a wealth of good intention, progress has either been too slow or inadequate – or both – on too many urgent issues in recent years. Poverty, poor health – both physical and mental – institutional inequality, educational attainment, homelessness, creaking public infrastructure, our underperforming economy and a rapidly ageing population. As we have trodden water, the fourth industrial revolution has continued to change the world around us. Our world is data driven and digital now. Connectivity, ethics and privacy are the watchwords of our future rights.

In this complex context, business as usual is not an option. And any post-pandemic social contract will have to rise to new expectations and challenges. Whatever the level of public debt, citizens – scarred by the pandemic – will assert their rights as creditors. Together we will have to make difficult tax and spend choices, tougher than ever before. But in the face of all this, history offers hope if we are willing to seize it. Previous crises have galvanised politics, renewed civil society and hastened progress.

Following the devastation of the First World War and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic came the Roaring Twenties, which saw significant investment in public spaces, dance halls, cinemas, and venues; places for people to come together and celebrate human connection.

The physical and emotional horrors of the Second World War ushered in a renewal of the bond between citizen and the state, including the creation of the NHS and the welfare state, mass social house building, the strengthening of workers’ rights and significant modernisations of equalities and enfranchisement.

More recently a gay rights movement spurred on by the horrors of the AIDS crisis, captured in such timely fashion in Russell T Davis’s “It’s a Sin”, heralded rapid changes to public attitudes, rights and greater equality.

In each case, bold ideological and practical responses have been delivered in response to fault lines exposed and trauma endured. History begs profound questions for Scotland as our generation defining election looms. Where is our big political mission? Where is our zeal for social renewal?  Such questions are all too often obscured by our prevailing political culture. For vision and values, read tribalism and territorialism. For fellowship, read flags. We have had months now of vendettas, personality politics and bitter sniping.

As the campaign unfolds, policy is fighting back but finding it hard to cut through the shouting. We need serious debate on a delivering a Green New Deal, a wellbeing economy, affordable housing, integrated transport, and so much more. There is vital work underway to focus on too; including social security devolution, a new public health agency, the Scottish National Investment Bank and creating a national care service, the Promise.

Scotland 2050

What makes all this even more frustrating is that there is no dearth of thinking. Although often derided as not being a match for London, Scotland has think tanks, policy organisations and independent advocates aplenty. There is plenty of room for more, of course, but there are already ideas in abundance to be poached.

We have a host of world class research institutes too. We have fine policy frameworks, committed public servants and a vibrant third sector. But we need to up our game on collaboration, knowledge transfer and, most of all, on Scotland’s Achilles heel, implementation. Too often when bold offerings are made, they are cast as shallow slogans, headline soundbites or spending bids. We need to replace talking with doing, moving from review and diagnosis to action and investment.

Doing is a fine balance between unstinted ambition and unpopular choices. Building a better tomorrow is hard graft and too often is at odds with the tribal short-term politics that we, as citizens, have come to expect, and colluded with. It will not happen overnight, in a single parliamentary term, or with another 10-year strategy. But what if we raised our line of sight to the Scotland we want to be in 2050 and worked backwards, so that what we prioritise over the next term – and the one after that – delivers the foundations for generational change?

The ideas forged in the debates and creative thinking of Scotland’s Enlightenment helped to shape and inform a century of practical reform and human progress across the globe. Can we be that nation again? If ever there was a time to rise to such a challenge and ditch partisanship in favour of a brighter future, surely it is now?

If we are to stand a chance, the renewed polity that we have talked of so often cannot come a moment too soon. It has become accepted wisdom in recent years that relationships and behaviours, at least as much as structures, systems and processes, are what drive – or stand in the way of – organisational change.  This is no less true of politics.

The shifts required to realise such ambition are numerous. In no particular order, they include strategy to implementation, inquiry to delivery, performance to practice, representation to participation, provider to user, command to collaboration, national to local, adversarial to consensual. These things have a common thread; they shift the focus of decision-making. But this is not simply about giving power away. It is about all of us doing politics differently. We champion the Christie Commission as an exemplar but we have not made it happen yet. We must, as we must also make tangible progress on the Local Governance Review.

We need to find a way of managing our expectations too. Human agency is always flawed, scarcely more so than when brokered by political parties. No one party can deliver this either. With the RSA’s Living Change Approach in mind, how do we combine our knowledge of the system with the agility to act responsively and entrepreneurially to shape inclusive, equitable and sustainable futures?

Can our politicians start with what they agree on, and disagree better too? Can they embrace the original promise of our parliament and coalesce on shared priorities? Can they hand responsibility for making things happen to commissioners, not of inquiry but of delivery? Can they be facilitators rather than gatekeepers? As Anthony Painter and Matthew Taylor argued recently, can government be first follower?

But these are not just questions for politicians. In civil society and in business we must rise to the occasion too. We must offer constructive challenge while avoiding the trap of compliant co-option. And as citizens, we must radically rethink our ask of those we elect, what we want them to do and how we want them to do it.

It all amounts to this: can we actually get things done? That is the real task now for all of us in Scotland, the one upon which concrete change is predicated. And it cries out for the new culture we aspired to nurture in 1999. As Donald Dewar said in his opening speech to the Parliament: “This is about more than our politics or our laws, it is about how we carry ourselves”.

This article was written by the authors in a personal capacity. They would like to thank a number of people who offered comments on an earlier draft.

Chris Creegan is Associate Director of the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS) and Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH).

Adam Lang is Head of Nesta in Scotland, a member of the Board of Trustees at the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) and sits on the Data Driven Innovation Advisory Board at University of Edinburgh.

Author: Cat Aitken for Inspiralba

Introduction  to full report

Rural areas have been identified as an ideal context for studying social enterprise because 33% of Scottish social enterprises can be found serving 17% of the Scottish population (Social Value Lab, 2019). For these reasons, the rural context is considered fertile ground for social enterprise (Steiner, et al., 2019).

This report seeks to understand the ways a rural context influences socialenterprise and highlights the characteristics of rural, remote and island social enterprise in Scotland.

This report will explain how our mixed-method evidence base led us to draw conclusions about the shape of the model and its key characteristics. We have identified the following features to be of importance; a community development lens, collectively led, well connected social capital, provide vital services, small markets but innovative and diversified income streams as the key characteristics of a rural social enterprise and will refer to this cluster of characteristics as the rural social enterprise model.

In order to set the parameters of this research we infer that a high number of rural social enterprises may adopt this rural social enterprise model, but do not believe that all adopt this interpretation. Nor do we assume that individual characteristics cannot be found in urban areas. We do not seek to make judgements on that, rather see it as a potential source of further research.

However, we do believe the cluster of characteristics that create this model are heavily influenced by the structural factors of rurality and that context matters. Although this research was limited by a 3-month funding budget, and was executed remotely during national lockdown, we believe these preliminary findings are accurate and comprehensive. Moving forward they will create the seedbed for future research.

Read full report

Author: Beyond the Horizon – blog of Dr Calum Macleod

Last week the Scottish Government-appointed Just Transition Commission published its final report on how to ensure that Scotland’s goal of creating a net zero carbon emissions economy by 2045 is achieved fairly.   That issue of fairness matters because an uncoordinated and unregulated free for all in the race towards ‘net zero’ risks deepening and widening existing inequalities in Scottish society by producing very clear winners and losers.

Nothing illustrates that paradox more starkly that the vital role of land in addressing the existential threat of climate change.  The Commission’s report is clear that more will be demanded of Scotland’s land as part of a huge investment programme to restore peatlands, plant many more trees and manage woodlands as an integral part of the drive towards net zero.

The report is equally clear that Scotland’s uniquely concentrated pattern of rural landownership presents a challenge to ensuring the benefits of such investment are distributed fairly.  It states that “part of ensuring a just transition must be about making sure the benefits of investment in carbon sequestration are felt as widely as possible. Without careful design and meaningful engagement there is a risk that benefits may flow mainly to large landowners and opportunities for community benefit will be missed.”

Amongst the many recommendations in its report, the Just Transition Commission calls on the Scottish Government to develop a statutory public interest test for any changes in land ownership above a certain threshold.   That proposal echoes a similar recommendation to Government made recently by the Scottish Land Commission following its own report highlighting the corrosive effects of concentrated land ownership in rural Scotland.

Anybody who thinks this is much ado about nothing clearly hasn’t been paying enough attention to the rapidly evolving market in Scottish rural estates; a market described with masterful understatement in a recent article in The Scottish Farmer as “rarefied”.  The article notes that only 23 rural estates changed hands in 2020.  Worryingly, for anyone interested in land ownership transparency (which is most of the Scottish public, according to recent Scottish Government research) around half of these estates were sold privately without surfacing onto the open market.  The same article notes that the total value of Scottish estates sold last year increased by 43% to £100 million.

Through the centuries the Highlands and Islands have seldom been strangers to those eager to sample the rarefied air of estate ownership, often historically funded by morally reprehensible sources of capital. The links between planation slavery and landownership in the region recently highlighted in research by the academics, Dr Iain MacKinnon and Dr Andrew Mackillop, being a case in point.

These traditional ‘trophy estate’ hunters haven’t gone away.  Why would they when private estate sales are unregulated and huge tracts of land can be bought with no questions asked, as long as the price is right?  What has changed is the expansion of the rural estates market to incorporate aspiring ‘Green Lairds’ of various stripes intent on capitalising on investment opportunities presented by the climate emergency.

According to Evelyn Channing, Head of Rural Agency for Scotland, at Savills, “The ESG agenda (environmental, social and corporate governance) is bringing buyers forward of all shapes and sizes, from small Scottish businesses to large charities and investment companies. As a result, the forestry and planting land market is booming: several new funds in the market have been competing aggressively alongside larger, more established investors from all over Europe and beyond. Other buyers are looking to offset carbon emissions produced elsewhere, by purchasing natural capital.”

This is all great news if you happen to own an estate that you’re keen to off-load.  And proponents of a ‘glass half full’ approach to life might optimistically conclude that at least some of the new players in the green land grab are motivated by the best of environmental intentions and an altruistic perspective on the fate of our shared planet.

But you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that any consideration of communities’ role  on the new elite frontier of land and the climate emergency seems conspicuous largely by its absence.   Neither does the continuing existence of an unregulated rural estates market with sharply escalating land values chime with the concept of a just transition to a net zero carbon economy.  It’s equally unclear as to where the idea of retaining wealth within communities for their benefit sits with these new market dynamics.

Increasing community control of land and other assets is essential if we are serious about achieving a just transition whereby the benefits of natural capital are distributed fairly in addressing climate change.    That much is clear from ‘Community Landowners and the Climate Emergency’, a research report by the Institute for Heritage & Sustainable Human Development (Inherit) produced for Community Land Scotland and also published last week.

The report highlights the diverse range of climate action initiatives that rural and urban community landowners are implementing locally, often in partnership with others. They include managing ‘carbon sinks’ such as woodlands, peatlands and green spaces, generating renewable energy to address local electricity needs; improving household energy efficiency to reduce fuel poverty, promoting active travel and low emissions transport, and promoting local food growing and access to healthy and affordable local produce.   This is climate action from the ground up, delivering tangible benefits for the communities themselves and for the wider public as a whole.

In calling for “a national mission for a fairer, greener Scotland” the Just Transition Commission is right to assert that “the imperative of a just transition is that Governments design policies in a way that ensures the benefits of climate change action are shared widely”.   We know that the relationship between Scotland’s uniquely concentrated pattern of rural land ownership and an unregulated estates market is both socially dysfunctional and a structural barrier to delivering on that mission.  Scotland’s political parties know it too.  As the Scottish Parliament Election edges ever closer, the key question is what they propose to do about it.

Author: John Ross, Press and Journal     

Much-needed affordable homes are to be built for local people in two rural locations after the community owners secured land deals.

The Assynt Development Trust has bought 55 acres of former glebe land in Lochinver from the Church of Scotland with the site earmarked to bring multiple community benefits.

The Applecross Community Company has also finalised a buy-out of 5.6 acres which will be used to help tackle a local housing shortage.

The purchase of the Lochinver site, which has a view towards the mountain Suilven, marks the next step of a 15-year project to identify and develop suitable land for building affordable homes.

The community will hold further consultation on possible additional uses for the land, with initial ideas including an all-abilities path network, commercial work units and education and training facilities.

The Scottish Land Fund provided £65,750 towards the land purchase and Communities Housing Trust supported the community with the land acquisition and will continue to help the development process.

Willie Jack, chairman of Assynt Development Trust, said: “We are really pleased that the land purchase has now gone through, and we can now begin to address some of the issues facing our community, such as the need for affordable homes for Assynt residents.

“We are very keen that people have a chance to pitch their ideas in, for what they need and want in Lochinver. As everything is still at an early stage, and with the site secured, we can work on developing the site into what local people want for it, now and into the future.”

Ronnie MacRae, CEO of Communities Housing Trust, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to provide not just affordable housing, but wider social and economic community benefits too.

“This community-led, mixed development model is often so much more suited to smaller, more rural communities and we are extremely pleased to continue working with the Trust and the wider community to further develop the site. We’d like to thank the Scottish Land Fund and congratulate the community on the buyout, and recognise all the hard work that’s been put in to get to this stage.”

Meanwhile, the Communities Housing Trust also helped with work to secure land at the Hydro Field and Community Gardens by the Applecross Community Company.

Last year the land deal was awarded £151,500 from the Scottish Land Fund to buy 5.6 acres for housing and business units.

The group said the project will help alleviate the housing shortage in the 225-strong Wester Ross community and help retain a viable population as well as its school, nursery, GP surgery, shop and post office.

The eight new homes and two business units will add to three affordable houses being built in Applecross with completion due by November.

Work will continue to develop eight allotments and a community garden and to investigate an electric vehicle and e-bike charging point, powered by the community-owned hydro station, Apple Juice, as well as a communal space, polytunnel and composting facilities.

A further award of £137,252 from the land fund will allow the community company to purchase, restock and improve Togarve Community Woods.

Local development officer Roslyn Clarke said: “It’s wonderful that we’ve this milestone. Land ownership is incredible for our community as it gives control over our future and all the benefits that come from that.”

Author: Mike Cowley, Sceptical Scot

The ebbs and flows of the struggle for autonomy and power between communities and capital can be observed by stepping outside our homes and taking a long look at our immediate surroundings. Walk the streets of your neighbourhoods and city centres. Our horizons tell a tale. They also paint a picture of conflict, political priorities, power and agency.

In the 1950s, Chicago School academics undertook an experiment into what they called a ‘socially disorganised zone’ of inner-city Chicago. Crime rates increase, they argued, when communities become ethnically heterogeneous and shared values fracture. The experiment did not meet with success. The imposition of community from above, particularly at the hands of social scientists mostly unfamiliar with the eco-systems they were attempting to remake, seldom finds traction. In fact, as studies in the US and Europe have shown, ethnically mixed communities often boast the highest levels of tolerance between widely differing groups. Interaction begets empathy. On contact with proximity, former suspicions evaporate like street puddles on a summer’s afternoon. From that moment on, social bonds take root.

The broadcaster and journalist Paul Mason has described his ’10 things a perfect city needs.’ Amongst his ergonomic wish-list is a ‘democratic political culture the inhabitants are proud of, that calls them regularly to the streets, to loud arguments in small squares, keeps their police demilitarised and in check, and allows them to assimilate the migrants that will inevitably flow inwards.’ They ‘must be ethnically mixed and tolerant and hospitable to women.’ As with George Orwell’s favourite pub – darts, piano and staff who know your name – no one city can capture every quality necessary to the building of cityscapes reflective of the inevitable and welcome diversity of modern life. What appears key is autonomy. As the post-Covid reckoning approaches, who is going to ‘own’ the rebuilding of services, community capacity and employment to which both UK and Scottish governments are formally committed?

Author: Our Seas

Join the Our Seas campaign here

See a short trailer of the film – The Limit

See the film (30 mins) – The Limit

Author: Scottish Government

The aim of the international review –Full report

This review is international in scope; it draws on examples not just from Europe but also from North and South America and Australasia. It takes a predominantly qualitative approach to produce in-depth case studies which offer a rich profile of local governance in each instance. It looks not simply at governance structures but at building an understanding of local governance as a system, recognising that the operation of governance involves inter-connections and dependencies vertically between levels of government and horizontally between similar local governance structures. And the review looks also at participative democracy; whether and how citizens can participate in local governance: the means and mechanisms available to them to influence or take part in local decision-making beyond voting in elections.

The review considers the case studies comparatively, to identify where there are common issues and challenges and patterns in the ways in which systems are designed and function, and where systems differ or diverge. Profiles of each case study describe the system of democratic and public service governance, including the different spheres of government and their functions, and mechanisms for public participation and offer an appraisal of each country’s system of governance. The results of this review complement and add to the picture provided by the reports listed in the previous section.

The review does not identify an ‘ideal type’ of local governance that can be simply transferred and applied to Scotland. Instead, the review contributes to a deeper knowledge and a richer understanding of different local governance systems. In that way, it aims to act as resource for learning and reflection that can inform ongoing discussions about governance and democracy in Scotland.

It is difficult to capture the complexities of governance in a simple definition. The literature on governance proposes several definitions, but most rest on three dimensions: power/authority, decision-making and accountability. The Institute of Governance working definition of governance reflects these dimensions: governance determines who has power, who makes decisions, how other players make their voice heard and how account is rendered.^[1]

Author: Max MacLeod, Bella Caledonia

In the early 1980s I had a tourist experience in the Scottish Hebrides that changed my life. Prof Richard Demarco had chartered a large square rigged sailing vessel, The Marquesa,  to sail round Scotland and visit what he termed centres of energy, and in particular those in the Hebrides. Our cargo was wealthy artists, I worked on the ship as a bad deck-hand and reasonable hebridean guide. Climbing the rigging, terrified out of my mind but fired with adrenaline, and then when we arrived at islands introducing folk to some of the islanders I knew. It was extraordinary. Typically we visited gay lairds who told us that they had chosen the colour of their sitting rooms to augment their appreciation of their wines. Sorley Maclean showed us Raasay, Schellenberg Eigg. We ran wind-on-tide the confusions of the Pentland Firth under full sail. Danced on the high yards in the moon light off Skye, put on women’s make up and wore their clothes whilst they wore ours off Mull when the tensions in the fore peak became too much to bear. And it worked.

The whole experience was like having your previous perceptions of the world ripped up and replaced. The Hebrides can do that to you.  That’s one of the reasons they are important.  Life on board was truly bizarre . The domestic arrangements were carnal l, particularly for the crew who worked back to back four hour watches  Some of the crew shared not only clothes but partners, sleeping on whichever bunk was available grabbing clothes from a shared pile when your watch was called. Eating with our hands, seldom shaving, singing often. The volume on our lives was turned up.

Sometimes we lived like animals and then returned to civilisation chastened and educated. After a few weeks of such lifestyles we lost track of what day of the week it was and love affairs were established. though mostly with the sea, the boat and the practice of flirting with danger, of which there was an unnecessary excess. Indeed far too much.

Not long after the trip the ship capsized with the loss of nineteen lives, a couple of them friends of mine. Let me now kiss them over time and say with sincerity that I still miss them. She had evidently sunk in less than a couple of minutes. Nineteen of the twenty nine crew lost. I imagine nobody escaped that fetid forepeak when the wall of water arrived amongst them as the ship sank into the Bermuda Triangle.

They chose the risk of living short lives as lions, rather than long ones as mules.

I’ve never enjoyed anything as much as my time on the Marquesa, either before or since.

I was thinking of how deeply that experience had touched me when I heard this week that the hostel on Iona was to close , at least for the time being and the building to be converted into three self catering apartments.

Now whilst living in a comfortable hostel on the flower strewn machairs of Iona and only two minutes from the sea isn’t quite as extreme an experience as acting the goat on the high yards of a square rigger as it plunged and twisted through the Hebrides, absurd though it may seem. There are certain similarities that make me similarly sad at this loss. I’m serious. The loss of not only this particular hostel, but several others like it, in the cheaper end of the tourism market  is truly a tragedy for Scotland.

The Iona hostel had no proper internet connection or television, guests were encouraged to speak to each other, long walks were advocated. Abbey services indicated, bicycles lent. People would soon start to offer to share food with strangers or teach them to paint or draw. Friendships were made. Conversations held in which there was as much listening as talking. The hostel won awards for it’s ecological responsibility.  In short it was what Professor Demarco would have described as a centre of energy. Lives were changed.

But why does this matter enough for an essay? Well here we sit nearing the end of what might be termed the pause. Many have opined that this is our last chance to make the gargantuan changes in our global way of life if we are to make any significant impact on the oncoming ecological Armageddon whose full impact will start to become apparent within the next ten to fifteen years and which we can at least lessen even if we are too late to entirely avoid.

And how can we do this? Well only if we not only learn the lessons of the pause, that the important things in life are nature, love and community and that it’s not all just a race to see who will own the most toys before we die.

Now we are Scots, guardians of some of the finest wild lands and oceans in Europe.  Places that can teach these lessons, not through finger wagging instruction but through simply encouraging change through giving people the opportunity to experience places like the Iona Hostel so that these immortal truths and their significance become apparent to them.Of course the Iona Hostel is just an instance of the need for this kind of change, and how we in Scotland can help to deliver it, but it’s still a good one.

Of course this is an optimistic, almost childishly naive way of looking at things, but it is our only hope. COP 26 won’t sort it. It has to be people led. Greta is right. It’s high time we started to panic.  The term being given to this kind of activity is slow tourism. I hear that there is a chance that one day the hostel on Iona will re-open. I hope it does. For the sake of us all.

Author: WEvolution

A Scottish charity is calling for scaling a development model based on trust, savings and strengths to support those struggling economically and socially.

In a new report issued today, WEvolution is proposing six principles and practices learnt from the Global South that focus on the assets which people struggling against poverty already have, in order to encourage sustainable long-term development.

The Self-Reliant Group (SRG) model – currently being lived out by women in some of the most economically disadvantaged communities in the UK – challenges the prevailing norms which consistently hold people back. WEvolution helps bring together groups of people who uncover their entrepreneurial potential through peer connections. They raise their own capital by saving small amounts weekly and progress to developing small business ideas into products and services. WEvolution, who have championed this practice in Scotland since 2011, are using the learnings from their Global South speaker series to continue unearthing hidden entrepreneurs and help form stronger communities. Speakers for the series came from as far as Columbia, Kenya and India.

Former Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government and Chair of David Hume Institute, who part-funded the speaker series,  Sir John Elvidge, said: “The David Hume Institute has found it of great value to be able to partner with WEvolution in raising awareness of the opportunities for learning from the Southern Hemisphere. We are committed now to taking the learning into our own work, as I hope are others. As ever, WEvolution are at the heart of a call to action.”

These six recommendations offer vital insights for those committed to positive social change.

1. A need to focus on the collective, not the individual
2. Listen to the affected communities
3. Encourage long-term savings
4. Consider the complexity of modern life
5. Rebuild civic institutions
6. Be patient.

Author of the report, Martin Johnstone, produced the findings in partnership with the David Hume Institute. He said: “The six lessons learnt from our teachers in the Global South offer vital insights for those committed to change. We need disruption, not just innovation.”

“Although the pandemic has affected us all, the implications have been experienced by some disproportionately. If we were already struggling – economically, socially and in terms of health – prior to lockdown, the gap between us and the rest of society has widened further. Self-Reliant Groups offer an opportunity to empower people and communities.”

Over the last ten years, WEvolution has supported a growing network of over 130 Self Reliant Groups (SRGs) across Scotland, England, Wales and the Netherlands. The use of the SRG model has allowed groups in struggling communities to start up new businesses. Noel Mathias, founder and Managing Director of WEvolution, said: “The work we are carrying out with SRGs offers them an alternative route to pursuing entrepreneurial dreams while also strengthening their communities.”

“The speakers from the Global South Series highlight the positive, long-term impact their efforts have had in their respective regions. We can use their examples as a feasible method to help rebuild communities following the pandemic.”

WEvolution, who recently appointed the CEO of Carnegie UK Trust, Sarah Davidson, as its Head of Trustees, is spearheading the Self-Reliant Group model to provide communities with a method that encourages savings while also pursuing business opportunities. Sarah said, “The evidence here in Scotland, as well as from these pioneers in the global south, supports the belief that SRGs are vehicles that can promote individual and community wellbeing.”