Author: John Prebble, Constitution Society

The Declaration of Arbroath was and has been unequalled in its eloquent plea for the liberty of man. From the darkness of medieval minds it shone a torch upon future struggles which its signatories could not have foreseen or understood.

The author of this noble Latin address is unknown, though it is assumed to have been composed by Bernard de Linton, Abbot of Arbroath and Chancellor of Scotland. Above the seals of eight earls and forty-five barons, it asked for the Pope’s dispassionate intervention in the bloody quarrel between the Scots and the English, and so that he might understand the difference between the two its preamble gave him a brief history of the former. The laughable fiction of this is irrelevant. What is important is the passionate sincerity of the men who believed it, who were placing a new and heady nationalism above the feudal obligations that had divided their loyalties less than a quarter of a century before.

In its mixture of defiance and supplication, nonsensical history and noble thought, two things make the Declaration of Arbroath the most important document in Scottish history.

Firstly it set the will and the wishes of the people above the King. Though they were bound to him ‘both by law and by his merits’ it was so that their freedom might be maintained. If he betrayed them he would be removed and replaced. This remarkable obligation placed upon a feudal monarch by his feudal subjects may be explained in part by the fact that Bruce was still a heather king to many of them, still a wild claimant ruling upon sufferance and success. But the roots of his kingship were Celtic, and a Celtic tradition was here invoked, the memory of the Seven Earls, the Seven Sons of Cruithne the Pict in who, it was believed, had rested the ancient right of tanistry, the elevation of kings by selection. This unique relationship of king and people would influence their history henceforward, and would reach its climax in the Reformation and the century following, when a people’s Church would declare and maintain its superiority over earthly crowns.

Secondly, the manifesto affirmed the nation’s independence in a way no battle could, and justified it with a truth that is beyond nation and race. Man has a right to freedom and a duty to defend it with his life. The natural qualifications put upon this by a medieval baron are irrelevant, as are the reservations which slave-owning Americans placed upon their declaration of independence. The truth once spoken cannot be checked, the seed once planted controls its own growth, and the liberty which men secure for themselves must be given by them to others, or it will be taken as they took it. Freedom is a hardy plant and must flower in equality and brotherhood.

The Declaration of Arbroath 1320 — English Translation

To the most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of Fife, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and Orkney, and William, Earl of Sutherland; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John Menteith, guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet.

Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner. The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles — by calling, though second or third in rank — the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter’s brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever.

The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter’s brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes.

But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully. Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand. Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose vice-gerent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves. This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness’s memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbours. The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom. But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge.

To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, casting our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought. May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days.

Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid.

Author: Sally Reynolds, Scottish Land Commissioner

In this blog, Land Commissioner Sally Reynolds looks at improving the transparency and availability of information on the ownership, management and use of land following the publication of the Commission’s second protocol on ‘Transparency of Ownership and Land Use Decision-Making.’

In these difficult and changing times, there is one thing that remains constant – and that is land. The way Scotland’s land is owned, managed and used has the potential to contribute to the economic, environmental and social goals of the country.

However, the lack of transparency about land ownership and land use decision-making still remains a barrier to achieving this potential. It seems only right that information about the ownership, use and management of land should be available to those who could be impacted by the decisions made about that land.

If we had better information about land ownership and decisions relating to land people would not only be better informed but have more confidence in that decision-making. Those with decision-making powers in relation to land would be recognised for acting in accordance with their responsibilities as well as their rights.

Sharing information in this way is critical. It not only provides the foundation for open and transparent decision-making but can also enable participation. Improved information about who controls land in Scotland will help to empower people, including community groups, and give them the opportunity to understand who is in control of land.

The Scottish Land Commission’s latest good practice protocol on ‘Transparency of Ownership and Land Use Decision-Making’ aims to encourage owners and managers to provide simple details that will greatly improve people’s understanding of who owns land in Scotland and what it is used for. It sets out clear expectations around sharing information about who owns and controls land and how they can be contacted.

The protocol focuses particularly on Principle 5 of the Scottish Government’s Land Rights and Responsibilities statement: “There should be improved transparency of information about the ownership, use and management of land, and this should be publicly available, clear and contain relevant detail” and supports the upcoming Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land.

The protocol asks that:

Up-to-date information about who owns land or buildings and the extent of the landholding should always be publicly available

If there are people or bodies with significant influence and control over land and buildings, information about who they are and the extent of their control should be made publicly available along with information about ownership

Contact information for the landowner or for someone with local decision-making authority over the land (such as a land manager or agent) should be available

Contact information for the relevant community council and/or community organisations in the area should be available.

This new protocol is part of our programme of good practice and sits alongside our first protocol on Community Engagement in Decisions Relating to Land. Together they provide a blueprint for good practice for both landowners and communities to work together to mutual benefit.

Author: Mary Church, Dr Deborah Long , and Lloyd Austin for Scottish Environment Link

Many people in Scotland suffer from a polluted environment, particularly those in poorer communities, and, across Scotland, environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, toxic air and plastic pollution are becoming ever more pressing. There is a growing and increasingly complex body of environmental law in Scots law – some of it world-leading – and at the EU and international level that attempts to address aspects of these problems.

However, the Scottish legal system makes it extremely difficult for citizens and NGOs to hold government and private bodies to account over harm to the environment. Scotland has a distinct and separate legal system from the rest of the UK and has lagged behind England and Wales in developing a public law culture that enables people and NGOs to access justice and pursue public interest litigation in general and specifically in relation to the environment. What is more, to date the Scottish Government has taken a half-hearted, piecemeal approach to implementing the UNECE Aarhus Convention’s requirements on access to justice, resulting in repeated rulings of non-compliance from the Convention’s Compliance Committee.

In March 2018, Scottish Environment LINK commissioned a feasibility report , which found evidence that, in Scotland, people and communities struggle to identify their legal rights and how to exercise them. Ten detailed case studies demonstrate a breadth of issues relating to unenforced planning and environmental law, and the barriers people faced in trying to access justice for their communities and the environment. These include communities blighted by opencast mining; landfill sites; incinerators; loss of greenbelt and public amenity; air and water pollution. The playing field is very far from level when it comes to engaging in the planning system – the route by which people generally encounter environmental law – with the resources and experience developers can rely on far outweighing what communities can hope to access.

Significant barriers of cost, uncertainty and technicalities exist for professional environmental NGOs as well as communities and individual citizens in terms of exercising legal rights. Even environmental NGOs in Scotland have very limited legal capacity, with inhouse lawyers almost unheard of in the sector.

This is why Scottish Environment LINK is working to establish an Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, as a means of tackling these interlinked, systemic problems. In July 2019, LINK was delighted to be awarded funding from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust to set one up. This is funding to kick start the initiative over the next 3 years, and fundraising is underway to meet the funding gap in future years.

The work is overseen by LINK Legal Strategy Group  who worked with LINK staff to appoint two new staff members: Shivali Fifield, ERCS Development Manager and Ian Cowan, ERCS Programme Manager. Both staff start in their new roles on 20 January 2019.

The purpose of this new centre is to:

• deliver public legal education enabling individuals, communities and eNGOs to understand better and access their legal rights and responsibilities in relation to the environment;
• offer advice and assistance on planning and environmental law to individuals, communities and NGOs;
• advocate for reform for a legal system that is fit for purpose, including compliance with the UNECE Aarhus Convention, as environmental law becomes increasingly complex and environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss and air pollution become increasingly pressing; and
• pursue strategic litigation where necessary to secure progress on key environmental issues.

In working to achieve this long term purpose, our short term plan is to establish a stand-alone SCIO (a form of Scottish charity) with its own Board of Trustees to oversee the work of the Centre.  When this is up and running, management of the Centre will transfer from LINK to the new body.

At the same time, Shivali and Ian will focus on developing and agreeing a strategy for the Centre’s development, including its phased establishment and growth. It is clear that our purpose will not be achieved on day one!  This strategy will also address the recruitment of Trustees and fundraising for the medium and longer-term.

Why do we need an Environmental Rights Centre in Scotland?

Environmental democracy in Scotland

There is a gap in access to affordable legal services in public interest environmental law in Scotland and this is one of the issues that leaves Scotland in breach of the Aarhus Convention. The Aarhus Convention aims to protect the human right to a clean and healthy environment. It recognises this right, and a corresponding duty for people “to protect and improve the environment”.  Successive Scottish Governments have failed to address this is in a comprehensive or adequate manner.

Central to this is that affordability of advice and representation is the major barrier to access to environmental justice in Scotland. LINK’s Governance Matters report noted how the costs of environmental litigation have meant that most citizens or non-governmental organisations simply could not afford to take cases challenging the Government’s application of the law to the Court of Session – especially where taking such a case was likely to result in the need for an onwards appeal. For example, the John Muir Trust’s unsuccessful judicial review of the Stronelairg windfarm development led to the Trust owing £539,000 to the Scottish Government and developer SSE. This was eventually negotiated to £125,000.

Current problems with the planning system in Scotland also limit environmental democracy in Scotland: evidence collated in LINK’s  Rhetoric to reality report show that communities feel excluded; the planning system is seen as biased in favour of developers; planning authorities take decisions contrary to their plan and their planners’ advice. Planning appeal rights in Scotland exist only for those making applications for planning permission. Applicants can appeal refusals of planning permission, whereas communities, who may be directly affected by planning decisions, cannot appeal permissions. The only route for communities to challenge planning decisions is through judicial review, which is unaffordable for all but a wealthy few. What’s more, judicial review is a largely procedural process which focusses on legality and does not address the substance of a decision. LINK member, Planning Democracy, argues for an ‘equal right of appeal’ – whereby communities should also have the right to appeal decisions which affect them.

There is also a looming environmental governance gap as we face Brexit and with it the loss of oversight of EU institutions such as the European Court. Given the unaffordability of and lack of environmental specialism in the Scottish Courts this poses a real risk. An Environmental Rights Centre can help  advocate for robust  environmental disputes mechanisms, including the option for a new Environmental Court for Scotland.

Promoting environmental protection and sustainability

Systemic substantive environmental problems persist in Scotland, particularly in relation to air and water pollution, wildlife crime and biodiversity. The 2019 State of Nature report reflects the scale of the issue in Scotland, to which an urgent response is required. In addition, there are a number of ongoing and impending constitutional developments, which require expertise and advocacy to protect and improve environmental law. These include devolution and the development of ‘Scottish environmental law’, the threats of lower environmental standards and a ‘governance gap’ after Brexit and the need for new fora to hear environmental disputes in Scotland.

While environmental law centres exist in England and Wales, Environmental law in Scotland is different. The unique legal situation in Scotland requires legal specialism – and effective law reform or campaigning work requires an understanding of the Scottish political context.

Economic benefits

The UK Law Centre Network has contracted several research projects on the economic benefits of law centres. The 2014 ‘Funding for Law Centres’ report found that law centres in England, Wales and Northern Ireland deliver several positive economic outcomes. Their use of early intervention and advice avoids costs in the justice system by preventing court actions, and their use of negotiated solutions for clients helps to avoid the social costs associated with outcomes such as evictions, bankruptcy and forced deportations. It found that the pure fiscal benefits of law centres amount to at least twice the amount for which they are funded. In addition to this, it found that Law Centres create a number of non-quantifiable wider economic benefits to society.

Our aim in launching the new ERCS in January is to build a sustainable mechanism to address these issues at a time of crucial importance for the environment, not just in Scotland but across the world.

Author: Anna Chworow, Nourish Scotland

The recent images of empty supermarket shelves are an iconic reminder that running out of food is a really scary prospect. It’s hard to not be affected by this anxiety, even if at the rational level we know there is now – as there has been for years – enough food to go around, and that there is no reason for this to change as a result of this pandemic.

That global supply chain is an amazing combination of trust and technology. Of course it also has huge downsides; it generates massive environmental damage, monumental food waste, exploitative work practices and a disastrous mismatch between what we need to eat for health and what we are being sold. Of course it would be good if Scotland were to produce more of what it eats, and eat more of what it produces. We absolutely need a food system transformation to tackle the climate and nature emergencies, and this needs global as well as local work.

Meanwhile we should be grateful that the global food chain is as resilient as it is; and that countries are co-operating to tackle the virus and also to keep food moving. Because there isn’t, and never has been a shortage of supply; and once the supply chain adjusts to the new patterns of shopping during this extraordinary time, the shelves will be full again.

Unfortunately, full shelves won’t stop many people from worrying about running out of food. What’s changed is that it’s now a concern for more than the 8% of Scots who were already food insecure before this crisis, whose incomes are simply too low to make ends meet. Now it’s the people who have recently lost their jobs. It’s the people who have been told to stay home and not go out. It’s the families who were receiving free school meals but now have the kids at home.

The wheels of government are moving to tackle this, and moving at scale. Scottish Government last week announced £350m of funding to tackle poverty and reduce food insecurity, on top of UK Government promises to pay people’s wages directly during the crisis. This is clearly a good example of government respecting the right to food and acting to fulfil it.

The food supply chain can and will deliver; and it can and will do better on sustainability, health and fairness. But now is the time to make sure it delivers for all of us.

We have a clear choice now. We can keep going with our two-tier food system, directing the flood of community goodwill into a new version of emergency food aid, a new form of food bank. These – at least for the duration of the crisis – may be able to source, sort, package and deliver food to vulnerable people, though the cracks are already showing in relying on a largely volunteer-run service (many of whom have already had to step back because of their own vulnerability in the face of the virus).

Stripping back community efforts to a complex and convoluted way to provide a basic food parcel will also remove the most valuable asset of community food initiatives – that they can be a source of much needed social interaction, care and support.

Or, we can take the right to food seriously, and commit to ending food insecurity in Scotland. £350m is about 50 times the value of the food given out in food banks in Scotland each year. Everyone should be able to afford a good enough diet for themselves and their family, and no-one should be worried about running out of food at the end of the week. This crisis has brought the challenge centre stage, and it’s time to put the systems in place to support people now and in the future.

In the short term this means broadening access to good food. School kitchens can keep producing safe healthy meals not just for children stuck at home but also for people having to self-isolate. Delivering those meals to people’s homes is a chance to check that people are doing OK and to offer advice, information and encouragement.

The Scottish Government should work with food retailers to ensure that delivery charges and minimum order limits do not present barriers to accessing food when and where people need it. People who would have turned to food banks should instead be able to get a shop delivery to their home of the food they actually want, just like everyone else.

For the many thousands of people who want to volunteer, there are jobs to be done, just as in the days of meals on wheels. People will still need their neighbours to step up and create (new) ways of building relationships and supporting people to stay well. And there are new jobs too, using this opportunity to get everyone online who wants to be (connection and broadband charges can be waived too).

If the Premier League can shut down; if the Government can take a million new people onto payroll; and if this time we really are all in this together, then we should use this opportunity to make the right to food real and get rid of our two-tier food system.

The food supply chain can and will deliver; and it can and will do better on sustainability, health and fairness. But now is the time to make sure it delivers for all of us.

Author: Frontiers in Marine Science

Full report here

Marine Conservation Begins at Home: How a Local Community and Protection of a Small Bay Sent Waves of Change Around the UK and Beyond

The Firth of Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland, was once one of the most productive fishing grounds in Europe. However, successive decades of poor management and overfishing led to a dramatic loss of biodiversity and the collapse of finfish fisheries. In response, concerned local residents on the Isle of Arran, which lies in the middle of the Clyde, formed the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST) in 1995. After 13 years of campaigning, a small (2.67 km2) area in Lamlash Bay became Scotland’s first no-take zone (NTZ) in 2008, and only the second in the UK. Since protection, biodiversity has increased substantially, along with the size, age and density of commercially important species such as the king scallop, Pecten maximus, and the European lobster, Homarusgammarus. Arguably more important, however, is the influence the Lamlash Bay NTZ and COAST have had on UK marine protection in general. Most notably, detailed research has created a case study that clearly demonstrates the benefits of protection in an area where little such evidence is available. This case has been used repeatedly to support efforts for increased protection of UK waters to help rebuild marine ecosystems and enhance their resilience in an uncertain future. In Scotland specifically, lobbying by COAST led to the designation of a much larger marine protected area (MPA, >250 km2) around the south of Arran, one of 30 new MPAs in the country. Evidence from Lamlash Bay has supported development of strong protection for these MPAs, seeing off lobbyist efforts to weaken management. Arran’s conservation success has been recognized internationally and is inspiring greater involvement of local communities around the UK, and further afield, to take the destiny of their coastal waters into their own hands.

Successful marine conservation begins at home.

Author: Mark McLintock, MainStreet Consulting

After reading articles from Martin Armstrong and David Bookbinder about the relative merits of large and small housing associations, Mark McLintock from MainStreet Consulting carried out some analysis and details his findings.

MainStreet has worked with some big housing associations and some small housing associations. So we were very interested in recent articles in Scottish Housing News by Martin Armstrong, CEO of the Wheatley Group and David Bookbinder, Director of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations regarding the optimum size of registered social landlords (RSLs).

If you missed the articles, Martin argued that size (in Wheatley’s case over 93,000 units) brought advantages.  He highlighted investment heft, provision of wraparound services, greater digital service delivery. Martin also stressed that, despite their size, they had a community focus through the operation of a ‘housing officer patch’ system, and local decision making.

David had a different perspective. He replied that smaller community-based associations enabled local decision making, achieved faster repair response times, had higher tenant satisfaction scores, and lower rents; and, importantly, acted as community anchors, particularly for other community groups.

Who is right?

We are continually struck by what we see in smaller RSLs. Documentation, such as their risk registers, frequently includes terms relating to staff capacity, governance burden, and regulatory intervention.

Perhaps coincidently, Scottish Housing News has brought us a steady stream of RSLs seeking a strategic partner. The recurring theme is that the status quo for some organisations is not an option, whether that’s as a result of governance failures, and/or regulatory intervention, departure of their CEO leading to a strategic review, or recognition that there may be better value for their tenants from partnering with a larger association. Over the last year, the following RSLs have either started or completed strategic partnerships:

Transferring RSL                                      Units                 Partner                                          Remarks

Dumfries & Galloway HP                      10,300        Wheatley Group                             Strategic review

Kendoon HA                                                318           Pineview HA                  CEO retiral options appraisal

Wishaw & District HA                               973                  Trust                                         SHR intervention

Pentland HA                                              483              Cairn HA                       CEO retiral options appraisal

Thistle HA                                                  947             Sanctuary Group                        SHR intervention

Kincardine Housing Co-op                         72              Grampian HA                            SHR intervention

Ore Valley HA                                           674               Kingdom HA                    Partner discussions ongoing

The average number of units owned by these organisations is 1967 but this is skewed by the very large DGHP – if it is removed, the average of all the other RSLs drops to 578 units.

This started us thinking, is there an optimum size for a Scottish RSL?  Is there a magic number? Are some RSLs just too small to be able to deal with being a regulated body?

To find out, we looked at the regulator’s data set for 2018/19 and discovered a few interesting numbers:

The average size of an RSL is just under 1600 units

Just over half (51%) of our RSLs have fewer than 1000 units

The average figure for ‘number of units per office based staff member’ across all Scottish RSLs is 56.2 (units) i.e. for every 56 units, the RSL has one staff member

There are 69 RSLs that have a higher than average ‘units per office based staff member’ ratio: of these 48 (70%) are RSLs that have fewer than 1000 units

Within all Scottish RSLs, the average percentage of tenants that were satisfied with the service they received was 90%

95 RSLs had a tenant satisfaction score that was above the average: of these, 66 (69%) had fewer than 1000 units, and 29 (31%) had more than 1000 units – interestingly, the six RSLs in the Wheatley Group (not including DGHP) had an average tenant satisfaction score of 91.4, above the national average.

Can we draw any conclusions from this (admittedly very crude) analysis?

The first thing to say is that the customer satisfaction data might actually support both Martin and David. It also suggests that whilst RSLs with fewer than 1000 units generally deliver a high level of tenant satisfaction, many of them also have a high number of units to each staff member, potentially highlighting staff capacity issues.

If this is becoming an issue, then there could be some tell-tale signs to look out for: staff burn out; high levels of staff turnover; increased reliance on external support; tenant satisfaction scores slipping; and, potentially, the emergence of governance issues.

Many RSLs could be suffering from sustained pressure on their staff. For those of us that sit on governing bodies, we have a duty of care to review urgently the extent to which officers are stretched. If this is a widespread issue, then the magic number won’t be anything to do with the minimum size of an RSL, it will be about the growing number of associations that are looking for a strategic partner to provide them a viable future.

Author: SCVO

Several third sector websites have pages pointing towards sources of help and support. Rather than simply add to this, we would signpost you to the SCVO website which appears to have the most comprehensive and up to date overview of what support is available. See the Third Sector Coronavirus Information Hub

Specifically, the Third Sector Resilience Fund, which has been established to offer support to organisations across the third sector who are at risk of closure due to a sharp decrease in income or that are unable to deliver their services during this difficult period, opened today – 25th March. See here for details

Author: The National

SCOTTISH Green Party MSP, Andy Wightman has successfully defended himself against defamation action over blog posts he published about Wildcat Haven Enterprises (WHE).

The blog posts, published in September 2015 and February 2016, led to WHE attempting in 2017 to claim £750,000 in damages against the MSP which would likely have cost him his seat in the Scottish Parliament.

In their ruling, Lord Clarke found that the author did not defame WHE, nor that his posts had resulted in a loss of £750,000 to organisation.

Today, Wightman has announced that he is “delighted” with the judgement, and thanked his legal team for their work.

He said: “I’m delighted with this judgement from Lord Clark. I would like to thank my legal team of Campbell Deane and Roddy Dunlop QC for their support, diligence and hard work over the past three years. I’d also like to thank my family and colleagues at work for their support and understanding over this period.

“I want to pay particular thanks to the thousands of people who generously contributed to my crowdfunder, without whom I would simply have been unable to defend myself. I have been hugely encouraged by their ongoing support.

“The National Union of Journalists and Scottish PEN have also been very supportive as part of their wider campaign for defamation reform. I have maintained throughout that I did not defame the pursuer and that this action should never have been brought against me.

“It is vital that Parliament modernises the law of defamation to ensure that the law provides the right balance between freedom of expression and the rights of people not to have their reputations tarnished. It is also important that the law is clear, so that writers and journalists can write confidently and provide the freedom of expression that is so important in any democracy.”

The Lothian MSP and writer raised over £116,000 from crowdfunding to take on the case against him. He said at the time that a “huge worry” had been lifted after hitting his funding target.

Wightman promised to repay contributions should he win the case and be awarded costs.

Author: Scottish Govt

Update from Scottish Government – March 2020

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to postpone the planned launch of the second phase of the Local Governance Review on 12 March.
Subsequently, with new public health measures on coronavirus announced this week, it will not be possible for Democracy Matters conversations to take place in the immediate future. We know this news will be disappointing to many of you who are passionate about local democracy and community empowerment. However, in these difficult times, the health and wellbeing of people needs to be our primary concern.
We hope to restart the conversations as soon as it is safe and practical to do so. A small group of stakeholders from the community sector, equalities interests, Local Government, and the Scottish Government met with the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government and the COLSA President on 12 March to discuss their hopes for the next phase of engagement, once it gets underway. We will be in touch with the group on any developments, and with you, so keep an eye out for future editions of our newsletter

The Forum complex in the Dutch city Groningen is trying to show that town centres don’t need to sell to survive

The €101m Forum building is part library, part meeting space, part science museum and part recreational hangout.

Four-year-old Joris Niekus hops excitedly in front of a wall-sized flatscreen as his dad loads up an interactive version of Roald Dahl’s BFG (known as GVR in Dutch).

Seconds later, face beaming, his digitised silhouette is bopping across the screen together with Dahl’s gangly giant.

It’s just one of many experiences on offer at a new downtown development in the Dutch city of Groningen that is seeking to reinvent urban hubs for the post-consumer age.

The €101m, trapezoid Forum building is part library, part meeting space, part science museum and part recreational hangout – a 10-storey “multi-space” designed to resonate with citizens who know that shopping is not necessarily the answer. It’s a new-look department store that doesn’t actually sell very much.

But with high streets feeling the pinch across the developed world, with shops shuttered and town centres wondering what they are for any more, the Groningen experiment is being closely watched.

Nowhere is that truer than in the UK, where more than 16,000 retail stores closed last year at the cost of more than 143,000 jobs. The picture in the US is similar, with more than 9,300 shops going to the wall in 2019 as shoppers increasingly move online.

In Europe, city centres are being emptied of life as skyrocketing rental costs push low-income residents out to the peripheries. In cities such as Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Luxembourg, for instance, 80% of citizens say affordable housing is hard to find.

It’s early days, but the Forum certainly feels like it is working. More than 700,000 people – three times the city’s total population – have visited the library since it opened late last year. So, what’s the big draw?

There are books galore (92,000 in total), but they are for rent, not sale, distributed liberally across multiple mezzanine floors with a joyous disregard for Dewey decimal discipline. Geography on one floor, history on another, mathematics … somewhere, presumably.

For the non-bookish, there’s plenty besides: a six-screen cinema, two exhibition halls, a couple of cafes, a museum (about comics, no less), a 250-seater auditorium, and a hip (but not overly hip) top-floor restaurant and bar. Oh, plus a rooftop “market square” with panoramic views over the whole of Groningen.

“Every day when I pick him up from school, he asks to come to the Forum. He just finds it so much fun,” says Joris’s dad, Marcel, an archaeologist, who cuts his working day short every Tuesday to accommodate his son’s request.

The comment is music to the ears of Dirk Nijdam, the Forum’s director, who readily admits that lending out books has never been his priority. Instead, what’s driven his thinking since he took on the project six years ago is the idea of creating a space where anyone and everyone can wander in, kick back and collectively feel at home.

“If people walk in and say, ‘Wow, Groningen has got a new library’, then we’ll have failed,” he says. “If you want to come in and just hang out, you should feel just as welcome as if you’re going to an exhibition or taking out a book.”

This notion of “hanging out” gets to the real function of Groningen’s artful new creation: namely, helping fellow citizens mix and mingle and – who knows? – perhaps even taste that nebulous yet ever-necessary thing called “community”.

It’s a mission born, in part, out of Groningen’s struggling city centre. The hope is that the Forum will revitalise the main market square, which, after the German occupation during the second world war was home to a dingy car park for decades.

At the same time, the project marks a bold riposte to the effects of modern-day capitalist society: first, in its promotion of an individualistic society; and second, in its commercialisation of public space (ie with malls and coffee bars gradually replacing libraries and community centres).

The Forum is a splendid example of form following function. Clean and contemporary, the final design shouts anything but library. Hotel lobby, perhaps? Department store, even? From the luminous circular information desk, to the free-floating elevators, to the immense, cathedral-esque atrium. It’s all quite discombobulating and really rather marvellous.

Once through the door, the challenge is to make people stay. It’s all about “the experience”, says Nijdam, borrowing from big retail’s mantra de jour. So no security beefs on the door, no blaring Tannoy announcements, no endless queuing. Instead, it’s all soft furnishings, mood lighting and make-yourself-at-home courtesy.

Signposts are also kept to a minimum. Exploration, not explanation, is the building’s guiding motif, says Kamiel Klaasse co-founder of NL Architects, an upstart Amsterdam-based firm that beat off an all-star list (including the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid) to win the design contract way back in 2006.

“The brief talked as much about searching as about finding and we interpreted that as an incentive to let people roam,” Klaasse says.

Community connector

The Groningen resident and social activist Ritzo ten Cate is an early cheerleader for the project. Describing the Forum as “one big welcome gesture to us as citizens”, he points to the diversity of the building’s users as proof of its communitarian qualities.

The evidence seems solid. On any given day, you’ll find students working at their laptops, mums with their toddlers, school kids on assignment and grannies reading newspapers. All of them together, under one roof, seemingly as one.

Nor is it just Groningen’s well-heeled citizens who make use of the space. On his many visits, Ten Cate regularly spots friends from the city’s homeless community. Some come to read or use the free internet, while others are after a warm corner to kill time or take a nap.

“The Forum only opened a few months ago, but it’s already doing its job as a connector,” says Ten Cate, who has plans to run a large-scale hackathon there in June.

But as much as the Forum brings people together, is it serving to create community?

For Paul de Rook, an alderman on Groningen city council, it’s a crucial question. More than just shared physical space, genuine community is about a shared understanding of one another, he argues. “That’s why it’s really valuable to create spaces where people … can see what is going on in other people’s lives.”

In a nod to this reality, the Forum seeks to orient all its cultural activities around a common thread. Whether it’s the current exhibition on artificial intelligence (recently on show at the Barbican in London) or Spike Jonze’s futuristic film Her at the cinema, everyone is collectively inching towards the same page (“optimism about the future”, in the Forum’s case).

Dr Ward Rauws admires the sentiment but harbours doubts. An assistant professor of spatial planning at the University of Groningen, he notes that the core building blocks of community – social capital, civic culture, place identity and so forth – start first at a street-by-street level and expand out from there.

Even so, he remains a big fan of Groningen’s Forum because of its role in helping foster “familiarity”. Echoing De Rook, he defines the term as a state of awareness that “other kinds of citizens exist who might think differently or look different, but who are part of the same community”. It’s a salient point for a university town such as Groningen, where town-gown tensions are a feature of daily life.

Groningen’s audacious experiment in urban planning isn’t without its detractors, most of whom gripe about the final price-tag. Joris’s mum is in that camp. Her son begs to differ. Done with the BFG, he’s now playing a spelling game on one of the library’s iPads. His dad watches on patiently, albeit with half an eye on the upstairs cafe. “Afterwards,” he whispers, “we go for cake.”