Author: Simon Anderson and Julie Brownlie, Carnegie

To access full report click here

There has been a great deal of talk lately about kindness in popular culture and – in Scotland in particular – in relation to public policy. But, although kindness has many possible definitions, its meaning is taken for granted in much of this discussion. In other words, and like some other key policy terms (such as wellbeing or community or democracy), kindness is at risk of becoming a ‘clean concept’ (Ahmed, 2014), one which is hard to disagree with and which short-circuits debate. The fact that there is now a reference to kindness in the National Performance Framework (NPF)1, Scotland’s vision for national wellbeing, is at face value easy to welcome and its symbolic value seems clear enough, signalling that Scotland places people and relationships at the heart of its conception of the good society. But what do we actually mean when we talk about a kinder Scotland? Is kindness really a concept that belongs in, or has much to say to, the realm of public policy? What are its risks and ambivalences? And, equally importantly, how exactly might public policy help to enable or sustain an ‘infrastructure of kindness’?

If we want to answer those questions – and to move beyond the warm words of the NPF into the realm of the practical and even the transformational – there is a need for elaboration, explanation and debate. This document is intended as a contribution to that process. As such, it sits alongside the work of others who have been engaging with ideas and actions relating to kindness. In some respects, it seeks to take that conversation back a few steps – to return to questions of definition and understanding. Ultimately, however, it aims to move things forward by engaging with the critical question of what the state and other organisational actors might start to do, stop doing or do differently in pursuit of a kinder Scotland.

Author: Best MSW Programs

Thirty of the world’s most impressive social housing projects

As populations grow and cities become more crowded than ever, public housing has become an increasingly important issue for governments around the world. However, social housing is no longer limited to characterless blocks of concrete. These days, the aim is often to provide low-cost housing to individuals and families who need it – while still affording them the dignity of well-designed and distinctive homes.

These modern public housing projects frequently incorporate eco-conscious designs and elements, as efficient energy usage tends to be a priority. Here we look at 30 of the world’s social housing developments that break the mold, undoing negative stereotypes and serving as remarkable works of architecture in their own right.

Author: Fleur Macdon

To read the full article printed in The Guardian click here

The ‘Glasgow effect’ implies cities make us sad. Can the city prove the opposite?

 David Walsh of the Glasgow Centre for Population Health set out to understand why Glaswegians have a 30% higher risk of dying prematurely than those living in similar post-industrial British cities.

Life expectancy for Glaswegians has long been notoriously low, but planners are starting to learn how to make citizens healthier – and happier

If you live in Glasgow, you are more likely to die young. Men die a full seven years earlier than their counterparts in other UK cities. Until recently, the causes of this excess mortality remained a mystery.

“Deep-fried Mars bars,” some have speculated. “The weather,” others suggested. For years, those reasons were as good as any. In 2012, the Economist described it thus: “It is as if a malign vapour rises from the Clyde at night and settles in the lungs of sleeping Glaswegians.”

The phenomenon has become known as the Glasgow effect. But David Walsh, a public health programme manager at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health, who led a study on the excess deaths in 2010, wasn’t satisfied with how the term was being used. “It turned into a Scooby-Doo mystery but it’s not an exciting thing,” he says. “It’s about people dying young, it’s about grief.”

You have to understand what sort of shape Glasgow was in. They thought the best approach was to start afresh.

He wanted to work out why Glaswegians have a 30% higher risk of dying prematurely – that is, before the age of 65 – than those living in similar post-industrial British cities. In 2016 his team published a report looking at 40 hypotheses – from vitamin D deficiency to obesity and sectarianism. “The most important reason is high levels of poverty, full stop,” says Walsh. “There’s one in three children who are classed as living in poverty at the moment.”

But even with deprivation accounted for, mortality rates in Glasgow remained inexplicable. Deaths in each income group are about 15% higher than in Manchester or Liverpool. In particular, deaths from “diseases of despair” – drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related deaths – are high. In the mid-2000s, after adjusting for sex, age and deprivation, there was almost a 70% higher mortality rate for suicide in Glasgow than in the two English cities.

In Glasgow, deaths from “diseases of despair” are particularly high.

Walsh’s report strongly suggested a theory: that radical urban planning decisions from the 1950s onwards had made not just the physical but the mental health of Glasgow’s population more vulnerable to the consequences of deindustrialisation and poverty.

Studies have consistently linked city living with poorer mental health. For example, growing up in an urban environment is correlated with twice the risk of developing schizophrenia as growing up in the countryside. And the unintended legacy of some urban planning exacerbates the already considerable challenges of living in a city – something 68% of the world’s population will be doing by 2050, according to UN projections.

Are these urban dwellers doomed to poor mental health, or can planners design cities that will keep us healthy and happy? Can we learn from what happened in Glasgow?

New Towns, new problems

Postwar Glasgow was severely overcrowded. The 1945 Bruce report proposed solving this by housing people in high-rises on the periphery, while the following year’s Clyde Valley report suggested encouraging workers and their families to move to new towns. In the end, the council did a combination of both: New Towns like East Kilbride and Cumbernauld are now among the most populous towns in Scotland; many of those who stayed in Glasgow were relocated to large housing estates such as Drumchapel, Easterhouse and Castlemilk.

This rapid change in the city’s makeup was soon recognised as disastrous. Relocating workers and their families to new towns was described in mid-1960s parliamentary discussions as “skimming the cream”. In an internal review in 1971, the Scottish Office noted that the manner of population reduction was “destined within a decade or so to produce a seriously unbalanced population with a very high proportion [in central Glasgow] of the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable…”

Although the government was soon aware of the consequences, these were not necessarily intentional, says Walsh. “You have to understand what sort of shape Glasgow was in, in terms of the really lousy living conditions, the levels of overcrowded housing and all the rest of it,” he says. “They thought the best approach was to just start afresh.”

Anna left the tenements for a high-rise in Glasgow’s Sighthill estate, where she has lived on and off since the mid-60s. She was a teenager when she moved with her mother and sister to a brand-new fourth-floor flat, picked from a bowler hat. It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a glass partition in the hallway. “It was like Buckingham Palace,” remembers Anna. She is now 71, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, with a blonde bob and a raspy cough that doubles as a laugh.

You’re more likely to have violence, you’re more likely to have conflict; even sexual abuse is much higher in households where there are drinkers

Sighthill’s 10 20-storey tower blocks were meant to herald the future. Set in parkland, with a view over the city, they would house more than 7,000 people drawn from the tenements and the slums.

Until then, the family had lived in a tenement building in nearby Roystonhill. “I slept with my mammy and my sister in a recess,” she says. The toilet was shared.

But when the tenements went, something else went, too. “There were communities which had a social fabric, if you like, which were then broken up by these processes,” says Walsh.

Anna recalls the change. “When we were in the tenements, you’d shout up to the window: ‘Mammy, I want a piece of jam!’ Before you knew it there was a dozen of them being thrown out of the window.” In the tower block, she did not let her own children play unsupervised. Neighbours only spoke if they took the same lift. Her daughter was threatened with a bread knife.

By the 2000s, the tower blocks were infamous for deprivation, violence and drugs. Many residents had moved out, including Anna and her family. Empty flats were used to rehouse asylum seekers. Fractures within the community were worsening. Glasgow Housing Association eventually decided to condemn the buildings, and the towers were demolished over eight years; the last one came down in 2016.

 But the roots of Glasgow’s excess mortality stretch back further – to the Industrial Revolution, argues Carol Craig, who has written two books on the subject. In Glasgow, then called the Second City of the Empire, factories and the docks needed workers. Overcrowding coupled with a culture of drinking produced an explosive situation.

Faced with the prospect of returning to a cramped tenement, many men preferred to visit the pub; there were few other public meeting places. “You’re more likely to have violence, you’re more likely to have conflict; even sexual abuse is much higher in households where there are drinkers,” Craig says.

Being exposed in childhood to stressful events like domestic violence, parental abandonment, abuse, or drug and alcohol addictions is thought to be linked to poor mental and physical wellbeing in later life. The higher a person’s number of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the more likely they are to suffer from mental illness or addiction. In turn they are more likely to expose their children to similar types of experiences, she says: “ACEs tend to cascade through the generations.”

To read the full article printed in The Guardian click here

Author: Scottish Parliament

The report can be found here:

Members of the original Consultative Steering Group (CSG), who helped shape the Parliament’s procedures, have published their reflections on how Holyrood has lived up to their aspirations.

CSG Members were invited to Holyrood over the summer by the Presiding Officer, Rt Hon Ken Macintosh MSP, to discuss whether Scotland’s new politics transpired as they envisaged.

The nine original CSG members who met found that the Scottish Parliament has become a central and permanent part of Scottish life, and that their vision for a participative, open and accessible Parliament has thrived in the first 20 years.

However, they also commented that politics has been more polarised and tribal than they expected, and that while Committees have achieved much over the last 20 years, the sheer weight of their legislative workload has meant they have had limited capacity to undertake other important elements of their role.

Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh MSP, said:

“The CSG’s contribution to setting up the Parliament was so valuable I thought in this, our 20th anniversary year, we should capture their reflections on how the Parliament has performed against the founding principles.

 “There are already changes underway stemming from the Commission on Parliamentary Reform. The views of the CSG will be a great contribution to the ongoing debate on how the Parliament can continue to grow and develop.”

Consultative Steering Group Chair, Rt Hon Henry McLeish, added:

“We were delighted to be asked by the Presiding Officer to consider our original report in light of the experiences of the Parliament’s first twenty years. CSG Members have all continued to play important roles in Scottish public life and watched the Parliament mature and thrive with pride.

“While we could never have imagined in the late 1990s what Scotland and the world would look like in 2019, we are pleased that the foundations we recommended for the Parliament were solid. It has been a huge success in its first twenty years.

“That said, all institutions must continue to evolve to ensure they are relevant and responsive to the environment they are operating in. We hope that our thoughts are a helpful contribution to the ongoing work around parliamentary reform.”

Background

The report can be found here:

Members of the CSG who contributed to the discussion that was the basis of this report were:

• Rt Hon Henry McLeish (chair)
• Professor Alice Brown CBE
• Sir Andrew Cubie CBE
• Keith Geddes
• Dame Deirdre Hutton DBE
• Joyce McMillan
• Sir George Reid
• Esther Robertson
• Lord Wallace of Tankerness, QC

Author: By Mike Small, Bella Caledonia

Edinburgh is buzzing. It’s week three and the kids shows are packed-out, despite the Scottish schools being back from their summer holidays. Funny that.

The response to the CITIZEN’s film by Bonnie Prince Bob has been a mixture of vitriol and epiphany, hyper-defensiveness and celebration. 45k people have watched it and it’s garnered over 1000 ‘likes’.

The PR response is now in over-drive.

The Times yesterday told us: “The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is worth about £1bn to Scotland — three times greater than had been thought — according to a fresh economic analysis of the world’s biggest arts festival.”

The paper gushes: “Official data shows admissions up by about 45% since 2010, and by nearly a quarter in the last three years alone …More than 59,600 performances of 3,841 shows will be staged across 323 venues this month, suggesting that the Fringe has grown by about 20% in five years.”

One of the central problems is the routinely celebrated growth model. 20% in five years? Will there be another 20% in another five years? Another 20% in another five years? Is anyone thinking that’s maybe NOT a good thing?

[Note to reader: absolutely nobody drinking from the cash cow is thinking that’s a bad thing.]

At what point does somebody say “We need another measurement of success”?

Another paper, the Evening News, paints a different picture. They reveal that:

– There are more than 11,000 active listings (listings with at least one review in the last year) on Airbnb in the Capital.

– More than 7,000 of these are entire properties, with another 4,000 rooms inside houses and flats.

– Only 1,700 properties are listed as short-term self-catering units on the business rates register.

Under current Scottish Government rules, any short-term let which operates for more than 140 days a year does not have to pay council tax and instead becomes liable for business rates.

“With small businesses with a rateable value of £15,000 or under given total relief from business rates, it means the vast majority of short-term lets in the city which declare themselves as businesses pay no tax to the council whatsoever.”

Nothing. Not a bean.

This means that Air BnB, the Fringe’s official partner since 2015 gives nothing back at all.

As we said previously (‘1:48 is the new 7: 84’): “The annual UK Housing Review, shows that in the City of Edinburgh alone there are over 10,000 Airbnbs. With a population of 485,000, that means there is an Airbnb for every 48 people in the city. That compares to a figure of one Airbnb per 105 people in greater London, meaning Scotland’s capital has more than twice as many per head.”

Not everybody sees this as a problem. Certainly not AirBnB, certainly not the Fringe.

Back in 2015 when their partnership started the Fringe announced:

“Airbnb, the world’s leading community-driven hospitality company, today announced its new role as an Official Accommodation Partner of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Edinburgh is one of the top destinations in the UK for home sharing on Airbnb, attracting close to 40,000 guests a year, and can expect to welcome thousands of visitors for the festival this August.

The region has seen impressive growth recently with a 300% increase in guests staying through Airbnb, and 87% more hosts year on year. The annual Fringe brings a huge influx of performers and spectators to the city all needing a place to stay, and home sharing is a great way for locals to reap the benefits.”

87% more hosts year on year. Endless growth. You do the math.

It’s clear that the cultural sector is enthusiastically supporting a partnership with a company that has meant the hollowing-out of residential communities, and effective social cleansing and artwashing of whole areas of the city.

That’s a disgrace.

Increasingly then the question becomes: what is the festivals long-term legacy?

Increasingly the festivals huge success raises deeper more fundamental questions.

The film-maker Bonnie Prince Bob writes:

“When asked to comment on my film, Edinburgh Council leader Adam McVey claimed that Edinburgh hosts “the biggest cultural event on the planet”.

“If this gargantuan festival of the arts was a permanent feature in any other major World tourist city, then grand Institutions of the arts would be funded on the basis of the taxes raised from the countless incomers.”

“Despite annually trumpeting the phenomenal scale and huge returns generated, this so-called Scottish City of the Enlightenment has organised no benefits in the arts for its residents, or for that matter the youth of Scotland. Where is our World famous institute of the arts?”

“Where is our Frank Gehry/ Norman Foster designed -overpriced architectural glass and steel marvel (funded through a combination of tourist tax, philanthropy and corporate loot) offering education in all artistic disciplines and providing bursaries and scholarships to the less privileged in our communities? Bilbao is a city two-thirds the size of Edinburgh in one of the most deprived areas of Spain, yet, with progressive thinking, still managed to fund the Guggenheim’s £100 million construction with a £50 million acquisition fund and plus a one-time £20 million fee towards the annual payments.”

He continues:

“When August’s orgy of corporate profit is over in Edinburgh, what is left for the populace? The vast majority of capital leaves the city. It is an indictment and embarrassment that in over 70 years of the Festival and with the increasing solicitation of the City’s public space, Edinburgh Council and successive Scottish governments have failed to adequately tax and reinvest into the artistic enrichment of Edinburgh and Scotland.”

Of course he’s right and the more the leaders of the council and the custodians of cultural capital respond to criticisms with claims of vast income and huge amounts of money swilling about the city, the more the question hangs, so what?

Detractors of the Citizen or Bonnie Prince Bob’s work argue that it’s miserabilist and ‘negative’. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have loads of ideas, as lots of other people will have too.

Why isn’t North Edinburgh Arts Centre funded by the festival? Why isn’t Whale Arts the beneficiaries of a twenty year programme of support for the people of Wester Hailes? Why isn’t the Book Festival re-located to Leith Links? Why aren’t young people in Edinburgh the beneficiaries of an incredible programme of cultural opportunity? Why isn’t there a programme of bursaries to fund places at the Conservatoire in Glasgow? Why isn’t the Kings Theatre refurbishment, or Leith Theatre’s re-development swelling with the generous endowment of the festival?

Why isn’t there a People’s Institute of the Arts as a legacy of the festival after such a long time?

Edinburgh needs to reclaim its festival through degrowth and democracy, so that our cultural asset can thrive and our city can be a capital of culture. In times of binary Brexit division, social inequality and a retreat into racism and parochialism, it’s not hard to see how the festival could reclaim its origin story and re-boot as an event for all the people.

Author: By Ally Tebbit, The Ferret

Academics and politicians have raised concerns that councils are failing to manage common good funds properly, after an investigation by The Ferret revealed many are worth significantly less now than they were ten years ago.

The figures have prompted critics to call for new rules to improve the management of common good funds and ensure that they are not “frittered away.”

Generating at least £20 million for good causes each year, common good funds are unique to Scotland. Derived from ancient burgh property, the funds are held on behalf of local residents by Scottish local councils. The funds can hold both fixed assets, such as property or land, and “moveable” assets, such as cash, shares or paintings.

Not all councils, or all towns, benefit from common good funds, and some councils are unclear what assets they hold. Where common good assets have been identified they are supposed to be managed separately from normal council resources and used, according to a law first passed in 1491 and still in force today “for the common good of the town.”

Ten years ago new accounting guidance was introduced, in an effort to bring greater transparency to the way councils manage these assets.

One decade on, The Ferret has looked at how the value of common good funds has changed over this time.

Although the total value of all council common good assets has risen since the new guidance was introduced, our investigation has found that many councils funds are worth less, in real terms, than they were ten years ago.

In total, 21 councils could provide comparable data on their common good funds over ten years. After adjusting for inflation, 11 had seen the value of their funds decrease.

Some 27 councils could provide comparable date on their common good funds dating back five years. After adjusting these figures for inflation, 16 had seen the total value of their funds decrease.

Highland Council, which has one of the country’s largest common good funds, has seen it value decline by £2.5m over ten years. Records show that it has used its fund to subsidise extensive civic hospitality costs, including private car hire for the Provost, flights for council staff, and purchases on the online music application, iTunes.

A Highland Council spokesperson said: “In recent years considerable investment has been spent on refurbishmen of two Inverness common good Fund owned properties. The highly successful restoration of the historic grade A listed Inverness Town House has been commended in the UK Natural Stone Awards, 2018 and also 1-5 Church Street in the city centre.”

Aberdeenshire Council’s common good fund was worth £9.5m in 2012-13, but in 2017-18 the fund was worth just £2.8m – a drop of 275 per cent after adjusting for inflation.

At Inverclyde, the local common good funds were worth £2.1m in 2007-08, but in its most recent accounts, the fund is now worth just half of that, after taking into account inflation.

Other councils which have seen significant declines in the values of their common good funds include Stirling, South Lanarkshire, Falkirk, Midlothian and Dundee councils.

Professor Richard Kerley, an expert in public services management at Queen Margaret University said: “These figures do tend to suggest that some councils are not managing these assets effectively.

“Austerity means that councils are struggling to balance the books and there appears to be a risk that in some places these resources could simply be frittered away over time.”

Councils have a great deal of leeway over how common good funds are spent. Often they are used to provide small grants to local community groups and good causes.

But an analysis of spending records shows that some councils charge common good funds for all sorts of services linked to the maintenance, repair and administration costs incurred for managing land and property.

For example, in Ayr, the majority of the £2.3m towns common good spending over the last three years has been spent on other council services, described as “grounds maintenance”, “responsive maintenance”, “caretaker recharge” and “central support costs”.

Similarly, many councils charge common good funds tens of thousands of pounds each year to cover the costs of running public services such as CCTV systems, or for civic hospitality, taxis and event fees.

Dundee City Council officials have already run into criticism for paying for a portrait of the Lord Provost from the local common good fund.

Andrew Ferguson, a local authority lawyer who has just published the second edition of his book on common good law, explained the rules that govern how councils can use common good funds.

He said: “The rules on what local authorities can spend common good money on are quite loose. The local government (Scotland) acts of 1973 and 1994 say that, in administering the fund, councils have to have regard to the best interests of the inhabitants of the former burghs, or in the case of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee, the city as a whole.

“They also need to take into account the best value provisions of more recent legislation such as the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003, and all councils’ activities are of course subject to internal and external audit.

“Beyond that, however, councils have fairly free rein.”

He said councils would also be bound by any internal policies that they had put in place to govern spending.

But then Ferguson went on to highlight a relatively recent change in the law that specifies that councils should consult local residents on any proposed change of use of common good property – including how money held in the funds is spent.

“More recently, the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 says they need to consult on any proposed change of use of common good property, and the guidance that came out last year makes it clear that would include changing the rules about what the council was going to spend the money on.”

To date, The Ferret has been unable to identify any example of a single local authority undertaking a public consultation on how surplus cash in common good funds should be spent.

 North Lanarkshire council published its first draft of possible common good assets in May.

 Green MSP, Andy Wightman, told The Ferret: “Long before I entered Holyrood, I’d been calling for reform of the laws that govern how common good funds are managed in Scotland. This work seems to reinforce the case that there is more for MSPs to do in this area.

“Even now, some councils seem not to know for certain what common good assets, if any, they hold. In theory they certainly should be consulting residents directly on how surplus cash in these funds is spent.”

Author: By Lesley Riddoch, The Scotsman

Visitor numbers are up. Orkney leads the shift to electric cars and renewable energy. And now, Spain Greece and Croatia are so impressed with Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE) they plan to set up similar growth-creating quangos of their own.

Why? Because the Highlands has reversed centuries of population decline to regain its 1850’s total of 470,000 folk – and these southern EU member states believe HIE and its predecessor the Highlands and Islands Development Board are largely responsible.

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Now it would be churlish not to express delight that the “basket-case” Highlands have proved doubters wrong. HIE and more particularly the HIDB have indeed pump-primed much of that economic development and the University of the Highlands and Islands, with its digital learning and dispersed campuses, has been another positive development.

But it would be mistaken to presume the job-creating quangos have single-handedly produced a miraculous pan-Highland population increase – as I think they would be first to admit. It would be wrong to presume population growth is happening beyond Highland towns and cities like Inverness, Aviemore, Nairn, Dingwall, Fort William, Oban, Kirkwall, Lerwick and Portree (though that is obviously welcome); wrong to presume that the region’s age profile is irrelevant and absolutely wrong to think the 1850 population total is as good as the Highlands and Islands can get.

While the population of Highland towns is growing, more remote areas are facing a modern clearance thanks to long-term leases for locals being replaced with short-term lets for tourists; unaffordable land and empty glens caused by Scotland’s archaic land ownership patterns; the loss of East-European seasonal labour endangering seasonal businesses; worry over the impending impact of Brexit-related tariffs on fisheries and agricultural produce and cuts in services like public transport, elderly care and childcare – until recently there was just one nursery in the whole of Sutherland. It would be troubling if the decision to use HIE as a role model by Mediterranean states, gave the impression that all’s well in Highland (and indeed wider rural Scotland) and prompted Scots to question the need for urgent action to stop another generation of young Highland Scots giving up and moving out. Yesterday, a Sunday newspaper spent five pages questioning the success of community landownership in Scotland on the basis of one problematic forestry scheme on Bute. Is this really the Highlands’ biggest issue?

What’s needed is a wider perspective.

Firstly, urban growth can easily conceal the hard fact that half an hour down the road, “remote” Highland and Island communities are really struggling.

Last year a report by the James Hutton Institute predicted the working age population in Scotland’s rural areas will plummet by a third by 2046, pushing communities in remote corners of the Highlands and Islands into a “spiral of decline.” It found “sparsely populated areas” – defined as those more than half an hour away from a town of 10,000 folk – account for almost half of Scotland’s land mass, but just 2.6 per cent of Scotland’s population. These places are projected to lose more than a quarter of their population in the next 30 years, with Western Isles, Argyll and the Southern Uplands among the worst affected.

Yet the picture is so different in the Highland capital. In 1861, the population of Inverness was 12,509. In 2018 it was almost 70,000, with a quarter of the Highland population living in or around it.

So, let’s call a spade a spade. The Inverness/Black Isle/Nairn corridor is doing well – picking up southerners looking for the best quality of life in the UK and young Highlanders pushed out of more remote glens – not because land there is irredeemably infertile and fit only for use as a grouse moor, rich man’s playground or re-wilding but because centuries of paternalistic ownership mean there’s no available, affordable land, therefore no affordable housing and therefore no feasible way for younger folk to take advantage of the jobs and business opportunities that absolutely do exist. Planning presumptions all too often mirror that man-made, unnatural emptiness.

So, let’s think again about the levels of population we should expect in the Highlands and Islands and reconsider the date chosen to illustrate the scale of the present population surge.

The 1850s saw the Highlands on its collective knees after seventy years of clearance and widespread starvation as a result of the potato famine. Is this a suitable benchmark for the carrying capacity of the scenic, energy-rich, culturally-vibrant region today?

We should be comparing and contrasting the Highlands and Islands not with the region’s own broken past but with the thriving present of its neighbours – like Tromso, the capital of Arctic Norway.

Situated on an island amidst barren fjords, it lies more than a thousand miles north of Inverness. Yet the population of this truly remote city matches the Highland capital with 77,000 folk. Arctic Bodø has 30.000 residents, Alta 20,000 and sub-Arctic Trondheim a whopping 196,000 residents.

The relatively high population base of remote Northern Norway has been achieved not by the actions of specific quangos, but by the fact Norway escaped feudalism, therefore has the largest and most diverse number of individual landowners in Europe and land prices that are a fraction of those demanded for the tiny parcels available in Highland Scotland. Folk in Northern Norway were also aided by the abolition of nobility in 1821, the nationalisation of rivers for hydro power straight after independence and a long tradition of ultra-local democratic control which prompted investment in light industry.

Let’s be clear. Scotland’s community buyouts have boosted highland and island populations and provided jobs with secure, affordable and properly insulated homes in remote areas where private owners miserably failed.

The problem is that rural Scotland cannot be fixed, acre by acre, or buyout by buyout. Community control delivers speedy relief for the communities able to jump hurdles and take over control, but places a strain on volunteers and leaves Scotland’s highly dysfunctional systems of land ownership and distant democratic control unchanged and intact.

So, let’s imagine what the Highlands might look like if Holyrood and Westminster politicians were as bold as community activists, delivering the modern equivalent of the Crofting Acts, or the high rates of taxation that prompted one-fifth of Scottish land to be sold in the 1920s or Tom Johnston’s hydro-electric revolution in the 1940s.

The Highlands urgently needs release from outdated feudal structures to grow sustainably. Governments not quangos can deliver.

Author: By Jamie Callaghan, Fife Today

Campaigners and politicians have highlighted the transformative impact the reopening of the Levenmouth rail link could have on the local area.

Following Transport Secretary Michael Matheson’s announcement that the rail line will be reopened, campaigners who have fought for years celebrated the news.

Dr Allen Armstrong of the Levenmouth Rail Campaign (LMRC) said the news “exceeded our expectations”.

Speaking to the East Fife Mail earlier this week, he said the group were hoping that Mr Matheson would be announcing a further study into the possibility of reopening the line.

“We’re absolutely over the moon. It exceeded our expectations. We thought that the Transport Secretary would agree to the next stage of the study, but it opened with ‘we’re reopening it’ and, even more, it’s going to take place within five years.

“We’re almost emotional. The campaigners have been banging our heads against the wall for five years. We hope we’ve played a major role in this.”

The Transport Secretary, MSPs and councillors all paid tribute to the efforts of LMRC.

Cllr Colin Davidson, deputy chair of regional transport authority SEStran, said: “The rail campaigners have kept this whole issue alive. They’ve hit the buffers so many times, but they’ve continued to come back.”

He also paid tribute to officials at Fife Council, Transport Scotland, Peter Brett Associates and SEStran, for their work “behind the scenes”.

Cllr Davidson added: “This means life changing opportunities. The area has been maligned for so many decades. This rail line will make the difference in turning the area around. I think we’re going to see an ecomonic boom in this area.”

Fife Council co-leader and local councillor David Alexander and area convenor Cllr Ken Caldwell both spoke how important the news was.

“The campaign started the day the rail line closed,” Cllr Alexander said. “I was 12 years old at the time. I am delighted. Not often has Levenmouth won in the last few decades – Levenmouth has won this time. This is truly transformational. We’ve won.”

Cllr Caldwell added: “This is fantastic news. We’ve fought long and hard. It’s brilliant and the Levenmouth Blueprint is the icing on the cake. When we were chapping doors for all the election campaigns, the two most common comments we got were ‘when is the rail link happening’ and ‘we’re the forgotten corner of Fife’.”

Leven MSP Jenny Gilruth described the announcement as “truly significant”, adding: “I would like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for his commitment to Leven’s railway. He’ll know how much this means to me as I never missed an opportunity to make the case to him directly.

“The people of Levenmouth will now expect action – and who could blame them after half a century. I will be watching closely to ensure that Fife Council and Transport Scotland now work to take Leven’s railway forward at pace. This is a great day for Levenmouth.”

Local MSP David Torrance also paid tribute to LMRC, as well as former MSP Tricia Marwick, who also campaigned for the reopening of the line. He added: “This will bring huge potential to the area, not only allowing residents in the area to travel out with the area for employment, education and leisure, but will also bring huge economic potential for investment and tourism within the area with the backing of a good reliable public transport system.”

North East Fife MP Stephen Gethins said: “The rail link will bring real benefits for future generations, connecting people and businesses based in Levenmouth and the surrounding area, including the East Neuk, to the main rail network as well as opening up the area to inward investment and tourism.

North East Fife MSP Willie Rennie said the “staunch support” of local people had “persuaded the authorities that there would be a powerful economic, social and environmental benefit with the reopening of the line. I’m delighted with this progress. Let’s get it built now.”

Fife MSP Claire Baker added: “This is a very positive announcement from the Cabinet Secretary and is testament to the determination and commitment of LMRC.”

Author: By Scottish Land Commission

The range, nature and applicability of funding models to support community land ownership

This report was commissioned by the Scottish Land Commission (SLC) to scope the range of funding models available to, and being used by, community landowning groups. The research is informed by the desire of the Scottish Government to make community landownership a normal option for communities across Scotland. Funding can be a barrier to achieving this goal and in an environment of limited public funding there is a need to consider alternative options.

The overall objective of this study was to scope the range of potential funding models that may be available to support community acquisition and development of land and building assets. In particular, the study was intended to inform the range of options available beyond direct government funding. The study was also intended to consider whether there are international examples of different ‘public interest’ finance models that could be applied to this context.

The study was conducted in the context of a rapidly growing community ownership sector, which is being promoted by Government policy through a combination of legislation and funding. The Scottish Land Fund is now in its third iteration with an annual budget of £10m per year for the period 2016-21. The Scottish Government reported that 403 groups owned 492 parcels of land totalling 562,230 acres in June 2017.

Full report