Breakdown of spending from Scottish Land Fund per year: FOI release

1. A breakdown of spending from the Scottish Land Fund per year, since 2012.
2. The amount of funding leftover in the budget allocated to the Scottish Land Fund per year, since 2012.

1. I enclose a copy of the information you requested, in the form of tables setting out grants awards approved by the Scottish Land Fund committee in response to applications from community groups since 2012 (when the Scottish Government began providing funding for the Fund). 
2. In addition to the awards made to groups the Scottish Land Fund awards grant funding to the BIG Lottery and Highlands and Islands Enterprise for administering the Fund, assessing applications, making awards of funding, etc. These grants are set out in the table at para 6 of this letter.
3. Between 2012-2016 SLF grants were awarded via a single stage process. Since 2016, grants have been awarded for acquisition via a two-stage process.  Grants made at Stage 1 allow communities to consult locally and investigate the feasibility of acquiring the land/land asset they have identified, while Stage 2 awards are made for actual acquisition, together with any agreed award for the cost associated with post-acquisition development.    
4. Tables in the annex list all groups whose applications have had funding approved from the Scottish Land Fund Committee since 2012.  In a number of cases Stage 2 funding has been approved but acquisition has yet to take place – these will have a blank in the final column, ‘date of acquisition’.  The costs of legal awards, valuer’s costs, costs of drawing up Community Group business plans etc. are included in the amounts listed.
5. You will note significant discrepancies between the amount of spending approved in each financial year, and the budget. This is due to how spend is accounted for. Actual spend in any given financial year depends on the date the asset was acquired (as opposed to when funding is approved). On average, actual acquisition takes place 6 months after approval, and will often therefore fall into the following financial year. The programme is managed so as to achieve an annual outturn figure that is as near as possible to budget in each financial year.    
6. Since 2012, the amount of funding awarded is as follows: Scottish Land Fund – Awards made from April 2012 – March 2018 - Summary 

*actual claimed 

The amount of funding left in the budget in each year, after awards to groups were approved and awards of grant for administration of the Fund were made, was therefore:

2012/13 - £43,744

2013/14 - £0

2014/15 - £0

2015/16 - £0

2016/17 - £4,813,355

2017/18 - £0