Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: East Borders case study

What could be improved?

Multi-year strategic funding

Participants emphasised that the lack of multi-year funding significantly limited the ability of Community Led Local Development to function as effectively as it could. They said the implications of this include a lower quality of projects and the requirement for short-term employment contracts which leads to a loss of staff and organisational knowledge:

“By the time [Scottish Government has] made their minds up about the pots of money they're awarding to the CLLD to distribute, I think it was probably April/May, before we knew exactly how much we had to spend and what we needed to do with it and what the criteria were. We knew what we had to spend, but then it seemed to take ages to get the criteria finalised before the fund was kind of made open. And then it needs to be spent before February/March next year. So it means there'll be some projects that we're still reviewing will be awarded in September and that's a very short window for them to be able to spend their money.”

“One key sentence that's often used in all those strategic partnerships that I represent in the third sector is “we need the money out the door” and I absolutely hate that. We don't need the money out the door. We need the investment, targeting investment where that's needed.”

Related to timescales were suggestions for a more strategic approach, taking a broader and well thought-out approach to community development as opposed to short-term, small-scale projects. Participants said this emphasised the need for core and revenue funding to support long-term infrastructure over short-term goals.

Funding decision-making

Despite the praise from participants about the locally-led approach to funding distribution, there were concerns regarding how these decisions were being made. Specifically, there was an allegation that funds were directed towards projects located in the west side of the Borders, to the detriment of more rural areas in the east side:

“You can see why if it's going to fund a project in Galashiels that benefits more people, then, maybe that's OK. But there are other funds that do that and it means that the rural community is left with nothing.”

Similarly, participants were concerned that certain projects had become serial recipients of Community Led Local Delivery funding, to the detriment of newer groups, or those that focused on particular groups of people. Finally, there was disagreement between participants as to whether funding should prioritise businesses or charities in the area. While some claimed that businesses were better able to provide employment, other participants felt investment in private enterprises was an inappropriate use of community development funding:

“I see the value in supporting economic development in the region. What I struggle with is public investment going towards privately owned entities and businesses, and that for me is a bit of a problem because then we create an imbalance in the market.”

Lack of awareness and visibility

A common criticism from participants about Community Led Local Development was that not enough people know about it. Participants said this meant that people weren’t aware of the pots of funding to apply to and the support available to access it. This was considered especially concerning with regard to older residents having to apply online, with limited IT skills and internet connectivity:

“As we become more online and everything becomes automated, there's a huge spectrum, I would say of certainly the rural communities that are just kind of missing out completely. You know whether that's information gathering to begin with to being able to actually genuinely apply for a fund because they just don't have the technical ability or know how to do so.”