Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: East Moray case study

What is working well?

Flexibility and ease of funding and reporting

Participants appreciated Community Led Local Development funding and the way it is delivered in Moray, because it allowed communities to do projects designed to meet local needs:

“What I like about the CLLD funding is that it allows for the communities to do what they want to do. It keeps every community having the ability to be independent and not have to go where everyone else is going, because that's where the theme is. Although there are themes, the themes allow for individuality and that's what I like about the CLLD funding.”

Reporting requirements were seen by participants as appropriate to the scale of the projects. Some of the respondents also mentioned how useful they had found the analysis on Social Return on Investment that was provided by Social Value Engine. This shows the economic benefit gained for each £1 invested through the Community Led Local Development funding. Moray had a particularly high rate of return on the investments made through the funding:

“I think that the way the funding has been done, it's accessible for more than it would have been before, the application process is more inviting and not as onerous. The reporting process, I think gives some really good detail through the social value engine and again I think having someone like the TSI to do that data within the partnership with social value engine gives us some really good things to be proud of in Moray.”

Management through Third Sector Interface

Participants said the move from Community Led Local Development being administered by the Local Authority to being delivered by tsiMORAY had been very positive, as it had resulted in an increase in demand for, and impact of, grant funding. There was praise for tsiMORAY, which had been very proactive at reaching out to the local communities and had run Community Led Local Development funding workshops and roadshows at a local level. Participants said this had made sure that the information about the support available had reached far broader local audiences:

“[tsiMORAY] worked very hard through their funding road shows in getting the word out there and, you know, being very supportive. They've been getting into the communities, so they've got funding roadshows, they've picked specific locations, rural, central and you know, and they're there… What I have seen in Moray is that we've got a really good geographical spread of applications for the funding.”

The Local Action Group also included representatives of lots of local community organisations that themselves were able to act both as ambassadors for the funds, and also as sources of knowledge and experience about how to apply, manage and report on the grants.

Participants said another benefit of tsiMORAY administering Community Led Local Development funding is that it is able to connect applicants to other sources of funding more effectively. Participants explained that this meant funding sources were combined through a single hub, thereby centralising both knowledge and processes in rural community development funding and support:

“Well, we've been really lucky in this community, I think it is a community that can really showcase the benefits of the CLLD element of this and it has allowed us to genuinely focus on the development that the community has aspired for and that we can showcase a return on investment for.”

The small size of the Local Action Group area meant there were many examples of pan-Moray projects. These had the benefit of being able to deliver consistent services across the whole area and resulted in some cost savings by operating at this level. This more collaborative approach was favoured by respondents and was aided by tsiMORAY’s knowledge and networking across the range of organisations working in the area.