Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: Harris and Scalpay case study

What is working well?

Responsive to local needs

Participants said the core principles and funding offered by Community Led Local Development were valuable for rural communities. The fact that the funding is decided and distributed locally was seen as important, and it was felt that this meant there was more understanding of needs compared to national funds:

“...it's important that the money is there from the Government to support these projects, because I think especially within the islands, it's all driven by community projects, and if they don't get any support, the island will kind of fade away in the future.”

Funding has been successfully used by communities to build staff capacity, which in turn can help to draw in additional funding for bigger projects:

“I think those who have successfully applied and received funding. It's a huge help. It’s one of the main strands of funding, without having to go to Lottery and other external [funds]...I think it's critically important that it continues.”

Having one dedicated officer supporting Community Led Local Development with the Local Action Group was generally appreciated in terms of knowing who to speak to. However, participants said there were limitations of having only one person to support a Local Action Group as geographically large and varied as the Outer Hebrides.

It was reported that a recent effort to enhance communications around the fund has led to better awareness and understanding, thereby encouraging more applications:

“Since the local contact started, social media presence has grown significantly. The marketing of CLLD has grown significantly. It now pops up in various newsletters and newspapers, and the good thing is they put case studies out.”

Local coordination

Existing networks across the Isle of Harris and Scalpay, such as the Harris Forum, have been working in recent years to help build shared priorities with different organisations across the communities. Participants said this was critical to support collaboration and avoid duplication, while supporting local decision-making around broader community development activities:

“That's the whole idea of the forum, that every organisation informs the other one about their ongoing projects, and that they don't have to duplicate certain things, and they just share their experience…..I think it opens the mind of a lot of people who are taking part in the meeting to see there are different issues in different areas of Harris, because Harris is still quite big, and it might be a different issue up in the North than in the South.”

Young people

Participants were positive about the Youth Local Action Group and suggested this could be further developed and grown as a key mechanism to build knowledge and skills locally and support community development in both the shorter and long term. However, its connection with Scottish Rural Action was not well known:

“There's more publicity goes out, actually, for YLAG…and that's a good thing,...because the youth…they are the future. If they don't have the facilities and create creative tools and creative things to help them, they're never going to lead to this part, which is community resilience. They're not going to be the trustees or the chairs of community organisations.”