Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: Lochalsh and South Skye case study

What is working well?

Community focus and local collaboration

The Local Action Group is Highland-wide, a very large area made up of quite different and distinct communities. Highland Council, therefore, took a more localised approach to the promotion and management of Community Led Local Development, utilising staff based in different communities across the region. This gave a better reach into local communities and also ensured that local knowledge could be fed more effectively into the decision-making process. Participants appreciated the local involvement and input to decision-making, and the opportunity that Community Led Local Development gave to develop and deliver community-based projects which fit with the local context:

“Yeah, and so I think there's still a very, there's still a very...community-centric identity, and people want, so it has to be, it has to be driven from within, otherwise I think it would be, it would feel a little bit like, don't tell us what to do.”

Word of mouth was a very important way for people to find out about the potential for Community Led Local Development funding. In south Skye there were one or two key individuals repeatedly mentioned by participants who were seen as important sources of information, largely in an informal capacity:

“That's one of the issues. It's just it's potluck whether you find out about funding a lot of the time and like the fact that I'm doing this with you, I've just discovered contacts there or possible leads that could take me to funding. So that's how that's how I work.”

This common source of information meant groups tended to work together and were well connected with each other. Although the individuals interviewed were from distinct groups who had had funding for different types of projects, there were examples of them working together to increase the impact of the investment. For instance, in preparing the local Community Action Plan, the local Development Trust used local third sector arts and creative groups to help with community consultation through mini art projects:

“The whole process of … consulting the community and writing the Community Action plan has involved talking to lots of different organisations, getting people involved, engaging them, and we used various different ways to do that.. simple process of trying to consult the community in as inclusive a way as possible…[for example] we also made three short films, so I contracted a filmmaker who found a lot of people to talk about all of the issues in the Community Action plan.”

Centralised community development funding portal

In the Highland Local Action Group area, the process of applying for Community Led Local Development funding has been combined with other funds, which are now accessible through a single online portal. This meant that not all participants were aware of having had Community Led Local Development funding specifically, rather they understood it as being ‘Community Regeneration’ funding more broadly. While this could be seen by funders as a disadvantage, because the source of the fund wasn’t always visible, for the applicants it was very helpful: they didn’t need to establish in advance which was the best fund to aim for, but instead they had to meet more general community development criteria and the decision about which fund they would receive funding from was made by the Local Action Group and Highland Council:

“And what will happen is that for reporting all the forms are slightly different. So again, so the application forms are slightly different, they're all just slightly different. And again, it's something that just, you know, makes it slightly harder on this end. But I think they are trying to streamline and certainly Highland Council wise, the funding team are exceptionally helpful. Yeah, they're very good to work with.”

Participants said the portal had simplified the process of applying for funding for groups in the Highlands.