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

Key learning and recommendations from Lochalsh and South Skye

Given that funding available to communities often has similar aims and objectives, packaging different funding pots together for applications through a single portal could be a helpful model. This helps to avoid communities wasting their time and effort making applications multiple times to multiple funds for essentially the same project. It could also reduce confusion for applicants about which fund is the best one to go for, in what can be a very cluttered and confusing landscape of funding. For grant-giving bodies, it could also save time and resources on administration and ensure better coordination.

Having a bank of informal, informed, community connectors at a local level who can spread the word of the support that is available and how to access it, and also connect interested people to others, is valuable. At the moment in South Skye, this was undertaken by someone who had no formal connection to the Local Action Group but was very effective at spreading the word about the Community Led Local Development programme. Trying to harness this in a more formal way would be worth exploring.

A final recommendation is around finding ways to make sure that Scottish Rural Action and Scottish Rural Network, as well as their offerings and services, are more widely known.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily represent those of the Scottish Government or Scottish Ministers.