Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: West Lothian case study

What could be improved?

Community Led Local Development

Participants said that the potential to develop meaningful projects was made more difficult by short timescales—both for opening the fund and submitting applications, and for completing projects and ensuring grants were spent. Participants asked for more clarity and forward planning from both the Scottish Government and the Local Action Group to try to avoid the stress of short turnaround times:

“So I think they would have to be strategically a combination of knowing that, for instance, it will run over the next 10 years. Continuity also with some priorities that we won't have to every year try as an organisation to shift our priorities to meet the fund requirements.”

The need for multi-year timescales for both strategic funding priorities and project delivery was stressed by all participants as an important change which could allow for better targeted, collaborative and impactful projects:

“I now have a funding wish list so that when I get three weeks to apply for fifty grand worth of funding or whatever, you're like “Oh my goodness”. Everything else has to be thrown out of the window and you have to focus on that. That's stressful. Like, we could just give people a heads up, you know, and then you probably get better thought-out projects and it gives you time to work in partnership and speak to the other organisations and work out what they're doing so you can do something that complements that rather than competes with it.”

Compounding the tight timescales, participants said the applications process was overcomplicated. They commented that the information required was too complex, which was made more difficult given changing priorities and outcomes:

“I think it's something that the funders are looking at is kind of streamlining the funding process and making it slicker. But I think also it's having those support mechanisms to write those applications and that includes financial support that doesn't require an accountancy degree to read. Because, yes, charities have treasurers, yes, all benefit trusts have people, potentially with financial savvy. But that doesn't make them a qualified accountant and it's maybe being able to offer some of those kind of services.”

Participants also raised issues with the procedures for receiving funds following an award. They explained that requirements for the community organisation to pay for costs upfront and claim them back following completion had placed some groups into significant financial risk:

“The biggest challenge with the CLLD funding is that everything is paid in retrospect. They make sure that you can't afford to do the project, but tell you you have to pay the project before they'll give you the money. And the project last year we were very close, because we had been promised that we would have it allocated in tranches as we've done the work. And then there was quibble after quibble after quibble over the reporting of the costs that we had incurred, we almost got bankrupted. We almost ran out of money in the bank account and couldn't pay the staff because we haven't got the money back from the CLLD… So that was, I think that's another really big stumbling block for any smaller organisation that doesn't have a significant amount of money.”

Following the award, there were mixed responses in terms of how participants found the reporting requirements. Some found the administrative burden unnecessarily large for relatively small amounts of money. This was compounded by the very short timescales for both delivering the project and reporting on it. Participants highlighted the particular impacts on smaller organisations with less resources, and said this had led some to simply not apply:

“Because they're so picky as a fund, quite a lot of organisations go, “that’s more effort than it's worth”, particularly for the type of project that they're able to fund at the moment. With a project of around £10,000, there's quite a lot of work involved, which the same amount of work would be involved in a £40,000, £50,000 project, but they can't fund those at the moment because they don't have enough money, whereas a smaller project probably ends up with almost the same amount of work again and really just isn't worth it.”

Networks and networking

Communities within the West Lothian case study area are post-industrial towns and villages, and many participants felt that the term ‘rural’ did not accurately reflect the make-up of the area.

Participants were largely unaware of the work of both Scottish Rural Action and the Scottish Rural Network. This could be due to the peri-urban status of much of the West Lothian area, as some felt that these bodies had more of a focus on agricultural matters which are of less relevance to the area. Participants suggested post-industrial rural areas should have their own dedicated network and provision to ensure it is tailored to their own specific needs:

“There's been a million and one papers written on the need for left behind areas, the need for post-industrial, the need for these to have their own programme. But it's not happened. It's never happened. There'll be another consultation. It doesn't happen. So we're kind of in some ways banging a square peg into a round hole. Also, that perhaps is a gap to realise that rural isn't the same everywhere. As much as those rural areas that are really remote-rural have these massive needs, they also in some ways have a lot stronger voice and it's very hard for areas that don't fit in very well and also have a massive lack of capacity.”

However, participants also expressed interest in working with other Local Action Groups near urban centres and those that are similarly post-industrial, and said that networks to support this kind of learning would be beneficial. There were suggestions for the Local Action Group to link in with these initiatives:

“I wish I had known about the [Scottish] Rural Network because we have been lovely to speak to other areas across Scotland that, you know, we might, we might be there might be potential for us to open up a dialogue.”