Common Good Funds

A golden opportunity for your Community’s voice to be heard

Community Councils have a crucial role to play in repatriating some control over their Common Good Funds (CGFs).

As one of the many ‘National Conversations’ conducted by the Scottish Government and Cabinet throughout Scotland, one was held in Melrose on 28th July. The First Minister, Mr Alex Salmond, spoke on the importance of having Scottish input on policy and freedom of action in Scottish matters as far as the Nation was concerned. He also applied the same argument to local affairs at community level where local contact was, in part, the purpose of these admirable ‘conversations’.

    He was asked the question  “…are there any plans in the pipeline to restore to Burghs some of their former powers in local affairs, in particular in respect of Common Good Funds…”

    It was passed to John Swinney, as the Minister responsible, to reply.
    What John Swinney confirmed was that there were pilot schemes in operation to assess possible future roles for Community Councils but that nothing was specifically proposed about Common Good Funds. But, he said, if Community Councils wished to have more say in their Common Good Funds, then they should write to him and say so.

    Under the present fact-finding pilot scheme there will be no feedback to the Government from Community Councils with CGFs in their constituencies. Three petitions (PEs 875, 896 & 961) were debated by the Local Government and Transport Committee of the Scottish Government in 2006/7. The petitions were accepted and resulted in guidance being issued to Local Authorities (LAs) on three things: separation of CGFs from other LA accounts, getting the asset registers up-to-date by March 2009 and lastly guidance on accounting procedures. The Committee also believed “that common good assets and the common good fund should be promoted better to allow communities to have more influence over their use.”  Regrettably, the response by LAs to these Government guidelines has been patchy.

So this is the Golden Opportunity. If your community has a CGF and feels that it has been distanced from its CGF by the present legislation, has lost some CG assets and wants much greater say in its management, write to John Swinney at Holyrood and tell him. The previous Government has already agreed it in principle.
   

There are eight Community Councils with known CGFs in the Borders and all are more or less dissatisfied with the way their CGFs have been handled since the 1973 Local Government (Scotland) Act arbitrarily divorced them from their own property. Some communities have even forgotten they own CGFs, most have lost sight of what their CGFs comprise and Local Authorities are both confused and remiss in defining the extent of CGFs. The situation, I suspect, will be much the same in the other 188 ‘former’ Burghs in Scotland elsewhere than in the Borders.

    As Community Councils, we are the statutory representatives of our communities; we would be failing them if we did not try to safeguard the inheritance passed down to us by our predecessors who, at times, had to lay down their lives while protecting the Community’s lands and possessions. At present we have no powers in administering the CGFs of which we are the beneficial owners.

    We must therefore act before CGFs are dissipated, disposed of, forgotten about or subsumed by present Local Authorities.

At the very least, CCs should request full voting membership of all CGF management groups, ideally with powers of veto.
If we do not act now, another chance may never arise.

   
Remember, the CGFs are the Community’s possessions inherited over centuries. Local Authorities have simply been given the legal title and the task of administering them but we are still the owners.
It is only simple justice that owners should have a say in the management of their own possessions.

Dr Lindsay D Neil
Convener, Selkirk Regeneration Group
Vice Chairman, Royal Burgh of Selkirk and District Community Council
 HYPERLINK "mailto:drlneil@btinternet.com" drlneil@btinternet.com

10/8/09
W: 644