In July 2011, the Crown Estate Commission and the UK Government, jointly under pressure in their inability to defend the indefensible, made a ‘damage limitation’ attempt to hang on to as much of coastal revenues as possible.
What is indefensible is the Crown Estate Commissioners’ control of the Scottish sea bed out to the 200 mile limit – and the resulting revenues from activities involving that sea bed – whose surpluses go direct to the UK Treasury.
In July last year, UK Treasury Secretary, Danny Alexander, announced that the Scottish Government was to set up a Coastal Communities Fund which would receive and distribute 50% of the revenues the Crown Estate Commissioners receive from the coastal waters of each of the four home nations. Each would receive half of the revenues derived from its own waters.
This followed the concurrence of the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee with the view from the Scottish Government that the affairs of the Crown Estate Commission were less transparent than they should be.
The Committee, predictably, did not concur with the Scottish Government’ s view that Crown Estate Commission revenues drawn from Scottish rights and assets held in the portfolio known as ‘the Crown Estate’ should be devolved to Scotland in their entirety.
To our mind, as detailed in the analysis of the situation we published at the time of this announcement, there were real problems in the UK government’s very loose definition of the ‘coastal communities’ that would benefit from the fund. This would make it possible for Edinburgh and Glasgow to argue, with logic, that they have a legitimate clai on the resource.
The amounts involved were also less than myth had suggested. In 2010 Scottish marine revenues were £7.8 million, with £3.9 million to come to Scotland in the first disbursement from the Coastal Communities Fund.
However, there seems to be confusion in how this fund is being administered and how transfer of control is being managed.
On Friday (11th May 2012) there were two parallel issues that give rise to concern on different fronts.
Devolved or retained assets
Earlier – in March this year, Westminster MPs said that the Crown Estate’s control of 50% of Scotland’s coast and almost all the seabed should be devolved to local authorities via the Scottish Government.
But on Friday 11th May the Crown Estate Commissioners announced that they are running two pilot schemes to test what they call ‘Local Management Agreements’. The very terminology indicates that this is no more than a hanging on to central control which the commission clearly intends to control and ‘licence’.
The pilot projects are with Portree Moorings Association on Skye and Comann na Mara at Lochmaddy, on North Uist.
What is being celebrated as progress is a decoy for the retention of improper control.
Control of the Coastal Communities Fund
On the same day, Dr Michael Foxley, until the recent local authority elections, Leader of Highland Council, made a public move to have the Coastal Communities Fund removed from the BIG Lottery Fund control.
We had been unaware that the Coastal Communities Fund has been placed within the control of the BIG Lottery Fund – a position which, however convenient, is quite improper.
The revenues from the Scottish coast and sea bed are earned revenues carrying entitlements for coastal communities. They are a right, not a boon.
The BIG Lottery Fund is revenue from gambling and is disbursed as ‘extras; to good causes, with no specific entitlements.
The two are utterly incompatible.
The decision to locate the Coastal Communities Fund within the BIG Lottery Fund – just because it has distribution mechanisms in place – is allied to the sort of conceptual muddling that characterises the current UK Government.
Lord Leveson corrected this habit sharply when he said last week that he would not ultimately pronounce on whether or not the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, had breached the Ministerial Code of Conduct in the matter of his relations with News International over its move to take over BSkyB.
Rightly, Lord Leveson pointed out that his enquiry was not a general purpose enquiry on standards but had specific terms of reference he intended to stay within.
The same need for clear boundaries applies here.
The BIG Lottery Fund has a specific remit for dealing with part of the ‘common good’ revenues from the national lottery.
The Coastal Communities Fund is earned income from the land and seabed of coastal communities who are entitled to those revenues and should not have to beg for them from a body shelling out a percentage of national gambling revenues.
Were this to be the case, applications to the BIG Lottery for awards from this fund would also be made under schemes and criteria not in tune with the immediate needs of specific coastal communities. These communities would have to apply for and apply any grants awarded to schemes that were not local priorities – which would remain unaddressed.
Dr Foxley proposed that the Coastal Communities Fund money should go to regional boards led by councils and including Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Community Land Scotland.
This, however, smacks very much of the sort of cabal that runs BIG Lottery Scotland’s Communities Fund and has tended to run its own agenda.
The criteria for resolving this unsatisfactory muddle should include the lowest possible administration costs and the highest possible level of direct community responsibility.
