The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) members’ lobby group, In Trust for Scotland (ITFS) has been engaged in a confrontation with the organisation since the precipitate announcement in the Spring of this year that the NTS was to close or revise the function and status of 11 of its properties.

The group attracted significant support and media attention in the run up to a stormy AGM in September. During that time it claimed the scalp of the highly controversial Chair of the NTS, the much quangoed Shonaig MacPherson, who announced that she is to stand down.

It was announced shortly afterwards that George Reid, the respected former Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament was to undertake a review of the organisation, whose financial management and whose decision-taking processes had come in for serious questioning by ITFS.

The lobby group welcomed Mr Reid’s appointment at the time and Bill Fraser from the group’s core team has just represented ITFS in a discussion with George Reid on Radio 4’s consumer affairs programme, You & Yours.

During this discussion Mr Reid laid out his plans for the Review.

Mr Fraser stressed the importance of consulting widely with the Trust’s 310,000 members and learning from past mistakes. Mr Reid promised to listen to Members’ views. He acknowledged the need for such views to be heard equally as much as those of his ‘distinguished’ team of experts in audit, finance, government and heritage. This team is to work pro-bono because they recognise the ‘centrality of the Trust to the quality of life in Scotland’.

On the programme, Bill Fraser asked George Reid about decisions taken under the present governance arrangements. In a straightforward statement that underlined the accuracy of ITFS’s concerns on the matter, Mr Reid said they had not been taken ‘as transparently as they might have been’. He hoped that that a future three year rolling strategic plan would prevent more ’sudden unexpected decisions’ of the type taken in 2009 which lead to closures and redundancy.

In a separate message to ITFS, Mr Reid has invited the group to meet shortly and present an initial overview. ITFS is urgently asking NTS members and its own supporters to communicate specific issues to ITFS in advance of that meeting.

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