We greeted as long overdue the announcement that the Scottish Government, through cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead, was pursuing the removal of the Crown Estate and the transfer of its powers and ownerships to the Scottish Government.
We still hold that position. It is a political anachronism that an unaccountable organisation should own, for example, the sea bed and licence exploration and operations there, earning significant ongoing revenues and simply returning what it decides are surpluses to the state.
However, recent press coverage of the Lochhead initiative, fuelled by the government, has implicitly suggested that the Crown Estate revenues will be directed at community windfall benefits from offshore renewables development.
There are two major problems with this.
The biggest of these is profligacy. The Scottish Government persistently criticises – and rightly so – former British Governments for frittering away the UKs massive oil revenues where, in comparison, Norway invested theirs to fund future development.
It would be inconsistent – and dishonourable – for Scotland to consider the same sort of approach as the waste of oil revenues in its management of windfalls from exploration and production of renewable energies.
Community projects are not insubstantial but what Scotland needs is serious money in the bank to fund the development of superiority in research, technological development and production in these internationally important new fields.
That alone will grow Scotland sustainably – in knowledge transfer, in high level skills, in ownership of expertise and the means of production – all of which we currently cede to foreign owners like Iberdrola - because we have no choice.
The second problem with the way the media are being directed in trumpeting community benefit from the departure of the Crown Estate is that this must contain a substantial amount of sleight of hand.
The implicit suggestion is that all of the revenues so reclaimed will go to communities. This cannot be so but it is exactly the sort of loose picture painting that politicians engage in when an election is in the offing.
What will most reassure Scotland is the vision of serious investment in ourselves from our own resources for our own future – not peppering the country with a second generation of over-spec, spanking new village halls trying to be businesses.
If the grip of the Crown Estate is at last removed, the revenues earned must be invested as Norway did with oil. That investment must be used to give Scotland the choice it needs of investing in itself to develop, apply here and sell abroad high level expertise.
It must not be squandered on buying votes in the 2011 Scottish Election from wide-eyed, underinformed and short-sighted communities.
If this is what may come about, we’re better to stay with the devil we know, which at least has some degree of long-sighted corporate social responsibility.
Hmm, I’d say this article was antithetical to what ForArgyll is about. This money would have be applied within a framework, and would probably be most effectively accessed by Development Trusts. Private enterprise is all very well, but communities are regenerating themselves by creating small scale social enterprises which create employment and wealth in those very communities which are presently failing. If you need an exemplar, look at Kilfinan Community Forest which now employs 6 people fulltime and many parttime, and its only asset is 130 ha of Forest. Imagine what they would do with the funds to purchase the 600ha they originally sought. This sounds like manna from heaven if you ask me, and you should not be undermining the capacity now being built in communities across Scotland by referring to the white-elephant culture which the Land Reform Act and Development Trust movement has finally cast into shadow.
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For Opinion: There is no contradiction nor any shift in our support of self-generated and self-dependent community development.
We are arguing that there is a need for serious investment to allow Scotland to gain and regain control of key resources and to grow the national economy sustainably but in a step change by investing in the development of expertise and technology that will have a ready market worldwide.
Community sustainability will help to make this possible by strengthening local economies, making them neutral if not a positive contributor to the Scottish exchequer. Resources to support such activities are already present, since community initiatives are awarded funding.
But we hold to our view that diverting the revenues repatriated from the Crown Estate to more community development would be wrong-headed and would miss perhaps the one opportunity Scotland will now have to build a forward facing and sustainable national economy based on the creation of high level skills, technology and expertise. National sustainability depends on this strategic scale, not on the admirable, inspirational and necessary – but small scale – community developments.
This is not an either/or situation. It;s a horses-for-courses situation. Scotland needs entrepreneurial and self-sustaining communities – which it can afford to grow just now; and it needs owned and major national assets capable of sustaining a strong economy – which it cannot afford to grow just now. This is where the potential revenue from dispensing with the Crown Estate comes into play.
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