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Another month, another rural land use report. This time it’s the turn of the sheep-counters at SAC to weigh in with the impressive-sounding “Rural Scotland in Focus”*, which “brings together analysis of rural Scotland that takes account of the strategies and policies already in operation and builds on them”. Apparently, SAC is “broadening its remit to include the wider rural opportunities and challenges for communities and businesses”, although judging by the chapter entitled “How are Scotland’s rural communities taking ownership of their own future?” it might be better for us all if they didn’t bother.

Like most such top-down excursions into community-land, the report contains the usual uncritical recitation of a familiar list of policies and mechanisms which are supposed to demonstrate a widespread commitment to empowerment, but the real shock of this report is the extent to which it seeks out “reservations and concerns”. Of course philosophical and ideological arguments about the merits or otherwise of community ownership are grist to the academic mill, and a certain equivocation is to be expected but even by these standards this report is unduly negative in tone and selective in inclusion.

Most extraordinarily, it references the Quirk review** not to repeat the much quoted assertion that “there are no substantive impediments to the transfer of assets to communities”, but to describe it as “one of the rare occasions where the risks of asset ownership by communities are highlighted”. Indeed it then proceeds to list a number of potential risks identified, without bothering to mention that these have been extracted from a “Table of risks involved in asset transfer and ways to manage them”  - in effect a community asset risk assessment – which identifies a number of ways to mitigate and manage each of them. Indeed, one of the key messages (written in big text on the back cover) of Quirk is that “There are risks but they can be managed – there is plenty of experience to draw on”

Thankfully the SAC report includes a number of panels showcasing other voices, including Norman MacAskill SCVO, who puts the importance of the voluntary sector squarely in context: “Without [the work of the voluntary sector] in many rural areas there would simply be no community life – no village halls, no sports and leisure clubs, no ceilidhs or concerts, no playgroups or lunch clubs, no galas or games days, no environmental groups, community woodlands or community energy projects…The work of the voluntary sector is not an optional add-on to rural community life, it is at its very heart.”

* Rural Scotland in Focus  (pdf - 4.7 Mb)
** Making Assets Work: The Quirk Review of community management and ownership of public assets (pdf - 188 Kb)

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