Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) is one of Europe’s most successful development agencies, with a track record of adopting a more holistic approach to economic development, supporting initiatives which support the wider community as a route to stimulating growth.
In fragile, remote settlements, supporting healthy community infrastructures can be as vital as appropriate physical and technological infrastructures in stimulating economic development. HIE’s joined-up approach to community and economic development has led to notable successes, not least that between 2001 and 2005 the population of the Highlands and Islands increased by 1.7%, compared to a national increase of 0.6%.
Since the SNP came to power however, they have undermined HIE’s capacity and ability to act in the interests of the region. First, the SNP cut HIE’s budget by more than £50m, but, perhaps more fundamentally, they have sought to narrow the wider remit which has enabled HIE to operate so successfully.
HIE has been stripped of its career service function, part of their business support and training functions, and are now being forced to invest in fewer community projects, with an almost 50% reduction in the projects able to get support in this and coming years. These small injections of cash only cost HIE some 6% of their Strengthening Communities budget, but it gave community projects vital support from which they could lever out cash from other funding sources, in addition to releasing community initiative and building community confidence. The effect of these projects ripples out across the local economy.
Now though, the imposition of a threshold on funding applications ensures that the small-scale projects, which are so vital in remote communities, will have no access to HIE support.
Community organisations are now required to search for other sources of funding, such as local authorities, if they wish to continue to provide their service, but with councils facing massive cuts in service spending, it is highly unlikely that supply can meet demand.
The SNP claim that HIE ‘now has a sharper focus on its key role of supporting sustainable economic growth.’ However, the success of HIE has demonstrated that without community development in the Highlands and Islands, there will be no economic development. It is people; their skills, talents and ingenuity; not top-down infrastructure projects, which generates sustainable growth.
There are few places where this has been demonstrated so starkly as in the Highlands and Islands, where depopulation sapped, and in some areas continues to sap, the lifeblood from communities in a vicious cycle of lack of opportunities, emigration and the closure of community amenities.
The resourcefulness of communities in the buy-out and management of their own land in recent years, has demonstrated how that cycle can be reversed, but without the support, both in terms of finance and expertise, provided by HIE, it is doubtful whether communities such as Gigha would be the success stories they are today.
SNP raids on HIE’s budget and operational remit are not only short-sighted, they are also self-defeating. A healthy economy is reliant on healthy communities, by removing support from communities in the Highlands and Islands, the SNP are undermining their very viability.