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12 May, 2008
DURING the Shetland Charitable Trust's public debate on Thursday,
SIC convener Sandy Cluness suggested we should be "looking at
whether the trust needs to be charitable at all".
As anyone with his knowledge of Shetland's recent history is aware,
there are three very good reasons why we should retain a charitable
trust, notwithstanding the fact that new laws make it easier for
councils to do things that previously only trusts could do and there
may now be a case for transferring some responsibilities back to the
council.
The reasons are as follows:
1. Holding the oil revenues in a charitable trust enables them to be
kept separate from council funds in perpetuity and thus gives
Shetland a certain degree of financial independence from central
government;
2. Charitable status confers tax advantages worth £3m–£4m per annum;
3. As the trust's lawyers confirmed at a previous meeting, even if
the trust were to lose its charitable status or cease to exist, the
monies held in it would still require to be treated as charitable
funds and therefore could not legally be transferred to SIC general
funds.
If Mr Cluness and the trust's chief executive wish to alter its
charitable status that is, of course, something trustees should
discuss, but I believe it would be a mistake to conflate such
revolutionary ideas with the current exercise, which is simply to
ensure the trust can demonstrate to the Office of the Scottish
Charity Regulator (OSCR) that it is sufficiently distinct from the
council, is operationally independent (despite sharing a chief
executive with the SIC) and can function even in those rare cases
when councillor trustees are obliged to abstain from voting.
For the interest of your readers and for the record, this is the
text of the motion which trustees voted 18:2 to reject on Thursday:
“Shetland Charitable Trust, recognising that there is no reason to
delay amending its membership and several good reasons for
proceeding with an amendment as soon as practicable, resolves:
1. To select the following three possible membership structures for
further evaluation:
Option A: 24 trustees, comprising
• seven SIC councillors selected by their fellows, with no more than
one from each ward;
• SIC convener ex officio;
• 14 directly elected independent trustees (the chair to be one of
these, with a casting vote);
• another two independent trustees who may co-opted for their
specialist expertise.
Option B: 16 trustees, comprising
• seven SIC councillors selected by their fellows, with no more than
one from each ward;
• SIC convener ex officio;
• eight directly elected independent trustees (the chair to be one
of these, with a casting vote).
Option C: 15 directly elected independent trustees, with no
serving SIC councillor eligible for election as a trustee.
2. To instruct the trust’s chair, managers and lawyers to discuss
these options as soon as possible with OSCR and to ask for the
regulator’s initial opinion;
3. To meet to consider OSCR’s opinion and agree the details of a
public consultation;
4. To conduct a public consultation to ascertain the preferences of
the people of Shetland;
5. To meet to consider the result of this consultation and instruct
the trust’s managers and lawyers formally to apply to OSCR for a
trust reorganisation scheme or similar procedure, in line with the
preferred option;
6. To set a target date of 30 November 2008 for the completion of
this process.”
Instead of this, we're sending a delegation to OSCR to ask it it's
all right for us to carry on as normal, when legal experts have
already advised us that it isn't.
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan Wills
Sundside
Bressay
jonathan.wills@shetland.gov.uk
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