13 May, 2008

NO DOUBT those living in low income households in Shetland will be cheering at the prospect of a delegation from Shetland heading off to Dundee to meet with the Scottish Charities watchdog to find out the two separate expensive legal reports urging reform were indeed correct. If the meeting is not until September the flights might not be too costly. If only all Shetland's poorest households could benefit from lower prices by buying on line too.

The nub of the issue of charitable trust reform is that because the trust is dominated by councillors there is no guarantee or evidence that decisions taken which concern the council are taken in the interests of the charitable trust.

If decisions are taken in the best interests of the council then we are looking at a body which may shortly have to foot a £6 million bill for the Bressay bridge and finally had to U-turn on state aids having set aside a quarter of a million pound legal fighting fund. It would be really nice to think they might act differently as trustees, but there is no guarantee of independence of action.

Now it seems councillors want to use trust funds for a legal battle to retain their control of Shetland's charitable trust. Just as well it is the most successful charitable trust in the country. And how do we know it is? Because the councillors say so...

Peter Hamilton
warnerhamilton@btopenworld.com