Facts and Figures
The Trusts Strategy For Scotland
This Strategy outlines how the Coalfields Regeneration Trust will operate in Scotland through out 2005 and up to March 2008
Please click here to view the National and Local Priority Plans for Scotland
The Trust’s Earlier Years
The Coalfields Regeneration Trust was established in 1999 with a mission to lead the way in coalfields regeneration and to restore healthy, prosperous and sustainable communities. It has made grants totalling more than £11m, promoting social and economic regeneration, to more than 530 organisations in the Scottish Coalfields.
These coalfields, spread across 13 local authority areas, are:
Ayrshire Coalfield – which includes parts of East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and the Upper Nithsdale area of Dumfries and Galloway
Lothian Coalfield – incorporating parts of East Lothian and Midlothian
Clydesdale/Strathkelvin Coalfield – which includes parts of West Lothian, South Lanarkshire, North Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire
Fife/Central Coalfield – incorporating parts of Fife, Clackmannanshire, Stirling and Falkirk.
The Trust 2005-2008
The Regeneration Context
The Trust acknowledges that working in partnership with a focused and targeted approach will maximise the impact of its work in Scotland. Across Scotland the newly established Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) are now the key vehicles for identifying, coordinating and delivering regeneration activities in each local authority area. Their objectives are set out in Regeneration Outcome Agreements (ROAs), which describe the priorities, targets, and outcomes to be achieved in each area.
The Coalfields Regeneration Trust will work as closely as possible with CPPs in coalfield areas to ensure that its activities are aligned and supportive of these strategies and will therefore be focusing grant investment in targeted coalfield areas to ‘add value’ and complement the objectives in Regeneration Outcome Agreements.
Targeting the Most Deprived Areas
The release in 2004 of Scottish Indices of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD 2004) has enabled the Trust to identify by local authority the particular coalfields areas where it should have a special focus and where its spending priorities should be. SIMD 2004 analyses deprivation by ‘data zone’ – an area with a population averaging 750 people. SIMD 2004 has analysed all 6505 data zones in Scotland and ranked them according to deprivation.
To utilise resources more effectively, The Coalfields Regeneration Trust will be targeting data zones that have been categorised as being within the 20% most deprived. In coalfield local authorities those with the highest concentration of data zones in the 20% category are:
- Clackmannanshire
- East Ayrshire
- Fife
- North Lanarkshire.
The Trust will work particularly closely with the Community Planning Partnerships in these areas, whilst still retaining links in the remaining nine coalfield local authorities. We need to make sure that each application demonstrates a clear fit with our plan to ensure this happens the Trust has developed priority plans for coalfield communities and you should take these into account when making an application to the Trust.
CAPACITY BUILDING
The overarching priority of CRT is to develop community capacity – almost everything we do will be supportive of these aims, as we believe theist to be the foundation of community regeneration.
We are not in the main, direct providers of services to communities. We support others – whether community groups, voluntary organisations or statutory organisations – to develop services through the grant funding we can provide. However, we also have a strong developmental role.
The Regeneration Mangers are actively involved in the field with communities and with our partner organisations. This style of working will develop further as we deliver a greater number of workshop and capacity building tools.
CRT recently delivered a workshop to the Community Partnership Team for Regeneration in Alloa. Local regeneration groups from Sauchie, Alloa, Tullibody, coalsnaughton and Fishcross were represented. This workshop addresses the challenges faced by voluntary organisations in an increasingly complex funding environment and aims to support the development of each individuals skills and knowledge in relation to funding, signpost them to sources of support and highlight the need for partnership working within communities.
Additionally planning is an important element of the funding process. At a recent workshop delivered by CRT, Synergie Youth Project of Dunfermline developed a 12 months action plan enabling the to look at their funding requirement and prepare a funding timetable to ensure maximum funding is secured in order to deliver service to young people in the fife local Authority area.
