from Sunday Herald, 14 June 2009
One of the nation’s most effective and influential campaign organisations, Ramblers Scotland, is facing closure due to draconian financial cutbacks being imposed by its London headquarters.
Its budget is being slashed, its office closed and its staff sacked or relegated, leaving no more than a rump reporting to managers in the south. According to one insider: “Scotland was wiped off the map in about 30 seconds of conversation.”
The shock move has been angrily condemned as “an insult to the people of Scotland” by the convenor of Ramblers Scotland, the former MSP Dennis Canavan. It has also provoked strong messages of support and sympathy from across the political spectrum.
Ramblers Scotland is one of Scotland’s leading environmental and recreational bodies. Over the last few years it has played a major role in the land reform legislation which has given Scotland amongst the best arrangements for public access to land and water in the world.
Ramblers Scotland has also won many plaudits for its campaigns in favour of national parks and against the Cairngorm mountain railway, the Harris superquarry and Donald Trump’s golf complex in Aberdeenshire. Formed in 1985, it has 58 walking groups and 7,500 members.
But now it is facing the most serious crisis in its history. At a meeting in London on 30 May, the Ramblers governing board for Great Britain decided to cut £300,000 from the Ramblers Scotland budget, leaving the organisation just £81,000 for its next financial year, beginning on 1 October.
All seven Scottish staff have been warned that they will be made redundant, and the Ramblers Scotland office at Milnathort in Perth and Kinross could be closed. In their place, two staff will be employed to work from home at lower salaries.
“These proposed cutbacks in staff and operations in Scotland are completely unacceptable because they threaten the very existence of our organisation,” Canavan told the Sunday Herald.
“I have no doubt that board members were faced with significant financial pressures but to decimate their Scottish operations in this way is an insult to the people of Scotland and a failure to appreciate their obligations as a charity.”
Canavan pointed out that a five year plan to encourage walking with the Scottish government in the run-up to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow would have to be abandoned. And work to promote the ‘right to roam’ laws would have to be cut back.
Ramblers Scotland would have to drop its precedent-setting legal battle against a ban on walkers at the Stirlingshire estate of the millionaire landowner, Euan Snowie. An offer of £31,000 from the government’s conservation agency, Scottish Natural Heritage, has also been thrown into doubt.
Canavan accused the Ramblers London board of failing to understand that the organisation had to work differently in a devolved Scotland. And he warned that similar fates could befall other voluntary organisations as London managers seek to shuffle off their Scottish responsibilities.
The Ramblers board, which is dominated by people based in London and the south, is struggling to avert a financial meltdown triggered by a drop in donations. But the cuts it has ordered in Scotland are much more severe than those proposed in England and Wales.
The well-known mountain broadcaster and writer, Cameron McNeish, highlighted the irony that thousands of visitors from England and other European countries enjoyed walking in Scotland. “This proposal has potentially catastrophic consequences,” he said.
Labour's environment spokeswoman, Sarah Boyack MSP, praised the “great job” done by Ramblers Scotland. “It would be a great loss if the Ramblers disappeared and the Scottish government must ensure it survives this funding crisis,” she said.
Roseanna Cunningham, the Nationalist environment minister said the contribution made by Ramblers Scotland on the land reform legislation had been “very welcome”. She added: “I and the Scottish government hope that it will be possible for the interests of ramblers in Scotland to be effectively represented in the future and that the present difficulties can be overcome.”
Paul Butler, the Ramblers’ finance director in London, confirmed that £300,000 was to be slashed from the Scottish budget, but stressed that the proposed changes hadn’t been finalised and were still out for consultation with staff.
“It’s all very delicate at this stage,” he said. “Like everyone we’re feeling the pinch of the economic downturn and we’ve had to retrench because of pressure on our income.”
Dennis Canavan, the convenor of Ramblers Scotland, has launched an appeal for £200,000 to save the group’s Scottish operations. Send cheques payable to ‘Ramblers Association Scotland’ to: FREEPOST Ramblers Scotland (no stamp or other information required) or telephone 01577 861222 to donate using a credit card. For more information, go here.
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