Derek Rankine is Policy Manager at SURF. His role helps SURF utilise its stakeholders’ knowledge to support improved policy and practice in place-based regeneration. This involves facilitating engagement in the sharing of information, experience, ideas and opinions across the SURF network, developing appropriate policy positions for SURF, and representing SURF in policy forums, evidence sessions, and consultations.

Introduction

Navigating uncertainty in a period of flux and crisis was the theme of SURF’s 2024 Annual Conference. The event, which took place in Edinburgh at the end of August, brought together regeneration experts from public, private, voluntary and academic sectors to explore what can be done to protect Scotland’s more deprived communities from extreme challenges.

In addition to keynote presentations and panel sessions, the Conference featured an interactive feedback session in the early afternoon. This provided time for our 120 guests to break into groups of around 10 to share their takeaways from the morning session.

The groups were also invited to jointly discuss and record the steps we should take to ensure effective regeneration activity, from grassroots to major capital projects, continues to help those places most in need. Brief verbal feedback from facilitators of some groups was aired during the Conference, ahead of an afternoon panel featuring Tom Arthur, the Scottish Government Minister with regeneration policy responsibilities.

As SURF’s Policy Manager, I have a natural interest in the reflections, perspectives and ideas our diverse, cross-sector Conference participants shared during this interactive session. I reviewed facilitators’ comments and scribes’ notes from the 12 groups, and this blog is a summary of the recurring topics and policy suggestions that emerged.

Funding

Following a memorable opening keynote from Brian McLaren of economic and social research firm EKOS, which illustrated the massive financial pressures in Scottish local government, it was little surprise that the main topic of discussion was a shortage of funding for regeneration initiatives and the organisations that seek to deliver them.

Several groups described the situation as an emergency, and the word ‘trauma’ came up more than once, highlighting both the perceived damage to communities that will be caused by further budget cuts, and the urgency in responding swiftly. Organisational instability and in-fighting in the regeneration sector, with public and voluntary bodies competing with each other for ever-smaller slices of the pie, was identified as a predictable and negative outcome.

When there is a lack of money, what can be done? Implementing community wealth building and creating sustainable circular economies were seen as providing some of the answers. Others saw radical change in regeneration funding as an answer, with larger, multi-year grant funding replacing short-term programme funds spread too thinly across small, short-term projects in places less in need. Instant action was called for, as these sample comments show: “Immediately stop short term vision and funding”, “Time for tough decisions – if things aren’t working – get rid”, “Blow up bureaucracy and go beyond election cycles.”

New funding sources for regeneration were identified, with renewable energy coming up most frequently, followed by visitor taxes, green finance models and a national wealth fund. One group stated that politicians should do more to advocate for the community and voluntary sector, while another proposed expanding the state towards a Scandinavian model, levying higher taxes to support a higher quality of life. Several groups saw an opportunity for the UK and Scottish Governments to align and expand their regeneration support programmes, and private sector resources were also seen becoming increasingly important as public funding becomes ever scarcer.

Community Powers

Many groups saw opportunities in increasing the responsibilities for community groups as a means of enhancing resilience and sustainable development. Several groups drew parallels to the Covid lockdown era, when partners and funders relaxed bureaucratic norms and trusted local groups to support their communities as they saw fit.

The following statements indicate views on the timeliness of shifting power to community level, and echo some elements of SURF’s response to the second phase of the Democracy Matters consultation earlier in 2024:

“Public bodies are in reactive mode. This is an opportunity for community groups to step up as part of a ‘system change’ approach.”

“Trust, reducing the bureaucratic process, and focusing on end impact, are the only things that can help community-government working”.

“We need a new governance model that puts power back into towns.”

Multiple groups cited bureaucratic barriers alongside resources as chief factors preventing community led regeneration from reaching its potential. Several pointed to community asset transfer as one area in which slow decision-making processes and delays hindered communities. Slow bureaucratic processes were seen as causing further deterioration to important buildings, which may become liabilities rather than assets by the time they can be passed on to community control. More generally, policy intentions towards greater community empowerment were seen as not matching outcomes on the ground – a failure in implementation.

These views were not uniform. One group concluded that SURF’s Conference demonstrated “a rosy view of communities” that was not representative of reality. Another saw duplication of service provision between voluntary groups and local government as wasting much-needed public resources in some places.

“Trust the community” was criticised as a misleadingly simple catchphrase that does not reflect the complexity of the mix of organisations, people, services and assets in a settlement. A linked topic was variation in the democratic credibility of community groups; some participants shared perceptions that some groups lacked demographic representation, and others enable those who shout the loudest, to win control.

Local Government

Far from engaging in local authority bashing, many discussion groups expressed empathy for the challenges Councils are facing. Budget cuts, rising demands on statutory services, ring-fencing of spending and continuing Private Finance Initiative contract repayment obligations were cited as reducing the resources and choices available in local government to support communities.

Several groups said this risked undoing a lot of positive changes in recent years, including collaborative place-based partnership working, community wealth building pilots, and Locality Planning initiatives. One group said local government officers who link with and empower local communities will be among the first casualties of disinvestment. Another pointed to capital and revenue pressures inhibiting a wide array of local authority led regeneration partnerships and plans across Scotland.

The provision of some public services, including culture and leisure, were identified as being in danger, with some places losing access to services and amenities previously seen as essential, but slowly being reclassified as “nice to have”. Doubts were expressed that the voluntary and private sectors can pick up the slack, especially in less affluent places, in the context of a weak economy disincentivising private investment, and funding pressures discouraging third sector action.

One group asked: “Where are we with co-location of services?” It was felt that an approach widely agreed to support cost-saving and collaboration in local government, was not happening enough in practice. Another argued that not enough long term planning is taking place in public bodies, with in-depth reviews of assets, people and resources. One group said there was a chance to reduce postcode inconsistencies: “Now is the time to fully standardise working processes across regions.”

Considering Scotland has 32 big local authorities, one group argued that strong partnerships with community groups were the only way of closing the gap in distance from the community level. Changing public sector procurement processes was pointed to as one positive development in the current circumstances, as rising demands for small and local supply chains is practically helping fragile local economies.

Other Topics – and SURF’s Manifesto

Health and wellbeing came up repeatedly in discussions. Concerns were expressed that the public funding crisis is overwriting a recent policy appetite for a wellbeing economy, and replacing it with aspirations for conventional economic growth. The wellbeing of individuals working and volunteering in regeneration was raised as a specific concern, with unprecedented levels of exhaustion and frustration.

Zooming out to the macro level, failures to progress preventative spend in public health was seen as a catastrophic missed opportunity, given the demands on front-line services and the “cliff edge” public finance situation meant any kind of shift toward prevention would not happen in the foreseeable future. Affordable housing provision, climate change mitigation and problems in social care provision were also identified as additional challenges for place-based regeneration.

SURF is grateful to facilitators, scribes and participants for a lively and productive interactive feedback session. Views shared at SURF events feed into our policy influencing activities, which you can learn more about here.

This Autumn, SURF is beginning preparatory work on a 2026 Manifesto for Community Regeneration. We look forward to inviting members to consultation interviews and events over the next 18 months, as we begin to pull together some bold and practical regeneration policy recommendations to the next Scottish Government ahead of the 2026 Scottish elections.

This blog is the third in a series of follow on blogs from the SURF Annual Conference. Another four blogs will be added w/c 30th Sept.