At the SURF Conference on the 12th of March 2026, we hosted a workshop for attendees to discuss our Manifesto policy proposals.
This included roundtable discussions on Local Democracy, Fair Funding, and Affordable Housing. Beyond gathering feedback on our proposals, we were also interested to hear what was missing or underexplored in our manifesto. Many of these discussions proved sufficiently rich and insightful that we wanted to capture key points from these sessions.
SURF Conference attendees will recall extensive conversations around the importance of further strengthening and empowering community councils. The potential of Community Wealth Building was also recognised, and there were interesting discussions around how the current (at times crowded) Plan Landscape might be rationalised in future to better promote impact and ease for communities and policymakers alike.
The workshop on Fair Funding identified that there remains an implementation gap regarding good funding practices. Put bluntly, everyone – including, often, government officials and politicians – know what good looks like, but getting there remains a challenge. Overcoming this challenge is critical, not least because of the human toll of insecure funding, and the long-term impacts that job volatility can have.
Regarding Housing, the recently announced National Housing Agency was identified as an area of short-term uncertainty, but there was hope amongst participants that More Homes Scotland could play a leading role in shaping a whole housing ecosystems approach to Housing. This was seen as crucial in a context of rising development costs and urgent housing need.
You can read the full summary here.
