Islands Plan failure – now it’s Round Two

Five years has passed since the first plan was introduced, with an impact that's barely discernible.

The value of a new “National Islands Plan” has been questioned – five years after the first one promised all legislation affecting islands would be subject to “island-proofing”.

Consultation has begun on a second plan as the first is due to end later this year. An “online session” to “inform a review of the first ever National Islands Plan” is due next week, though there is little public awareness of it.

According to the Scottish Government, “the Plan will set out the actions and investments” they intend to “further improve outcomes for Scotland’s permanently inhabited islands”.

The online session – one of three between now and May – will offer “an opportunity to learn more about the proposed priorities and themes for the new Plan, allowing you to share your thoughts and shape its content.”

However, the current plan has faced criticism for the vagueness of its objectives which include the need to “identify islands where population decline is becoming a critical issue in order to ensure that these islands have their needs addressed”.

In a Holyrood committee last week, Shetland LibDem MSP, Beatrice Wishart, said that in a review of the existing plan, “the majority of respondents thought that there had been no progress on eleven of the 13 objectives”

Highlands and Islands Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant, pointed to the 18 per cent cut in Comhairle nan Eilean Siar’s budget over the past decade and suggested that some departments of the Scottish Government “do not recognise” the island-proofing requirement “in any way whatsoever”.

The Minister with responsibility for the Plan, Mairi Gougeon, replied: “It is the responsibility of all parts of Government and all relevant authorities to undertake island communities impact assessments when it is believed that there would be a disproportionate impact on those communities.”

The committee chair, Finlay Carson MSP, responded: “We are really looking for confirmation that those impact assessments were done, rather than that they should have been done”.

Ms Gougeon continued: “The Government is vast and I have a cross-co-ordination role. We are supported by a team of officials who embed that work across Government and with different departments to ensure that our island communities are always taken into consideration”.

Ms Gougeon said “the refresh of the National Islands Plan ensures that we have identified the most pressing challenges for island communities and that we are taking action to address them”.

In its response to consultation on a new National Islands Plan, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar supports the principle but says the number and vagueness of commitments “defies meaningful analysis of delivery” with things that would have happened anyway claimed as its successes.

The submission adds: “it is recommended that a new National Islands Plan should be produced with a smaller number of commitments, each of them subject to rigorous performance monitoring … Crucially, commitments should only be included where they demonstrably add value to existing local effort or represent new and additional interventions by Government.”