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CHAPTER SEVEN COMMUNITY RIGHT TO BUY

Introduction

7.1 As a mechanism for encouraging community ownership of land, Part 2 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 introduced provisions for the Community Right to Buy ( CRtB). This was influenced by the long history of popular and political interest in patterns of land ownership within Scotland ( e.g. Wightman, 1996; Macmillan et al., 2002; Brown, 2004). Bryden and Geisler (2007) report examples of community buy-outs spanning almost a century, from Glendale in 1908 to Assynt in 2005.

7.2 The legislation covers all parts of rural Scotland and relates to buildings, mineral rights and fishing rights as well as land. However, unlike Part 3 of the Act that refers to a further, specific Crofting CRtB, Part 2 does not include an absolute right to buy. Rather it offers a framework within which communities can register a formal interest in purchasing land such that when it is offered for sale, they have a pre-emptive right to buy if certain conditions are met. These include demonstrating community benefits and support plus securing funding to meet a market price identified by an independent valuation ( e.g. Scottish Executive, 2006a; HIE, undated a).

7.3 This chapter focuses on the Community Right to Buy ( CRtB). It is based on a review of relevant literature and information gleaned from a succession of exchanges by e-mail, telephone and face-to-face meetings with selected stakeholders and communities within Scotland. It offers an introduction to the ideas behind community land ownership, a brief explanation of the methods used to gather information for this part of this project, a description and summary of main findings and a table of suggested indicators.

Community ownership

7.4 As part of the wider land reform package, CRtB is viewed as a means of encouraging increased diversity and increased community involvement in the way land is owned and managed. The Land Reform Policy Group ( LRPG) presented these as aims in their own right, but also as contributing to a wider aim of sustainable rural development. In particular, community ownership and involvement were promoted as means of overcoming possible constraints imposed by restrictive tenancy arrangements and landlord monopoly control of land and development opportunities ( LRPG, 1999).

7.5 The pursuit of greater economic efficiency and social equity through a redistribution of property rights is a common theme of land reform across various countries, particularly in less developed and transitional economies. If current patterns of ownership are inhibiting development by stifling entrepreneurial behaviour, then transferring ownership to individuals or communities may relieve some of the market failure constraints and lead to greater economic activity and a more even distribution of prosperity (Williamson, 1985; Bromley, 1991; de Soto, 2000, Macmillan, 2002). In many cases, land reform is also viewed as a mechanism for recognising traditional ownership claims made by indigenous peoples ( FAO, 2004) and/or simply strengthening communities and levels of self-determination without necessarily seeking tangible economic gains (Bryden & Geisler, 2007). It may potentially also lead to improved information for greater transparency and democratic accountability with respect to ownership and management ( e.g. Wightman, 1996, 2001; Deininger & May, 2000; Warren, 2002).

7.6 More broadly, whilst land reform may have particular political resonance, the perceived role of property rights in social and economic development extends across other productive and consumptive assets. These include other tangibles such as buildings and minerals, but also intangibles such as place names and brand identities associated with production processes ( e.g. Tregear et al., 2007).

7.7 In addition, the benefits of community ownership and/or other forms of control are not restricted to rural areas. In the Scottish context, this is reflected in the extension of public funding for community initiatives to urban areas. Hence the Scottish Land Fund that had supported rural projects has evolved into the Growing Community Assets fund administered directly by the Big Lottery Fund Scotland ( BLFS) under the Investing in Communities Programme. This extension reflects an earlier Partnership Agreement of the Scottish Executive, but also wider UK government interest in the role of social and community enterprise in promoting regeneration (pers. comm. Communities Scotland; pers. comm. BLFS; Lyons, 2004; Hart, 2005).

7.8 Whilst examples of land reform and therefore evidence of its impacts are somewhat scarce in Western economies, evidence from less developed economies is often positive (Deininger et al., 2000; FAO, 2000; Galiani & Schargrodsky, 2005). The types of potential benefits associated with community ownership are described in the literature and are often identified (if not quantified) by communities themselves ( e.g.HIE, undated b; Quirk, 2007). The main types include:

• Ownership may offer greater security than a tenancy or an informal arrangement for usage, allowing users to plan better for the future.
• Ownership may offer greater freedom to use an asset for more diverse purposes, opening-up opportunities for infrastructure improvements and new production or consumption activities.
• Ownership may facilitate access to greater funding, through financial gearing/leverage from a collateral base, thereby enabling more ambitious development.
• Ownership may encourage social networking that was inaccessible to private or public landlords but which may deliver efficiencies in local service delivery and business development.
• Ownership may allow more of the surplus (profit) from wealth-creating activities based on the asset to be retained within a community, raising local incomes and employment both directly and indirectly through multiplier effects.
• Ownership may promote community cohesion and pride through building confidence and a sense of self-worth through control of an asset, particularly if it has iconic, symbolic status that can act as a focal point for community organisation.
• Ownership, or rather the transition process to ownership and the need to self-organise as an empowered community, may engender a cultural transformation that encourages greater transparency and accountability in decision making and greater maturity in interacting with other bodies.

7.9 Against these benefits, it is also acknowledged that community ownership incurs some costs and risks. In particular, beyond the actual cost of purchasing land or any other asset, the capacity of a community to self-organise to acquire and then manage the asset may require additional and on-going resources (Dùthchas, 2001). That is, ownership incurs liabilities as well as assets and income-generation potential may be insufficient to make community ownership self-sustaining (Hart, 2001). In particular, relative to specialist and/or long-standing (land)owners, many community acquisitions are under-capitalised and suffer from a lack of appropriate financial and management expertise, which suggests the need for advisory as well as financial support (Thake, 2006; Quirk, 2007).

7.10 In addition, the effectiveness and appropriateness of transferring property rights is typically contingent upon other factors, including political stability and local cultural conditions. This means that different policies - some aimed at private, some at community and some at state control - may be required in different locations and it can be difficult to characterise and isolate impacts from other contemporary influences (May et al., 2002; Daley & Hobley, 2005; Borras, 2006). Consequently, ownership may not necessarily be the preferred route to achieving development in all cases ( e.g. Macmillan et al., 2002; Bell, 2007; SQW, 2007) and the CRtB encouragement for greater community involvement - perhaps through partnership or other formal management arrangements - reflects this.

Methods

7.11 Beyond the review of relevant literature and policy guidance used to provide the background information given above, bilateral communication with a number of experts and stakeholders was used to broaden and deepen perspectives on CRtB issues.

7.12 Communication with stakeholders and other experts was by e-mail, 'phone and/or face-to-face meetings (see Annex 7.1). In the first instance, e-mails comprised an introductory synopsis of the project and a short list of questions. In some cases these elicited pointers to published information sources and/or other organisations or people to contact ( i.e. snowballing), in others they confirmed a willingness to engage further via 'phone or a meeting. Conversations by 'phone or, especially, face-to-face meetings, took the form of semi-structured interviews and lasted for between 20 and 90 minutes. Notes rather than formal transcripts were taken, and findings reported here were derived without recourse to formal content analysis or interpretative software. Three CRtB communities were interviewed, with some spatial overlap with other aspects of this project. To preserve the scoping nature of this project and to not impinge on future possible testing of the ideas developed here, remaining CRtB communities were deliberately not contacted. Finally, a project-wide stakeholder workshop (Chapter 9) was held, to seek further views and verification (or otherwise) of findings up to that point.

Findings

7.13 The impact of the CRtB legislation may be categorised into two separate elements. First, there is the impact on diversity of land ownership and management and on community involvement. These were the first-order effects envisaged by the LRPG. Second, there is the second-order effect on sustainable rural development via the types of impacts listed previously. Whilst actual development outcomes may be difficult to identify, impacts on inputs, processes and outputs may be easier to discern.

Diversity and involvement impacts

7.14 In headline terms, the uptake of the CRtB appears to have been somewhat limited. The Register of Community Interests in Land held by the Registers of Scotland shows that, to date, there have been 79 applications to register an interest in land under the CRtB provisions ¹⁰. Of these, 27 have been deleted for various reasons, 41 are currently registered, four are pending and only seven have been activated - with an eighth currently in progress at the time of the study. Moreover, many of the applications overlap to some extent since they are for multiple, adjoining parcels of land that require separate applications even from the same community.

7.15 Consequently, it appears that there are less than 25 communities that haven sought recourse to the formal powers. Wightman (2007) makes some critical observations about possible reasons for this slow uptake, including the complexity of the process and apparent inconsistencies in interpretation of the rules. Nevertheless, the legislation has provided an opportunity for communities to seek ownership.

7.16 Taking figures from all of the currently registered or activated applications, these communities represent approximately 32,000 people and 44,225 ha. The seven activated instances represent approximately 9,000 people and 44,030 ha, the latter dominated by 44,000 ha for one community. This compares with a rural area of approximately 7.6 million ha and a rural population (including small towns) of about 1.6 million (Scottish Executive, 2006b). Hence the observable direct contribution to the land reform aim of seeking increased diversity in the way land is owned and managed is modest.

7.17 However, such calculations may underestimate the relative impact of CRtB. Whilst the legislation has provided an opportunity for any community to register an interest in land, not all communities (and therefore not all land) would necessarily choose to pursue the opportunity - even if perceived weaknesses in the application process (see Wightman, 2007) were absent. Hence the baseline population and area denominators used to calculate headline impacts above should perhaps be smaller. More importantly, community ownership and/or involvement in land is not confined to CRtB-related activities alone. That is, instances of land transfers to and/or management agreements with local communities pre-dated the Land Reform Act and have continued outwith the limited number of formal CRtB examples. Consequently, it is possible that the existence of the CRtB powers has influenced other arrangements for ownership and/or community-friendly management without recourse to the legal powers.

7.18 This view is held by various stakeholders able to cite anecdotal instances of indirect effects. These may take the form of an "implicit threat" of legal action (enhanced by media coverage) encouraging greater co-operation from previously reluctant landlords and/or a generally more positive and proactive and co-operative relationship with community interests. Certainly, bodies such as the Community Woodland Organisation and the Scottish Community Land Network have seen increases in listed membership and the National Forest Land Scheme operated by the Forestry Commission Scotland was clearly inspired by the CRtB. In addition, NGOs such as the John Muir Trust, appear to be acting in partnership as joint-owners with some communities.

7.19 Equally, exhortations in the Act to encourage more formal and transparent community involvement in the way that land is owned and managed are also claimed to have led to more community engagement by public and NGO bodies such as Scottish Natural Heritage, the Forestry Commission Scotland CS and National Trust for Scotland. Hence the modest headline impacts are likely to underestimate the influence of the legislation.

7.20 However, since non- CRtB arrangements are not necessarily announced publicly and voluntary listings of community-based activities are far from comprehensive, it is not easy to gauge whether there has been an increase in overall activity: formal recording of instances of changes in ownership or (especially) increased community involvement appears to be incomplete or simply absent in many cases. Consequently, whilst the indirect effect of the CRtB powers on diversity of ownership and community involvement in land may enhance the direct effect, quantifying the magnitude of this addition is not currently possible.

7.21 In principle, communities and landlords could be asked how and why they chose a particular form of ownership or management. However, the accuracy of answers may be hindered by hazy memories, different interpretations and confounding factors. Moreover, given that communities and parcels of land vary enormously in size, scope, capabilities and ambitions, plus the volume of activities in a given year may simply reflect the volume of land coming to market, identifying trends may be somewhat difficult. For example, the Community Land Unit, in existence since 1997, appears to have assisted 80-90 communities per year prior to the 2003 Act being implemented and 60-70 per year since then.

Sustainable development benefits

7.22 In addition to difficulties in identifying the magnitude of direct and indirect uptake of CRtB opportunities, further questions may be posed regarding the sustainable rural development impact of any change arising from community ownership. Whilst a list of potential impacts may be identified (see above) and is supported by anecdotal evidence from communities and sponsors, formal monitoring effort to measure such effects is apparently relatively scarce.

7.23 In principle, changes in infrastructure (such as houses) or economic performance (such as employment or income) could be detected from routinely collected and reported statistical data - such as that available through Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics ( SNS). Unfortunately, the spatial resolution of SNS data is usually too coarse (see http://www.sns.gov.uk/ and maps in Appendix 8 of this report). The CRtB rules require a community to self-define its geographical extent through the use of Royal Mail postcode units. Since postcode boundaries rarely conform to those of other administrative units, CRtB areas do not fit neatly with standard statistical reporting units.

7.24 Maps 1-9 (see Appendix 8) illustrate this point for three example CRtB areas - Assynt Foundation, Sutherland; Crossgates Community Woodland, Fife; and Neilston Development Trust, East Renfrew - for three different spatial reporting units used in Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics - Data Zones, Intermediate Geographies and local authority level. Similar results would be expected for other CRtB, or indeed non- CRtB, examples.

7.25 In each case, it is apparent that the CRtB area encompasses more than one Data Zone but generally does not encompass any entire Data Zone. Consequently it is impossible to use figures reported for any individual data zone or group of Data Zones as a reliable indicator of conditions within the CRtB area. The same applies to the Intermediate Geography figures. At local authority level, the CRtB areas all represent only a small proportion of the LA's geographical extent and hence, again, the standard statistical reporting can not be used as a reliable indicator of conditions within the CRtB area condition.

7.26 In addition, beyond the spatial resolution problem, even if data were to be used, it is highly questionable how changes in reported statistics could be attributed to community ownership. That is, for example, whilst the figures for Data Zone SO1003967 lying entirely within the Assynt CRtB area do show some changes over the period 2001 to 2005, isolating the effect of CRtB from other influences on the area is impossible. Moreover, given that impacts may take some time to manifest themselves in "hard" statistics, it may be that more qualitative approaches are needed to identify subtler changes in community confidence and cohesion. This suggests that more bespoke, local data collection exercises are needed to assess impacts - a point made repeatedly by many stakeholder interviewees and workshop participants.

7.27 Ad hoc studies, notably of the high-profile success of the community-owned Isle of Gigha do exist and - along with stakeholder interviews conducted for this project - tend to confirm that the transfer of control to community bodies can deliver the types of benefits listed earlier (Brown, 2004; Countryside Agency, 2005; Satsangi, 2007). However, routine and consistent monitoring of community-level impacts is largely absent, in terms of both occurrence and magnitude. As an aside, it may be noted that Gigha forms only a minority part of a Data Zone (S01000721), confirming that routinely reported statistics can not be used to gauge local impacts of the buyout.

7.28 Given the existence of public support for many non- CRtB and CRtB activities, the absence of monitoring and evaluation is perhaps a little surprising. This point was noted explicitly by SQW (2005, 2007) in their (positive) studies of the Community Land Unit ( CLU) and its operation of the Scottish Land Fund) - both of which were fundamental to, but not restricted to, supporting CRtB activities. Bell (2007) offers a shorter but similar review of the National Land Forest Scheme.

7.29 The SQW research sought to overcome the lack of prior monitoring data by conducting surveys of community perceptions of impacts across a one-year sample of 90 assisted projects, and a tracked, three-year sample of 20 projects - the latter including one CRtB example. Appendix 9 of this report summarises their findings, showing variation in the prevalence of impacts across different types of project. In general, the reported findings accord with both the wider literature and the anecdotal evidence offered by stakeholders and communities for this research in terms of the types of impacts associated with community ownership and/or other involvement in management of local assets. Brown (2004) reports similar findings for four, pre- CRtB case-study communities.

7.30 Whilst reported "hard" economic impacts in terms of jobs and income generation were modest, particular emphasis was placed by communities on social benefits, such as confidence and capacity-building, reflecting the level of engagement and inclusion that was engendered by a community self-organising to undertake a buy-out or other management action. This may point to greater economic benefits in the future, if cohesion and confidence carry-through to further aspirations and actions - a point strongly endorsed by several stakeholders. Relatively few environmental impacts were noted (see also Chevenix-Trench & Philip, 2001; Warren, 2002).

7.31 Although a high level of additionality was claimed, SQW (2005, 2007) further note the dependency of many activities on continued external funding rather than self-generated income (see also Brown, 2004; Thake, 2006) with most projects being dependent on the CLU and/or SLF.

7.32 However, in the absence of prior monitoring to establish a baseline, the survey results were highly dependent on communities' recollections of prior conditions and accurate assessments of counter-factual possibilities/additionality - leading to recommendations for improved guidance to communities for self-monitoring and a reconsideration of public monitoring efforts.

7.33 This is now being addressed for new projects funded through the successor source of public funding to the SLF, the Growing Community Assets fund operated directly by the Big Lottery Fund Scotland under the Investing in Communities programme. More specifically, there is an explicit focus on outcomes. Guidance and support for proportionate self-monitoring is made available to communities through resource packs and contracted advisory services. However, since this has only been in effect since October 2006, there are few results to report as yet ( e.g. Burns & MacKeith, 2006; BLFS, 2005; pers comm. Blake Stevenson; http://www.blakestevenson.co.uk/biglotteryfund/).

7.34 The focus on outcomes reflects a general move to strengthen evaluations, both at community and programme level for activities funded by the Big Lottery Fund ( BLFS, 2007; pers. comm, BLFS; Scottish Centre for Regeneration, undated). Hence, in addition to the community-level monitoring, an independent evaluation of the Growing Community Assets fund is intended. Although a brief has been issued for this, the study has yet to be planned in detail and the linkages to community-level monitoring and/or other data sources have still to be explored in terms of establishing baselines and identifying additionality (pers. comm. BLFS).

7.35 None of the self-monitoring is retrospective, so, whilst all new instances will be covered, pre-existing CRtB examples will not be. Moreover, linkages to an overall evaluation may be weak since, whilst self-reporting is required, the support offered for self-monitoring is neither obligatory nor prescriptive for individual communities, meaning that consistency of reporting across communities is unlikely to be achieved (pers. comm, BLFS; pers comm. Blake Stevenson).

7.36 In addition to identifying the prevalence of impacts, the SQW study also attempted to quantify their strength. If these already-heavily-caveated survey results were applied pro rata to the seven activated CRtB cases, it would imply that around 7.5 FTE jobs have been created, 75 people have had their social networks improved and 168 people have been involved in community activities (more if weighted by community size). These figures could be arbitrarily inflated if an allowance was made for the acknowledged but unquantified indirect impact of the CRtB legislation. Improving such estimates might be achieved by an updated survey of CRtB and non- CRtB examples, perhaps co-ordinated with monitoring activities under the Growing Community Assets fund.

Links to other aspects of land reform

7.37 As part of the wider package of legislative and non-legislative elements, it might be expected that CRtB would be linked to other aspects of land reform. However, few stakeholder interviewees spontaneously identified any such associations and, moreover, typically viewed other areas of land reform as having had greater observable effect than CRtB. Indeed some stakeholders viewed the conflation of different aspects under the single banner of "Land Reform" as unhelpful.

7.38 In some cases, links to the access provisions and aspects of nature conservation were mentioned in the context of community assets being used for recreational and environmental purposes. No overlaps were identified with agricultural tenancy arrangements and, perhaps more surprisingly, Community Planning was viewed as largely irrelevant - reflecting a perception of differences in geographical scale and focus. That is, CRtB communities are smaller than a Community Planning area and rural land use planning may not feature as a priority if urban regeneration needs are dominant at the local authority level.

7.39 Some parallels with the Crofting CRtB were identified, although the absence of an absolute right to buy was a key difference. Several stakeholders offered the view that much CRtB activity has been reactive rather than proactive. That is, some communities may not have had a clear idea of what do with a parcel of land but were spurred into action by land being offered for sale. Such a perception risks accusations of the legislation being used for anti-development rather than development purposes, although on-going monitoring of CRtB examples might help to dispel this by revealing positive impacts. However, statistics on the timing of application to register an interest suggest that the proportion of proactive applications is increasing (pers. comm. with the then Scottish Executive).

Summary and conclusions

7.40 As a mechanism for encouraging community ownership of land, Part 2 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 introduced provisions for the Community Right to Buy ( CRtB). As part of the wider land reform package, CRtB is viewed as a means of encouraging increased diversity and increased community involvement in the way land is owned and managed, plus also contributing to a wider aim of sustainable rural development.

7.41 The potential for alternative forms of organisation to overcome barriers to development is a common theme in many policy areas. Hence, whilst the focus here may be on land, there are clear overlaps with policy interests in the role of social and community enterprise for promoting regeneration more generally. Indeed the operation of the wider Growing Communities Fund as a successor to the Scottish Land Fund places future CRtB (and non- CRtB land) applications alongside a broader class of community asset projects. It appears that the quality and volume of applications (and therefore funding) is now more evenly balanced between rural and urban communities, having previously been skewed in favour of rural areas (pers. comm. Big Lottery Fund).

7.42 Community representatives and other stakeholders interviewed for this project readily identified the types of potential impacts associated with community ownership of assets, whilst acknowledging that - despite the use of public funds to support many activities - little, if any, formal monitoring of actual impacts was taking place. However, the SQW (2005, 2007) reports contain some highly relevant insights and suggests that changes in land ownership and community management (whether CRtB or not) in Scotland are delivering at least some of the expected benefits, although these vary across different examples and in the time taken to appear.

7.43 Within the Sustainable Rural Livelihoods ( SRL) Framework, the types of indicators suggested by the literature and by interviewees - sometimes with prompting - are reported in Appendix 6. In most cases, perceived impacts to date were dominated by social capital benefits - although it was felt that these might translate into gains in others categories over time. That is, in most cases, the change in asset ownership has been too recent for significant management changes to be implemented yet and communities should not be expected to (or forced to) move faster than their capacity to adapt.

7.44 Populating the table of suggested indicators is unlikely to be achieved through recourse to existing data collection mechanisms. Indeed, given the subjective nature of some of the indicators - particularly for the human and social capital elements - some form of qualitative investigation will be required. This strongly suggests a case study approach, which would also allow appropriate exploration and representation of the heterogeneity of scope, scale, capabilities and aspirations embodied in different communities and the relative importance of community empowerment and optimisation of resource usage. Whilst this could be restricted to the limited number of activated CRtB examples, it would be sensible - following SQW (2005, 2007) and Bell (2007) - to include some non- CRtB active examples and apparently non-active communities to broaden the sample size and possibly identify indirect impacts of the CRtB legislation.

7.45 One other aspect that may need attention is intra-community variation and conflict. That is, although sometimes presented as homogeneous units, communities themselves can encompass diverse views and preferences and indeed degree of interest. Not all members of a community may have equal access to a "community" asset, and the strategy adopted in its management may limit its benefits to a narrow section of the community or extend its benefits more widely. This can be manifest in differences of opinion regarding asset management - a point noted by several interviewees. Consequently, assessment of impacts may need to also address the distribution of impacts across different groups within a community ( e.g. Anastacio et al., 2000).

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Annex 7.1 Organisations contacted for information

Whether by e-mail, telephone or in face-to-face meeting, bilateral communication with stakeholders and other experts focused on four themes. The emphasis on each theme and the level of detail sought varied slightly according to the mode of communication and the position of the stakeholder: themes were explored the least in e-mails, the most in face-to-face interviews. The four themes (with further discussion prompts in italics) were:

i) Role/view/experience of CRtB? (especially for Community representatives)

Explore history/context. Aspirations. Experience, before and after. Outcomes.

ii) Has the arrival of CRtB made much of a difference?

Seek views on additionality, both direct and indirect. Indirect stimulation of non- CRtB examples. Less formal arrangements. Partnerships. Funding.

iii) What types of impacts were anticipated/have been observed? Explore broad categories, then more specific examples. Compare to SQW/Quirke lists. Check for formal monitoring vs. anecdotes. Probe for additionality. What indicators should perhaps be considered?

iv) Have other Land Reform measures influenced, or been influenced by, CRtB? Especially Access, Community Planning, Nature Conservation. Interaction with different public and private bodies.

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