This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Big Lottery Fund Scotland Committee
14/03/2007
The members of a new body that will decide how more than £257 million of Big Lottery Fund money is to be spent in Scotland have been announced.
The outgoing leader of Highland Council, Alison Magee, will head up the eight-person Big Lottery Fund Scotland Committee which for the first time will make all the decisons on how grants are to be distributed in Scotland.
It has also been announced that the first urban project to receive funding under the Fund's Growing Community Assets Scheme is Edinbugh-based Out of the Blue.
Members of the Committee are:
Chair Alison Magee
Alison Magee is the convener of Highland Council (2003-present) She has 20 years local government experience including four years as convener of Sutherland District Council. She has also served on Highland Health Board, was a member of the Scotland Office's Commission on Boundary Differences and Voting Systems, and previously ran her own small business. She is a board member of Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise. Alison Magee is not a member of any political party and stands as an independent in her role as Convenor of Highland Council and she will not seek re: election in May 2007.
Tim Allen, Chair of Young Enterprise Scotland
Tim Allen has been on the Board of the charity Young Enterprise Scotland since 2003, and was appointed Deputy Chair in June 2005, and Chair in June 2006. YES works with young people from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds - including care and prison - to provide routes into employment in business. Tim was the youngest major in the Army in 1996, served with the UN in Cyprus, was Equerry to HRH the Duke of York, and has worked in the Diplomatic Service. Since leaving the Army in 1998 he has pursued a career in banking, where he gained expertise in philanthropic investment, and has latterly moved into property development in Dundee. He lives in Clackmannanshire.
Elizabeth Cameron, Director, Scottish Chambers of Commerce
Elizabeth Cameron has been Director of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce since 2004, and before that was Director of Renfrewshire Chamber of Commerce since 1996. She established the Scottish Youth Investment Fund to help young people into business and is a Director of the Princes Scottish Youth Business Trust and has experience of social inclusion and regeneration having in the past chaired the Ferguslie Park Social Regeneration Company. Liz represented the business community on the Scottish Parliament's Ethic Minority and Labour Market Working Group. She lives in Gourock.
David Green, retiring Chair of Crofters Commission
From his early career as a self-employed crofter running as small tourist industry and working as the driver of a snowplough in the 1980s, David Green rose to be Vice-Convener then Convener of The Highland Council. Currently Chairman of the Crofter's Commission and a Board Member of the Cairngorms National Park Authority, he has had a strong involvement in rural community life for many years. David Green lines in Ross-shire.
Alistair Grimes, Director, Rocket Science UK Ltd
Alistair Grimes has had a long association with the social economy. From involvement in the 1980s and 1990s with the Wise Group, which provided for unemployed people to gain access to work in carrying out energy saving improvements to council houses and serving as Chief Executive of Community Enterprise in Strathclyde from 1997 to 2005, as well as serving as Chair of the Scottish Credit Union Partnership, the Scottish Urban Regeneration Forum, and Childcare Works, and well as a Committee Member of the Scottish Centre for Research into Social Justice and the McFadden Commission on Charity Law Reform. Based in Glasgow.
Helen Forsyth, Regeneration Director, Scotland, Places for People
Helen Forsyth was Chief Executive of Edinvar housing association from 1998 to 2004 at which point she took up her current post as Regeneration Director, Scotland, for Places for People. She has also served as a co-opted Board Member of Age Concern Scotland. With extensive experience of tackling disadvantage throughout her career in health, care and housing, and a very strong commitment to achieving real change for poorer communities. She lives in Duns in the Scottish Borders.
Maureen McGinn (Lady Elvidge), Chief Executive, Laidlaw Youth Project
A former senior civil servant running the Laidlaw Youth Project, which promotes partnership working between charities supporting children and vulnerable young people in Scotland, as well as being on the Board of Evaluation Support Scotland, Maureen McGinn has a track record of delivering policy solutions for complex social issues as well as experience of working with other funders. She is based in Edinburgh.
Lucy McTernan, Director of Corporate Affairs, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations
Lucy McTernan has been a dedicated advocate for communities throughout her career at the centre of the voluntary sector in Scotland. She has been a driving force behind recent developments in charity law and changes in public sector funding practice as well as increasing links between Scotland and the international voluntary sector through bring the CIVICUS Assembly to Glasgow. She is based in Edinburgh.
Patricia Ferguson, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, said:
"I am pleased to welcome this dedicated team of talented individuals on board. They will draw on their vast and varied experiences to make informed decisions about which good causes in Scotland will receive Big Lottery funding."
Alison Magee said:
"Each week the Big Lottery Fund distributes £1 million pounds in Scotland alone. As the Scotland Committee, we therefore have a huge responsibility to make sure that this money goes to those projects and areas where it is needed most.
"I am delighted to be part of and to welcome this new team which will enable us to develop a distinct Scottish agenda and thinking as to how funding is spent here in Scotland."
The Big Lottery Fund has £257 million to invest in Scotland's communities before 2009 through its Investing in Communities portfolio.
The committee will make awards for the next three years through a range of BIG programmes.
It will also be responsible for strategy, policy, planning and management of programmes in Scotland within an overall strategic and financial framework determined by BIG's UK Board. The committee will monitor spend on programmes and report on the difference that Lottery funding had made to ensure outcomes are achieved. BIG has given an undertaking that 60-70 per cent of its £2.3 billion good causes budget between 2006 and 2009 will go to voluntary and community organisations.
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own country committees under a new BIG structure that devolves grant awarding and administration to countries. BIG UK board members for countries chair each of the committees.
Out of the Blue, based in Leith, has received funding of £244,000 from the Growing Community Assets funding stream to refurbish and restore an old drill hall that will be transformed into a community facility.