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Rum Task Group
06/02/2008
Minister for Environment, Michael Russell, has appointed Lesley Riddoch as Chair of the Rum Task Group.
Ms Riddoch will lead this short-life advisory body in identifying and facilitating actions which support the aim of developing a dynamic community on the Isle of Rum.
Mr Russell said:
"Rum is truly unique in its geology and nature conservation interest and has tremendous potential for sympathetic development.
"The Rum Task Group will focus on generating proposals for advancing community development opportunities on the island. In Lesley Riddoch, they have a chair who will be able to make things happen.
"I look forward to hearing more about their work over the coming months."
Ms Riddoch will be supported by Fliss Hough and Maggie Fyffe, community representatives from Rum and Eigg respectively, as members of the Task Group. Representatives from Scottish Natural Heritage, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Highland Council, Communities Scotland, Crofters Commission and Lochaber Housing Association will be involved in the Group's work.
The Task Group has been asked to deliver its remit by December 31, 2008, and to provide progress reports to Mr Russell at the end of May and end of November this year. One of the Group's first tasks will be to agree a job description, management structure and funding package for a development worker to support the process over the next 12 months. An advertisement for this post is expected to be published shortly.
Lesley Riddoch is a Sony award winning broadcaster and Director of Feisty Ltd - a Dundee based radio, podcast & TV production company. She presents a weekly current affairs programme Riddoch Questions for BBC Scotland and has just published her first book, Riddoch; On the Outer Hebrides, and was a founding member of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust. She is a topical newspaper commentator - regular columns in the Guardian and Scotsman won her a place on the 2006 shortlist of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing. She was appointed as a member of the Scottish Government's Prisons Commission in October 2007 by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. The appointment is not remunerated. Ms Riddoch holds no other Ministerial appointments.
Ms Riddoch will receive remuneration on standard terms applicable to ministerial appointments to advisory bodies. This will be set at £200 per day and will be based on providing 48 days input over 12 months of the Task group's remit.
The Rum Summit, convened by the Minister for Environment, Michael Russell on Monday, December 3, 2007, brought the island's community and the key Government agencies together to discuss the economic, social and environmental potential of the island with the principal objective of developing a joint approach to realising the full benefit of the Isle's resources.
The meeting drew on the experience of community representatives from Rum and Eigg, senior staff from Scottish Natural Heritage, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Highland Council, Historic Scotland, the Prince's Regeneration Trust and the Scottish Government. The event was facilitated by Lesley Riddoch. The summit considered the full range of issues impacting on the future of the isle and its community including the examination of a shift towards community control.
The summit agreed - and the Minister endorsed the proposal - that a Task Group should be formed to identify and facilitate actions in support of the development of a dynamic community on Rum which is not solely dependent on SNH.
The Task Group's first meeting was in Fort William yesterday (February 5).