Let’s Be Fair
Friends and readers. There is a lot of inaccurate information doing the rounds of the community with regards to the Fairer Scotland Fund.
Let us at Pilton Sucks try to get below the smoke screen of what is actual and what is not,and of course we would welcome any additions to our views from all quarters.
First of all this community is to receive a cut of around £800,000 pound from it’s former SIP budget of 1.8 million pounds. This to us on the face of it looks like a deep cut and will if implemented have serious repercusions on local projects that rely on funding of one sort or another.
We are told that up to 17 projects in this community receive some form of funding and therefore all projects in theory could have funding problems.
But let us take a closer look if we can and see who gets what. Not all the information was available to us but it should be as it is in the public interest.
We understand that the Pilton Childcare Centre receives over 400,000 pounds from this budget,that is by an stretch of the imagination a huge chunk,but it has received numerous plaudits for the work it carries out and it is deemed political suicide to tamper with it’s budget,but we disagree and all projects regardless of their political patronage should be put in the budget pot for closer examination.
The Black Community Development project based in Muirhouse has enjoyed very good funding over the years but remains a secret project which very few people we spoke to knew anything about and seems to have done little or no work outside Muirhouse and if it has few know about it.
But as you can Guess the old favourite shout of racism might be heard if their funding was tampered with,but we feel they are insulated and almost Masonic in their secrecy and feel their work does not warrant their funding,and were recently rejected in Craigmillar.
The business incubator base in Granton Square is a basement based project which receives funding for helping people into self employment. Sounds good but closer scrutiny would suggest that in a community which is low skilled and even lower paid,upskilling would be more important than the poison chalice of self employment,so do they warrant funding.
The Granton information Centre is another project that has enjoyed generous funding over the years and we are told that it has returned more than £1million to the community in benefits and such like. Sounds like value for money,then why on earth was this project rejected for statutory funding when it applied,could it be that it was in a political pocket at the time as some have suggested who Knows,but another project worth taking a closer look at.
Then there is everybody’s favourite the Labour edited local news sheet NEN,another project that has benefited from funding and political patronage and point blankly refuses to move it’s political stance even when it is obvious to everybody else that political times have changed drastically but the NEN has not. It’s refusal to take a close look at the lack of affordable homes and local employment on the new jerusalem that was the Waterfront was an indictment of their political stance and may have signed their death warrant.
The Pilton Equalities project has ten vehicles on the road and it is very hard to see how this can be justified as costs for this project have escalated out of all proportion to the population it serves.
Why a list has not been issued to let the Community know who gets what is a mystery to us but it’s possibly something the NEN could get a hold of and print for public consumption and understanding.
Certainly on the face of it we are to receive a massive cut but we wonder if the grants that were available had been more evenly spread around and a ceiling put on who got what would we be facing such a crisis as we appear to be.
Then of course there is the thorny problem of whether or not Drylaw/Telford are within the catchment area that is the Forth Ward. From what we can see they are not but we are open to correction and the politicians must be clear on this issue and the repercusions of it.
All in all there is much to be cleared up and the candidates in the up-coming by-election have a duty to clear the muddy waters and tell us how the land lies.
From the limited political communication we have received so far and we have only had communication from the Lib Dem candidate whose party is part of the ruling coalition she said nothing at all regarding the not so Fairer Scotland Fund perhaps she knows what the majority of this community knows which is nothing at all.