A nine-month strategic review of the National Trust Scotland (NTS) has called for the troubled conservation organisation to focus its resources “on a smaller core portfolio” of properties.
George Reid, former presiding officer of the Scottish parliament, who led the review, has recommended that less significant NTS sites “might be managed by others through guardianship, tenancy and partnerships”.
The report cites Brodick Castle on the Isle of Arran as an example of an NTS collaboration with an external body. The organisation is in discussion with a consortium of local food and drink producers about a joint working agreement the review says would involve a “significant financial investment”.
The move has raised fears that the trust may sell off some of its 130 properties.
But a trust spokeswoman said: “The review strongly suggests that the trust should not be expending resources on ancillary buildings, which are of no heritage value. It does not recommend selling the heritage properties the trust holds on behalf of the nation.” Reid also criticised the lack of a complete inventory of NTS assets and properties.
“It has no single record of what it owns,” he said. “Its current budget was prepared on a needs-must basis. That is not a sustainable position.”
NTS chief executive Kate Mavor plans an audit of property maintenance and repair costs, a development welcomed by In Trust for Scotland, a breakaway group of NTS members. “Volunteers continue to be concerned about the whereabouts of assets at certain properties,” said an In Trust spokesman.
Other recommendations include reducing the number of NTS trustees from 87 to 15 and electing a new board by April 2011.
Three NTS venues, including Hutchesons’ Hall in Glasgow, were forced to close as part of an NTS cost-cutting exercise last year that resulted in 45 redundancies.
Image: Brodick Castle: NTS is in talks with a consortium about collaboration
George Reid, former presiding officer of the Scottish parliament, who led the review, has recommended that less significant NTS sites “might be managed by others through guardianship, tenancy and partnerships”.
The report cites Brodick Castle on the Isle of Arran as an example of an NTS collaboration with an external body. The organisation is in discussion with a consortium of local food and drink producers about a joint working agreement the review says would involve a “significant financial investment”.
The move has raised fears that the trust may sell off some of its 130 properties.
But a trust spokeswoman said: “The review strongly suggests that the trust should not be expending resources on ancillary buildings, which are of no heritage value. It does not recommend selling the heritage properties the trust holds on behalf of the nation.” Reid also criticised the lack of a complete inventory of NTS assets and properties.
“It has no single record of what it owns,” he said. “Its current budget was prepared on a needs-must basis. That is not a sustainable position.”
NTS chief executive Kate Mavor plans an audit of property maintenance and repair costs, a development welcomed by In Trust for Scotland, a breakaway group of NTS members. “Volunteers continue to be concerned about the whereabouts of assets at certain properties,” said an In Trust spokesman.
Other recommendations include reducing the number of NTS trustees from 87 to 15 and electing a new board by April 2011.
Three NTS venues, including Hutchesons’ Hall in Glasgow, were forced to close as part of an NTS cost-cutting exercise last year that resulted in 45 redundancies.
Image: Brodick Castle: NTS is in talks with a consortium about collaboration