Enterprise and Culture Committee, 09 Sep 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 9, 2003

Official Report 221KB pdf

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Petitions

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Wind Farms (North Argyll) (PE493)<br />Renewable Energy Programme (Strategic Environmental Assessments) (PE559)

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Wind Farms (National Strategy) (PE564)

Item 4 concerns three petitions. The titles of the petitions are all on the agenda, so I will not read them out. They are all to do with wind farms. There are several choices open to us. We have to agree a response to the Public Petitions Committee. We should either accept the Public Petitions Committee's referral of the petitions and further consider the issues raised; refer the petitions back to that committee on the basis that, although the issues merit further action, we do not have the time to carry it out; or agree that the petitions do not merit further action.

I suggest that we accept the referral but deal with the petitions as part of our inquiry into renewable energy, because we will be covering the issues anyway. Would that be acceptable?

I am quite happy with that, but why do we not have the petitions with our papers? They did not come with mine. As a member of the Public Petitions Committee, I have seen the petitions, but members cannot make decisions on petitions without seeing them. In my experience, petitions are not all that long. I am seeking to establish a general pattern so that, when we are asked to think about petitions, we have the details. A précis is provided to the Public Petitions Committee and that usually runs to a couple of pages.

The précis are not in the hands of our clerks but I am happy to get them circulated if you take it on trust that what we already have gives us the gist of the petitions.

In this case, that is fine. I am just saying that we should have a bit more information before deciding what to do with petitions.

I am quite happy to adopt that approach in the future; that is not a problem. Are members happy to include the petitions in our inquiry into renewable energy?

Members indicated agreement.

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Football Fans <br />(Participation in Decision Making) (PE380)

The first part of agenda item 5 is petition PE380 from Mr David Macnab. We do not have the huge précis that Mike Watson is used to, but there is a note in front of us.

The petition gives us an opportunity to try and get some direct evidence on the matter. It did not seem as if we would otherwise have an opportunity to deal with it in the immediate future. We discovered that Supporters Direct had been set up—Mike Watson probably knows more about it than I do—and we took the opportunity to ask James Proctor of the development office of Supporters Direct to come along to the committee.

Thank you for coming, Mr Proctor. I am sorry that you have had to wait and listen to some administrative business but we will be talking to you shortly.

I have two interests to declare. First, during my time as the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport I was responsible for providing the funding that started Supporters Direct. Secondly, I am a member of ArabTRUST, the Dundee United supporters society.

What curious names those trusts have.

I will explain it to you later.

Having been a supporter of Dundee Football Club a long time ago, I recognise the name.

You have the grey hair to prove it.

That was in the days when there was only one team in Dundee that was worth supporting.

Mr Proctor, do you want to make some introductory remarks to accompany your submission and tell us what your organisation is doing in Scotland? More particularly, how do you believe your organisation has been addressing the petitioner's concerns?

Thank you for inviting me along. I see that I have managed to see a few members off and I am quite comfortable with that. I deal with committees regularly now. Supporters Direct has helped to start up 23 different supporters trusts in Scotland and each of those has its own committee that I deal with regularly. I have also come here to get some tips on how committees could work better and I have picked up a few during the hour or so I have been here.

I have already given the committee some information and I do not want to go back over all of that again. We are now about 18 months into the funding that will last until March 2004. We are putting together a funding proposal for the two years after that and we hope that that proposal will be supported.

So far, we have achieved the setting up of 23 different supporters trusts. That is 23 different clubs in Scotland where the fans have got together and formed a supporters trust. A supporters trust is set up as an industrial and provident society—sometimes known as a community mutual—and is similar to credit unions or housing associations.

How trusts are set up fits particularly well, because fans are essentially excluded from the decision-making process in football. An equal consideration, therefore, is how to form a group that has some validity and some democracy, to put fans' voices across to the incumbent directors of football clubs and to express fans' opinions on decisions that have a material effect on what is their passion and on something that they feel is a community asset. The model of an industrial and provident society fits well, because it is democratic, mutual and non-profit making, so fans can come together under one banner and be represented.

The initiative has been a bit of an underground success in the past 18 months. Not too much has been heard about it in the media, because we have not been intent on garnering great headlines. It is easy for such initiatives to expand greatly, but that would not serve us well. We have followed an organic strategy of not advertising our services too widely. We have let word of mouth do its job. The result is that 23 groups have gone through the process.

Mr Macnab, the petitioner, is a member of the Kilmarnock east of Scotland supporters association. Before Supporters Direct started, he was heavily involved in lobbying the Parliament to accept that Supporters Direct, which was up and running in England and Wales, should be extended to Scotland, too. At that time, the main purpose of the petition was to show that football clubs were not taking advice from their fans, using their fans' voices or the obvious talents of their fan bases. The question was whether the Executive could do something to progress that. As a model in England and Wales, Supporters Direct had worked successfully. With the help of the then Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, Mike Watson, Supporters Direct was established in Scotland.

That is the stage that we are at. I will give the committee an idea of football supporters' participation in the decision-making process. There are 23 trusts, and at the last count—I just received more information today—we had eight directors at senior, professional football clubs in Scotland who could be considered fans' representatives or who are board members because of their work with fans: they have been directly elected by fans or made board members because of their work with a fans group or a supporters trust. Without blowing our own trumpet too much, I think that for eight clubs to have accepted that a fan on the board is not such a bad thing represents a sea change in attitude from 18 months ago.

I do not want to bore the committee too much; I could talk for ever on the subject. I would be happy to take any questions.

Perhaps the figures provide the answer, but how have fans reacted in general to the innovation? What is their opinion of the exercise?

What is terrific about fans is that it is difficult to put them in one pigeonhole. I will go for two pigeonholes. I will not say that one group is ecstatic, but the initiative is what they have been waiting for. They have long searched for a way to influence their football club, not out of spite or lack of interest in what is going on, but because they felt that they could give the club something. We say that we assist fans to play a responsible role in the running of their football club. The aim is to play a responsible role and not to be a faction or schism.

A second group, which probably represents the majority, is not sure of what is going on, needs a bit of convincing and is a bit worried that the trust might be a vehicle for some people to further their points of view ahead of others. The simple fact is that when some people hear the phrase "supporters trust", they do not understand what it is. Slowly but surely, Supporters Direct must undertake the process of educating fans that a trust provides a great opportunity to come together.

What is your vehicle for providing that education?

Our role is to be the central point—the network—and to pass on best practice from other trusts. Much of our work is in education, training and forming opinions for the initial committee. Once we have that up and running, our role is to provide support and advice. The committees must get that across, because there is no one better to do that. There is no way that we could tell fans of any club what they should and should not do. The idea is to put the vehicle in place through the industrial and provident society, which will allow fans to make those decisions themselves.

There are two scenarios. One is utter crisis, when we need all hands to the pump. That tends to have happened more in England, because of the number of clubs that are in administration as a result of the ITV Digital situation.

The second is the slow-burning situation in which there is a bit of a problem and the club is walking a financial tightrope, although it has not actually fallen off. In that scenario, when a supporters trust is formed, it will grow more slowly and regularly, but will have better foundations.

We leave the education of the ordinary fan partly up to the trust, although we hold a couple of seminars. We held a conference last year in Tynecastle stadium in Edinburgh and invited anyone who wanted to come. Fans of about 30 clubs attended the conference, which was part of the education process. As we do not have sufficient resources to speak to huge numbers of fans, we must allow individual groups to do so.

I am not sure whether you have contacted the petitioner, David Macnab, but are you aware whether he feels that the points that were made in the petition have been met by the establishment of Supporters Direct?

Strangely enough, the call requesting me to attend this meeting came two minutes after I had spoken to Mr Macnab for the first time in around a year. Unfortunately, as those calls came in the wrong order, I cannot say expressly whether he is happy with the situation. However, the Kilmarnock group with which Mr Macnab is involved recently set up a trust, which has 265 members—Cathy Jamieson attended its launch. Mr Macnab is generally supportive of the trust and the direction it is taking. I cannot say expressly whether he is content, but one of the key hopes that we had when we talked two or three years ago was that Supporters Direct in Scotland would come to fruition.

I think that 23 clubs now have supporters trusts. Do you foresee a time when all 42 clubs in Scotland will have trusts? Has there been a failed attempt to form a trust at a club?

I would be surprised if all 42 clubs had trusts, because that would seem a little unnatural, but the opportunity exists. Queen's Park Football Club, which is an amateur club, and Arbroath Football Club still have unincorporated associations, which means, in effect, that they are still members clubs. When people buy a season ticket at Arbroath, they can vote on who should be the chairman, treasurer and secretary. Stenhousemuir Football Club recently changed from that structure because the club was fearful that somebody might asset strip it by buying up a few hundred season tickets, voting to sell the ground and pocketing all the cash. That might be a concern at Arbroath at some point.

What was the second part of the question?

I asked whether there have been unsuccessful attempts to form trusts.

We have had a couple of cases of that, notably in Inverness, where a supporters group already owns a shareholding in the club there. It was formerly a members club, although that changed when the two clubs in Inverness merged. The group has dragged its heels somewhat and it has been some months since we were last in touch with it, but I still have Inverness on my map as a possible. I would not say that that case was a failure, because we never got to the stage of having a public meeting for fans.

Our organisation feels that supporters who try to start a trust should be able to get over certain hurdles, such as organising themselves, including people and holding an initial public meeting. We ask for a free and open public meeting to be held, at which supporters say yea or nay to the idea of a supporters trust. It is important that the trust has the fans' backing from the start, otherwise it would simply be trying to impose a solution on people. I have a sneaking suspicion that we will get something done at Inverness.

I am glad that Supporters Direct is doing well. I have a question about the eligibility criteria for supporters groups, one of which is that groups must be

"Broadly Representative of supporters".

I imagine that that is difficult, because not all supporters are members of a supporters club. I was a season-ticket holder last year, but I have never been part of a supporters club. You also say that you make people aware of the trusts through word of mouth, which must mean that it is difficult to reach a huge number of fans, apart from with the bigger clubs. How do groups ensure that, as far as possible, they are broadly representative?

The key to that is affordability and not excluding people for economic reasons. Do not make it £100 to join, because you will miss out an awful lot of people. That is the first point—make it affordable.

The second point is a restatement of the fact that fans should not be allowed to exclude any other sets of fans just because they want to. That is a heads-up to them, which says, "You've got to do what you can. You can't go excluding people just because you don't get on with them." How do we go about that proactively? I am afraid that trust is involved, but it will come to us fairly quickly. You will all be aware that football fans are not slow in making their opinions known when things are not going right. We would definitely hear back if things were not going right. We are very open with fan groups, and they know our address and have our information. We would certainly chase it up if such a thing happened.

Further, the organisations are regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Complaints could be made to the Financial Services Authority if it was felt that people were being excluded. We have rules about the reasons for excluding someone and how to go about it, but generally speaking no one should be excluded. There is recourse if you are excluded, which is more than can be said if you are a fan of a club and you do not think that your opinion is being heard. You can write to the club, but if it doesn't want to respond that is the end of the road. You could write to the Scottish Football Association but, generally speaking, it does not have the powers or abilities to tell a club what to do. There is greater protection with an industrial and provident society than with an unincorporated association, a club or a private or public limited company.

Do the ladies have any questions? Is football still a male preserve on this committee?

It is a closed shop.

I have a general question. I did not intend to dominate the discussion to such an extent. Supporters Direct has funding for about another six months. Do you plan to meet the minister or to make a submission to the Executive for the funding to be extended for a further two years, or whatever?

Yes, we hope so. We have given a funding proposal to John Gilmour, the head of the sports policy unit. We hope to take that forward and meet the minister. We have helped to establish 23 organisations that have sound foundations, but slightly fragile membership. They can go on to do good things. Over the coming two years the focus of our work would be on that. We are talking not just about influencing football. We are talking about using football clubs as community assets, which in a sense they were always meant to be. That is why we have one club in each big town, and there are plenty more in the juniors. We are talking about using them as community assets.

Some good work has been done recently by a think-tank called Mutuo, which is in the co-operative sector. It talks about using stadiums as community hubs. That is the way we have to go. Quite simply, football has got to the stage where it is suffering because of severe financial pressures. It is struggling along. How will it reinvent itself? One of the ways to reinvent itself is to put football back at the heart of the community. Supporters trusts are partly about doing that. We are keen to be involved in taking that forward. We have an opportunity to do some excellent work. Another two years would allow Supporters Direct to seek funding from other areas, and not rely on a grant from the Scottish Executive. We would be keen to do that. We have spent the past 18 months establishing ourselves. We have not shouted about it too much, but there might be more shouting in the next little while.

A useful point arises from what you said about one of the objectives of trusts being to use the facilities of clubs as hubs in local communities. That flagged up for me the tie-in to the community planning agenda and the role of local organisations in helping to identify, not just the issues in communities, but the responsibilities of some of those who live in and entertain themselves in communities. Have you participated in any of the community planning framework groups in any part of Scotland in which you are established?

No, not at the moment. The most advanced trusts, in Greenock and Aberdeen, would be keen to get involved, but because they are not the clubs—they are merely side-on to the clubs—there is difficulty in relating to them. However, we are keen to get involved in the community side of things. That is essential to supporters trusts. As industrial and provident societies, they are community benefit organisations. That is key to what we are trying to do.

That would be useful to pursue.

You talked about how you have meetings, and then supporters have to decide whether to go ahead with setting up trusts. With the exception of whatever is happening in Inverness, at any meetings did they say, "No, we're not going to go ahead with this"?

No, not at any general open meetings.

To clarify it in my own mind, no part of your budget goes directly to trusts, does it?

We provide a small amount of start-up assistance. We pay for the registration of the organisation, which is a substantial hurdle that it is difficult to get over, because it can cost up to £1,000, although we use a set of model rules, which keeps the costs down. We are also sponsored by Cobbetts Solicitors in Manchester, and by the Co-operative Group, which has brought the cost down.

The other small amount of our budget that goes to the trusts directly is our budget of £1,000 per trust, but they only get that on a matched-funding basis. If they want to do a leaflet drop or have a meeting and it costs £100 for a room, we can help with 50 per cent of the costs, but they have to make the outlay and claim the costs back with invoices attached.

Do you see that being an on-going process with the trusts that are being set up?

Our belief is that they should be helped to start up, but that is about as far as it goes. The budget of £1,000 per trust is a one-off. We would not expect it to be a continuing commitment.

There are no more questions. Thank you, Mr Proctor. It has been illuminating to me and to members of the committee, although obviously Mr Watson had prior knowledge of this item.

The committee now needs to consider its response to the petition. I suggest that we write to the Public Petitions Committee saying that we feel that the petitioner's concerns have been addressed effectively by the Executive, but that we will bear the petition in mind with regard to future questions about the budget process, in particular given the fact that funding may be running out in the near future.

Members indicated agreement.

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Traditional Arts (PE307)

I apologise because there has been a slight foul-up in the procedure with the other petition that is before us, PE307 on the traditional arts. It is nothing to do with this committee, I am glad to say. The Education, Culture and Sport Committee in the previous Parliament appointed a reporter, Cathy Peattie, who prepared a report on the subject. I will arrange for it to be circulated to members along with the next mailing.

Given that, we should write to the Public Petitions Committee, saying that we believe that the matter has been dealt with. However, once we get a chance to read the report, which I have not been able to read, I suspect that the recommendations may give us some material about which we can interrogate ministers at our budget session. Would that be a sensible approach? Do members have other ideas?

I agree with that approach. Maybe I am just being pedantic, but I reacted slightly to your use of the phrase "the matter has been dealt with". The subject has been examined and various recommendations have been made. Like you, convener, I am aware of the work that was done, but I would not profess to be conversant with the detail. As you indicated in your proposal, there are still questions to be explored, be it in the context of the budget or elsewhere. I want to ca' canny and not imply to the petitioner that we regard the petition as being done. Rather, work has been done, but we will continue to ask questions.

Yes. The issue arises with every petition that many of the matters that are raised cannot be said to be totally closed off. Some work has been done in response to the petition, but there are matters that require continuing scrutiny.

It would be helpful if we could have a summary of the petition.

Yes, indeed. You will get that for all petitions in future and it will make your envelope even heavier than it is already.

With that I conclude the meeting. Thank you for attending.

Meeting closed at 16:08.