News / No timescale for trust referendum
NO TIMESCALE for a referendum about reforming Shetland Charitable Trust has been decided, according to its chairman Bill Manson.
In fact questions still remain whether it is legal or practical for the charity to hold a referendum on its future structure.
Two weeks ago trustees backed Shetland Islands Council convener Sandy Cluness when he called for a public vote to resolve arguments about how the £200 million charity should be controlled.
His surprise move came as trustees sat down to debate a proposal to reform the charity so that it was no longer controlled by a majority of councillors.
This week Mr Manson said that the trust’s lawyers Turcan Connell and Scottish charity regulator OSCR had immediately picked up on the decision to hold a referendum and will respond “in due course”.
“They will come back to us with an opinion, but they want it to be a considered one rather than a knee jerk response,” he said.
However there exist practical difficulties with holding a referendum, according to the charity’s chairman. “We don’t have an electorate as such and we would need to set someone on to conduct it because we don’t have the resources in house.”
Then the outcome of the referendum is only likely to be consultative as the legal responsibility to make decisions remains with the trustees.
Having already held two consultations on reform over the past three years, having debated the subject for the past eight years and received advice from Scotland’s leading legal expert Roy Martin QC, Mr Manson is clearly frustrated.
“It’s taking up a huge amount of people’s time, particularly of the trust’s officials, and it’s also distracted the trust from doing things or from looking ahead at what it really ought to be doing and it’s certainly not helping our relationship with our regulator.”
Convener Cluness has said that he hopes a referendum can be called before the local government elections in May.
A spokeswoman for OSCR said on Friday: “We are aware of the proposal to hold a referendum and are in dialogue with the charity about this. We have nothing further to say at this stage.”
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