News / Committee undecided on island games grant
A DECISION on whether to contribute public money towards the cost of Team Shetland’s trip to Gotland for the NatWest Island Games will be taken at a Full Council meeting next week.
The local authority’s policy and resources committee on Monday deferred a decision on whether to approve a £5,000 grant towards the Swedish trip. A move by councillor Theo Smith to double that sum was voted down 5-3.
Historically the local authority tended to provide substantial funding for sporting competitors, though in the wake of belt-tightening that has tailed off in recent years.
In the late 80s and throughout the 1990s the best part of 50 per cent of the team’s costs were met, with financial support peaking at £38,400 for the 1995 trip to Gibraltar. But in 2013 the Bermuda trip benefited from only £5,000 while two years ago the 141-strong team that travelled to Jersey received no assistance.
A letter from Shetland Island Games Association chairwoman Karen Woods to SIC chief executive Mark Boden – dated 19 May – pointed out that competitors in the other Scottish islands taking part continued to enjoy support from their respective local authorities.
This year’s trip is costing £1,211 per person including flights, accommodation, kit and a contribution to team costs.
SIGA has received a total of £12,500 in sponsorship from three local companies including its main sponsor, Malakoff Limited.
That sum equates to around 10 per cent of the team’s overall costs, with the bulk of the rest found from personal contributions and fundraising efforts.
“Whilst we understand the ongoing financial pressures in the public sector in Shetland, we would like to ask the council if they would consider supporting the Shetland team with an equivalent level of financial support given to the Western Isles and Orkney Island Games Associations,” Woods wrote.
A report from finance chief Jonathan Belford did not give a recommendation one way or another, but asked councillors to consider the application’s merits.
SIGA has already committed to going to the games “whether grant aid is awarded or not” and he described it as “a speculative requested” that had been received “very close to the event actually taking place – a little over a month before the team departs”.
Belford said the risk in granting the funding was leaving the council “open to reputational damage” with other organisations whose historical funding support had also been withdrawn.
Because no sum has been set aside in the local authority’s 2017/18 budget for grants to voluntary organisations, the money would have to come from an underspend in the last financial year.
Members decided to defer a decision on whether to grant the £5,000 until the Full Council meets next Wednesday (28 June) – with the discussion set to take place while the sporting action over in Gotland is in full flow.
At that stage further information on what assistance the council normally provides young people for activities undertaken outside of Shetland will be made available.
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