9th October 2026
Community development trusts can do remarkable things for rural communities. But as they take on more responsibilities and public money, there is a bigger question: who are they ultimately accountable to?
A recent Highlands and Islands Enterprise event in Lairg brought around 20 development trusts from Caithness and Sutherland together to discuss housing, planning, funding, digital technology and artificial intelligence.
HIE describes development trusts as being "at the heart of rural life".
There is plenty of evidence to support that view.
Development trusts can take on buildings, develop community housing, support local services, create employment and bring projects forward that might otherwise never happen.
But there is another side to the argument which deserves more attention.
Who elects the people running these organisations?
That may sound like an awkward question, but it becomes increasingly important if development trusts are asked to take on responsibilities, assets or money that previously sat with elected councils or other public bodies.
They are not simply groups of unelected volunteers
It is important to get this right.
Development trusts are not necessarily run by a group of people who simply appoint themselves.
The Scottish Government describes development trusts as non-profit private companies whose directors are democratically elected by their members. Community landowners have a similar structure, with local residents required to form the majority.
So there is democratic accountability.
But it is a different kind of democracy.
A councillor is elected by the voters in a ward.
A development trust trustee is generally elected by the trust's membership.
Those are not the same thing.
A whole community might contain several thousand people, while the membership of its development trust could be considerably smaller.
That does not make the trust undemocratic.
But it does raise the question of how wide its mandate is.
The difference matters when money is involved
Suppose a community trust raises its own money and buys a building.
There is little reason to object to its members deciding how that building should be used.
It is their organisation, their money and their project.
But suppose the trust receives a large public grant.
Or takes ownership of a publicly owned building.
Or takes over responsibility for providing something which a council previously provided.
The democratic question becomes much more important.
The public may reasonably ask:
Who made the decision? Who can challenge it? Who can remove the people responsible? And who ultimately carries the financial risk?
Those questions become particularly important when public money is involved.
Indeed, the Scottish Government's own Democracy Matters work says that when decision-making powers or control over public funds are transferred to community bodies, there should be robust governance arrangements, transparency, financial stewardship and democratic accountability. It specifically warns about the risk of unrepresentative groups exerting undue influence within communities.
That is a significant admission.
Are we creating a new layer of local government?
This is where the debate becomes much bigger.
Scotland already has elected councillors, community councils, development trusts, community landowners, community planning partnerships and a variety of other local organisations.
The Scottish Government says there are more than 300 development trusts operating across Scotland, alongside more than 1,200 community councils.
There is therefore a growing network of organisations making decisions about local places.
That can be a strength.
But it can also make responsibility harder for the ordinary resident to understand.
If a local facility closes, who is responsible?
If a community building is bought, who decides what happens to it?
If public money is spent on a project, who checks whether it represents value for money?
If local people disagree with the decision, where do they go?
With an elected council, at least the basic structure is clear.
You know who your councillor is.
You can vote them out.
Community control can be more local
There is, however, a powerful argument on the other side.
Councils are large organisations.
Highland Council covers a huge geographical area and has to make decisions about communities stretching from Caithness to Lochaber, Skye and the west coast.
A local development trust may understand its own community far better.
It may know which building is falling into disrepair, which business needs support, where housing is needed and which project local people would actually use.
It can also act more quickly than a large public organisation.
That local knowledge is extremely valuable.
HIE clearly sees this potential. Its work across Caithness and Sutherland includes supporting businesses, social enterprises and communities through advice, funding, events and property.
The question is therefore not whether development trusts should exist.
It is how much responsibility they should have and what democratic safeguards should accompany that responsibility.
The danger of "community empowerment"
There is a phrase increasingly used in Scottish public policy: community empowerment.
It sounds entirely positive.
And often it is.
Giving communities more control over their own affairs can be a very good thing.
But there is a potential trap.
Community empowerment can mean:
"Here are more powers and more resources. You decide what happens."
That is genuine empowerment.
But it could also become:
"The council cannot afford to do this any more. Perhaps your community could take it over."
That is something rather different.
The first transfers power.
The second can transfer responsibility.
And if the money does not follow the responsibility, communities could eventually find themselves running services without sufficient resources to maintain them.
Volunteers are not a substitute for democracy
There is another issue.
Development trusts depend heavily on people who are prepared to give their time.
That is one of their greatest strengths.
But relying on volunteers can also create problems.
Not everyone has the time, confidence or resources to attend meetings, join committees or stand for trustee positions.
That can potentially mean that the people most involved in a community organisation are not necessarily representative of everyone who lives in the community.
The Scottish Government's own consultation on Democracy Matters found that people were concerned about accountability, representation, transparency and how new community decision-making bodies would maintain a strong local mandate. Some respondents specifically suggested regular elections as one way of challenging poor performance.
So this is not an argument invented by critics of community organisations.
It is already part of Scotland's wider debate about democratic reform.
Should development trusts face local elections?
That is the difficult question.
There is an obvious argument against forcing every development trust to operate like a council.
It could make them bureaucratic.
It could discourage volunteers.
It could slow down projects.
It could destroy some of the entrepreneurial spirit that makes successful trusts work.
And why should a group of local people who have raised their own money have to stand for election simply because they want to improve their own community?
But perhaps the question should not be whether all development trusts should face elections.
Perhaps the question should be whether the level of democratic accountability should increase as the level of public responsibility increases.
A trust managing its own £50,000 project is one thing.
A trust controlling millions of pounds of public money, owning major public assets or delivering services on behalf of a council is something rather different.
Perhaps there needs to be a new settlement
There could be a middle ground.
Development trusts could retain their independence and their ability to act quickly.
But where they receive significant public money or take on public responsibilities, there could be minimum requirements for:
transparent accounts;
open membership;
regular elections;
published minutes and decisions;
clear rules on conflicts of interest;
public reporting of how grants are spent;
and a clear mechanism for the wider community to challenge decisions.
None of this needs to turn a development trust into a miniature council.
It would simply recognise that public responsibility requires public accountability.
Caithness may see more of this
This matters particularly in rural areas.
A development trust may be able to save a community facility that a council cannot afford to maintain.
It may be able to bring an empty building back into use.
It may develop housing where the private market sees insufficient profit.
It may create jobs and attract funding into an area.
Those are real benefits.
But if more and more responsibilities move from councils towards community organisations, the question of who makes the decisions becomes increasingly important.
We could gradually move towards a system where some local decisions are made by elected councillors and others by organisations whose boards are elected by much smaller memberships.
That may be exactly what local democracy needs.
Or it may create a confusing patchwork of different forms of accountability.
Either way, we should discuss it openly.
Local control is not necessarily democratic control
This is perhaps the most important distinction.
A decision made by people who live in a community is certainly local.
But local does not automatically mean representative.
And representative does not automatically mean effective.
The challenge for Scotland is to find a system which combines all three.
Development trusts have demonstrated that communities can take initiative and make things happen.
Councils provide a wider democratic mandate and statutory accountability.
Perhaps the future should not be about replacing one with the other.
Perhaps it should be about finding the right balance between them.
But as more public money, public assets and public responsibilities move towards community organisations, one question should always be asked:
Who elected the people making the decisions, who can hold them to account, and can the wider community have a genuine say?
Those are not questions designed to undermine community development trusts.
They are questions designed to make sure that community power really is accountable community power.