NCHF - Post-Fund Reporting - Legacy Plan

This plan links to and is influenced by the following NCHF documents:

• NCHF - Round 1 - Guidance - Sustainability Action Plan - Guidance and template 
• NCHF - Round 1 - Guidance - Monitoring & Evaluation guidance for Grantees
• NCHF - Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) 
• Knowledge Sharing event - Interpretation and Gaelic - 21 September 2021 - summary report
• NCHF Communications - Communications plan
• NCHF - Data and Information Management guidance - Updated June 2023 
• NCHF - Monitoring and Evaluation Report - May 2024

And the following research:

• Review of Fragile Areas and Employment Action Areas in the Highlands and Islands
• RR353 - Nature Based Tourism in the Outer Hebrides

Note: these documents are available on request. Please contact [email protected]

Legacy for the Highlands & Islands

The Fund was created to have a strategic impact on sustainable tourism in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland.  The measures agreed will demonstrate this impact.

As part of our original application as Lead Partner we agreed the following result indicator:

This measure has been amended, post-pandemic, because the data makes little sense over the period of time in question, and means that the impact of the Fund is indistinguishable from other factors.  Instead we have agreed an alternative result indicator:

Our target is now 55.21 direct jobs created by the Fund. Our reporting to the Managing Authority via EUMIS will evidence this.

We will also report to the Managing Authority on a count of the number of projects developing natural and cultural heritage assets, and promoting natural and cultural heritage assets.  This is a target/count of 11 and 5 respectively (Spirit Journeys is a separate operation to the other 12 approved projects and is counted separately in EUMIS – the numbers here reflect the total). 

The monitoring and evaluation report produced in 2024 will evidence the impact the Fund has had on these seven overall measures and the contributions made to the outcomes by each of the projects.

Action: NCHF to produce a monitoring & evaluation report in 2024

In addition to that, the value of the investment can be a form of legacy.  A total of £9.2m has come from EU Funding, matched by others, taking the total investment to £23.3m.  Each individual project has been the recipient of between £252k and £1.4m.  That value allowed each project to unlock far more funding than a smaller investment may have done.

We will also report on the horizontal themes. 

Action: NCHF to produce a report on the horizontal themes in 2024.

Our Equalities Impact Assessment will be reviewed for evidence of tackling the actions identified in it, which were focussed on applications.  If appropriate, we will publish a short brief on this on the relevant section of the NatureScot website.

Action: NCHF to produce a short brief on the achievement against actions in the EqIA.

Legacy for NatureScot

We have proven as an organisation that we can successfully undertake the Lead Partner role for European Funded work.  The complexities of EU funding have given us experience in managing large grant schemes, both in delivery of successful projects and the administration of them.  The individuals involved in this Fund can bring their experience to bear in a number of ways, including in the Funding Team in future.

We have made a significant impact on the natural and cultural heritage of the Highlands & Islands, both in terms of the number of jobs created, and in the provision of renovated or new tourism provision.  Five projects within an hour’s drive of Inverness provide a cluster that will benefit Inverness and disperse tourism away from the Loch Ness honeypot site of Urquhart Castle (these are: Spirit of the Highlands & Islands, Dundreggan Rewilding Centre, Wildlife Watch Abernethy, Corrieshalloch Gateway to Nature, and Scotland’s Wildlife Discovery Centre).  The remainder encourage tourists off the beaten track or enhance provision in otherwise popular areas.  Our logo (alongside the mandatory ERDF logo) will appear for years on each of these sites, reminding visitors and staff of our involvement, and enhancing our reputation.

Research

Future research on the indirect impact of the Fund on tourism jobs in the localities of each of the projects is possible.  An MSc has been proposed, but not yet picked up by a student.

Audit, Data & Information Management

An element of the legacy is the ability for the Fund to be audited until the final possible dates for those A127 visits in 2027.  Our legacy as current employees is to leave our documentation in a good place to enable easy auditing in the future (eg all procurement per project; all match funding per project – much of both of these comes in claim by claim).

Action – file and document naming consistency; aliasing selections of documents into specific files.

Fund Management

Although EU funding has ceased, there are still lessons that can be learned about fund management.  It may be possible to share these lessons with other Strategic Interventions in other EU countries, but certainly with other grant-giving bodies in Scotland, as well as NatureScot’s Funding team.

• A specific risk that had been raised early on (staff turnover) became an issue in 2022 and recurred in 2023.
• NCHF was able to learn from and adopt the processes and guidance designed for the Green Infrastructure Fund.
• New technologies came along in 2021, midway through the Fund’s lifecycle, that enabled more fleet-of-foot prioritisation and communication, as well as information sources (MS Teams - NCHF Tracker and SF Tracker; collaborative chats; conversations in the various teams channels).
• The use of the Gaelic language throughout the fund (from application guidance to blog content) can prove that it is both possible and not overly daunting to allow accessibility in multiple languages.  This is especially pertinent given the geographical location of the fund’s work and the impact on Gaelic Tourism.

Legacy for the Projects

The complexities of EU Funding have meant that only those organisations capable of managing those have been successful in being approved for grants.  Despite the administrative burden, it has allowed them to grow as organisations and will put them in a good place to apply for other large funding opportunities in the future.  However, public funding is an ever-changing landscape and this may prove to be a disincentive for any advance planning.  NatureScot, as lead partner, may be able to throw that gauntlet down to others in the public sector, particularly those higher up in Government.  We do have to manage expectations for these bodies given there is no further EU funding.

The innovative approaches taken in several projects can provide a legacy in the form of inspiration to others.  Our communications plan  stated that we will look for opportunities to collate materials from the projects and communicate them.

Action: to boost any media that the projects garner, but also to promote those approaches ourselves, both internally and in media.

Each project produced a monitoring & evaluation plan as part of their application.  Annual reporting will evidence what they have achieved in line with that plan.

Action: NCHF to produce a report in 2024 to evidence the outcomes of all the projects, compared to plans.

Community

The scale of the investment for each project overall (not just what we have funded, but the scale of the project) will have a variable impact on their local communities, both in the preparation for the projects, but after their implementation.

Knowledge Exchange

Several of the projects have already commenced exchanging knowledge as well as promoting each other. 

Knowledge exchange events were organised by the Fund and held on 30 March 2020 (evaluation), 14 December 2020 (challenges for the projects), 24 February 2021 (interpretation), and September 2021 (Gaelic).

The celebration event on 30 May 2023 gave an opportunity for the projects to come together and exchange knowledge and experience of how they have influenced the wider Highlands & Islands communities.  There was significant positive media response to our news release.  The interpretation panels on the Lateral North map (displayed at the event) highlighted the contribution of the projects.  The interpretation panels will be displayed elsewhere by Lateral North during the summer of 2023.  Several projects have asked to be put in touch with each other, and we will continue to encourage this.  We will also work with the Spirit of the Highlands & Islands project to create a digital trail for the NCHF projects on their website.

Action: work with Spirit on a digital trail for NCHF projects on their website.

Review of the use of the Gaelic Language

The Fund sought to promote the Gaelic language and each project produced a statement of how they would integrate the language. 

NatureScot published all our blogs in English and Gaelic, and certain promotional or process documents dual language.  The language is represented in landscape and place names and that has influenced the stories we told in the blogs.  There are Gaelic subtitles/translation for the film we have produced.

The projects have integrated it from the start (with the exception of the two in the Northern Isles, where the Gaelic tradition never existed) by producing statements on how it would be used.  Dundreggan’s Rewilding Centre, Corrieshalloch Gorge, and Scotland’s Wildlife Discovery Centre all have buildings, rooms, and paths named in Gaelic first, English second, with Dundreggan including phonetic pronunciation as part of their interpretation.  The rich vein of landscape, biodiversity, and heritage that runs through Gaelic has been used extensively in Uist, Ardnamurchan, and Skye, being woven through interpretation and events.  Storytelling from Coast and Spirit, responsible for gathering more than 2000 stories between them, have many in Gaelic first.

Action: Produce a case study on how we’ve used Gaelic