Hundreds of protected areas are under pressure from Scotland’s massive deer herd. Most agree deer numbers must be controlled to protect the environment, but are split on what should be done.
Edinburgh University students were “interrogated” by police at their desks over posters featuring Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, prompting dozens to complain.
Unsafe levels of faecal bacteria were recorded at dozens of Scotland’s best beaches this summer. Swimmers and paddlers could be at risk, but officials insist water quality remains high.
Grassroots organisations say Scotland’s £500m ‘just transition’ fund has been “captured” by corporate interests – including oil billionaire Sir Ian Wood.
Community groups claim they have been “shut out” of the Scottish Government’s flagship just transition fund due to “corporate capture” which has seen the vast majority of money from the £500m pot going to the private sector.
Ministers launched the Just Transition Fund in 2022, claiming it would support workers and communities in the North East as the oil industry declines, and will hand out half a billion pounds over ten years.
But community groups told The Ferret their applications were rejected in favour of industry organisations, a number of which are connected with the oil billionaire, Sir Ian Wood.
A network supporting local groups said it had previously helped with seven community-focused bids, only one of which had been successful. The fund is supposed to support both business and community groups.
We understand one community interest company, which asked not to be named, was told it was in the “successful bids” category before finding out it had not been given cash.
Critics said the fund “hadn’t worked”, claiming the transition required a new approach while others claimed “corporate capture” of the fund was apparent from its inception. However the Scottish Government said the concerns were unfounded and insisted the “competitive funding rounds” were assessed according to publicly available criteria.
Anger from communities and campaigners has been heightened by the perception that the fund has partly become a vehicle to support Wood’s “pet projects”.
Analysis by The Ferret found that, prior to the most recent round of funding being announced last month, 40 per cent of funds had gone to organisations linked to Wood – one of Scotland’s richest people and a major oil industry figure.
In total, the three bodies linked to him – Opportunity North East (ONE), the Energy Transition Zone (ETZ) Ltd and the Net Zero Technology Centre – have received £22m. This is almost half of the initial £50m directly distributed by the fund between 2022 and 2025. The companies say they are supporting jobs and helping drive substantial investment in the region.
Last week Wood donated a further £40m of funding to ETZ and ONE which the SNP has promised to match in further funding for the organisations if it wins next year’s Holyrood elections.
Meanwhile, meeting minutes released under freedom of information law, reveal that Wood was present at meetings when his ventures pressed ministers for multi-year funding guarantees and called on the Scottish Government to start “backing winners” rather than spreading cash more widely.
Lobbyists employed to make these points include the influential firm, True North, which is headed by formerly senior SNP figures.
Karin Goodwin
Wood made his fortune as the long-time head of Wood Group, which he turned into one of the world’s largest oil services firms. Though he stepped down more than a decade ago, he remains an influential figure in the North East.
He enjoys significant access to the highest levels of the Scottish Government and his organisations have been involved with the Just Transition Fund since its inception, with ONE having been among a number of the organisations consulted on the “design and application” of the fund.
Last month, to mark Scotland’s climate week, first minister, John Swinney, was joined by Wood at the opening of the new Energy Transition Skills Hub – developed by ETZ and backed with £4.5m from the Just Transition Fund.
ETZ was created in 2021 to develop the ‘Energy Transition Zone’ next to Aberdeen’s new South Harbour – a complex of facilities aimed at turning the area into a hub for offshore wind, hydrogen and carbon capture.
The project is hugely controversial locally because it involves redeveloping green space at St Fittick’s Park in the Torry area, where residents have consistently fought the proposals in order to protect community green space, which includes a species diverse wetland. Campaign group Friends of St Fittick’s Park, has been challenging the development for several years.
The same day the Energy Transition Skills Hub was opened, on 29 September, Swinney announced four new awards from the Just Transition Fund worth a combined £8m, all of which went to projects involving companies in the energy sector.
They included private companies like ORE Catapult. It worked in partnership with the ETZ on the National Floating Wind Innovation Centre in Aberdeen and Maritime Development Limited, which reported pretax profits of £8m last year.
Others were left frustrated and let down. Alison Stuart, chief executive of Nescan Hub – which was set-up by the Scottish Government to provide local support on climate action – said in her experience the Just Transition Fund was not available for third sector or smaller community-focussed groups. Only one of the seven applications from community groups which were supported by Nescan when the fund was first set-up were awarded grants, she confirmed.
“I think it was clear that there was largely a case of corporate capture even from that first year,” she alleged. “There is a sense that the government has decided it can trust business but it is not prepared to offer backing for the third or community sector, even though it is demonstrably proven that they offer better value for money and can be more agile.”
Erik Dalhuijsen, co-chair of Aberdeen Climate Action, claimed: "This fund was never intended for communities. The government likes and believes in big business, largely because it has no idea how to resolve the real problems the nation faces and so assumes business does.
“But business does not make money from resolving societal problems,” he argued. “It often makes more money by creating or at least prolonging them. A company which makes millions in profits is able to ‘invest’ in lobbying and glossy stuff, but by definition delivers less value for money as it must recover invested time and effort.”
Time and time again we have seen what happens when the private sector is allowed to determine the future of our energy industry – from Grangemouth to St Fittick’s Park, workers and communities are being run over roughshod on the whims of the wealthy.
Catrina Randall, Friends of the Earth Scotland
Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Catrina Randall claimed the government was “handing over public money to a billionaire and asking him to shape the economic future of the North East through his opaque pet projects, with little or no public accountability”.
“It's sickening to think that Ian Wood could have funded these schemes with a fraction of his fossil fuel wealth but instead he’d rather the public front up the money,” she said.
“Time and time again we have seen what happens when the private sector is allowed to determine the future of our energy industry – from Grangemouth to St Fittick’s Park, workers and communities are being run over roughshod on the whims of the wealthy,” Randall added.
Union voices also criticised the direction of the fund. Jake Molloy, formerly the RMT’s regional organiser in the north east and a member of the Scottish Government’s Just Transition Commission, said subsidies had been poured into private companies and even state-owned foreign energy firms for decades with little to show for it.
“It hasn’t worked,” he claimed. “The transition requires a new approach, a new model. We should be taking equity stakes in our energy infrastructure which provides a return on our investment rather than giving money away and ‘hoping’ it will benefit the economy.”
Independent analysis shows that ONE has generated £135m in value for North East Scotland and added £190m in value to Scotland through direct investment in programmes for digital tech, life sciences, tourism and food, drink and agriculture.
Spokesperson for ONE
A spokesperson for ETZ Ltd said its Supply Challenge Fund has distributed £5m to over 40 energy companies across the North East, “unlocking an additional £12m in private investment”.
ETZ also led the delivery of Scotland’s largest Energy Transition Skills Hub – which has already enrolled 69 students – and created a National Energy Skills Accelerator “which has supported 700 people with energy transition skills training”, they added.
A spokesperson for ONE said: “Independent analysis shows that ONE has generated £135m (in) value for North East Scotland and (added) £190m (in) value to Scotland through direct investment in programmes for digital tech, life sciences, tourism and food, drink and agriculture.”
True North Advisors said it was “privileged to work with both ONE and ETZ Ltd”. The activities they undertake would not have been possible without “the huge philanthropic generosity of Sir Ian Wood who has supported them personally with £104m through his family charity, The Wood Foundation”, a spokesperson claimed.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said claims that the fund was biased against community groups in favour of big business were unfounded. “The Fund is awarded via open, competitive funding rounds with projects being scored according to set, publicly available, criteria,” they added.
“Its achievements include the Energy Skills Transition Hub, where 1,000 people will be trained over the next five years, and it has provided £1m every year to projects which have been chosen by communities to support the projects that matter most to them,” they added.
Image thanks to iStock/LadyLensArt
This story was updated on 21st of October to correct that one of the seven community applications supported by Nescan was successful.
Hundreds of protected areas are under pressure from Scotland’s massive deer herd. Most agree deer numbers must be controlled to protect the environment, but are split on what should be done.
Edinburgh University students were “interrogated” by police at their desks over posters featuring Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, prompting dozens to complain.
Unsafe levels of faecal bacteria were recorded at dozens of Scotland’s best beaches this summer. Swimmers and paddlers could be at risk, but officials insist water quality remains high.
Footage of farmed trout suffocating, haemorrhaging, and being beaten with batons in a slaughterhouse has prompted an official complaint to a government regulator.
