The Board of Strathnairn Community Benefit Fund wish to express their concern over the letter from the editor circulated in the April 2021 edition of Strathnairn News. 

As trustees of the Community Benefit Fund, the Board has a duty to ensure funds are distributed in a way which maximises the benefits to the community of Strathairn. This involves scrutinising applications made to the Fund and satisfying ourselves that the activities we are funding meet the needs of the community and offer value for money. 

The editorial committee of Strathnairn News presented an application to us in March 2021 showing projected total costs of the newsletter as £12,552 for six issues. With a distribution of 510 copies bi-monthly, this equates to over £4 per printed copy. The Board recognise that the community newsletter is important, particularly to those without internet access – nevertheless, we felt entirely justified in questioning whether this represented value for money.

The Board wanted to ensure the continuation of the newsletter, so decided to award funding for the next three issues at the rate requested by the editorial committee. However, we asked for representatives of the committee to attend a future Board meeting so that we could assure ourselves that the editorial committee were taking action to make sure the newsletter is both financially sustainable and providing relevant and timely information to the community going forward.

We are both surprised and disappointed that the editor considers that in carrying out our legal duty as trustees in safeguarding the Fund we have overstepped our role. We have endeavoured to work in a constructive way with the editorial committee at all times, and are sad to see the resignation of the editor who has contributed such a lot of time to the newsletter over many years.

The full text of the letter sent to the Strathnairn News Editorial Committee can be seen here.