A CHURCH of Scotland minister, who headed a controversial training and
job creation project which was once hailed by the Government as a
flagship but crashed owing around #850,000, is moving from Fife to
Glasgow.
The Rev. Dane Sherrard is leaving Buckhaven Parish Church, where he
has preached for 17 years, for the larger congregation of Glasgow Cadder
Church on March 9.
In 1983, concerned at unemployment levels of up to 40% in some parts
of Levenmouth, Fife, Mr Sherrard and his kirk session took a bold
initiative to try to regenerate the area by launching the Buckhaven
Parish Church Agency.
It rapidly brought new prosperity to the community and at one time the
ambitious scheme employed almost 1000 people in its diverse operations,
ranging from a community theatre to a building firm, and had an
estimated turnover of #3m a year.
More than 2000 people received help in finding full-time work and the
agency won many admirers, including then Scots Secretary Malcolm
Rifkind, who hailed it as a shining example to the rest of the country.
But it also had its critics, including local Labour MP Henry McLeish
who as Shadow employment and training spokesman repeatedly demanded
inquiries into the running of the agency. In April 1991, it went into
voluntary liquidation owing around #850,000.
A creditors' meeting heard that all debts were likely to be paid in
full as the project's assets, including about 16 buildings, were greater
than its liabilities, but it is understood many small firms eventually
had to write off what they were owed.
Nearly 400 adults on employment training schemes plus 42 staff lost
their places when the project crashed after the agency's successor, Fife
Enterprise, decided not to offer the BPCA a contract.
It was alleged that its financial plight was worsened by the refusal
of the training agency to provide funding to allow trainees to complete
their programmes, which resulted in the Church serving a writ on the
agency.
Saying that it was good for a congregation to have a change, and as he
was nearing 50, Mr Sherrard said yesterday that it was time for him to
move on.
He denied that he had been saddened by the outcome of the Buckhaven
Parish Church project.
''We did what we could to help unemployed people in the area, and we
achieved what we wanted,'' he said.
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