SCOTLAND'S largest grant-giving trust, which was set up by three reclusive sisters 54 years ago, gave away a record £18.2 million to good causes last year.

The Robertson Trust, established by the three granddaughters of a whisky tycoon, was initially so publicity-shy that cheques were mailed out anonymously to charitable organisations selected in secret.

However it is now seeking to be more outward-looking as austerity puts its grant-giving under more pressure than ever before.

It is set to expand new work with charities to help them cope with funding cuts and other pressures, and is investing in research to help organisations and government target spending better.

The trust was established by Elspeth, Ethel and Agnes Robertson, who inherited the Robertson and Baxter whisky empire, which includes the brands The Famous Grouse, The Macallan and Highland Park.

None of the sisters married, with the First World War and a flu epidemic conspiring to leave them childless. Threatened by crippling death duties, and without families of their own, they instead decided to ensure the firm’s huge profits could go towards funding charity.

This week the Robertson Trust is expected to reveal that in the year 2014/15 has awarded more than £18.2m to good causes, an increase of 10 per cent on last year, enabling trustees to back 742 charities, also one-tenth higher than last year.

The work funded tends to focus on a core of areas originally backed by the three sisters including education, help for the elderly, work with offenders and health.

More than £150m has so far been distributed by the trust since 1961, and recent grants have been more flexible to allow charities to cope with a tough climate, according to Dame Barbara Kelly, the Trust’s chair.

“We are now helping fund core costs such as salaries, which 10 years ago we wouldn’t have. But charities are facing very tough times, making cuts while still having to deliver on contacts with local authorities, for instance,” she said.

“We are getting a huge number more applications than we used to five years ago.”

As a result, the Trust is becoming more outward looking, she said. “The Robertson sisters didn’t want acclaim and the Trust’s cheques were originally anonymous. We want to be a bit more public now, though, so we can share what we know with the sector.”

One aspect of this is a programme the trust funds to work with charities challenging the way they operate, reviewing their processes, to cut costs or make the most of new opportunities.

“Because the fund set up by the sisters offers us stability, we are able to look to the future and plan in a way other charities are not able to do. That’s useful at a time when the sector is being asked to do more for less all the time,” Dame Barbara added.

The largest grant issued last year was £500,000 to Glasgow’s Citizens’ Theatre, as part of its ambitious building redevelopment, but funding is not just at the ‘mega-level’, its chair said.

“Some of the most exciting work we do is in criminal justice.”

The trust has a partnership with the Scottish Prison Service - and has backed work from a £33,000 theatre-in-prison scheme at HMP Kilmarnock promoting theatre to the £1 million breaking the cycle programme in several Scottish jails targeting those receiving short sentences, funded in partnership with Serco.

The Trust’s new outward-looking stance is backed by an investment of just over £1m this year in 15 development projects across the core areas of criminal justice, early intervention, alcohol misuse and community sport, designed to deliver hard evidence of what works best, Dame Barbara said. “Learning from his work will be used to inform wider policy and practice in Scotland.”