IT would certainly be a challenge attempting to merge the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) with Historic Environment Scotland (HES), given than one is an independent charity and the other is a government agency (“Merger of Scots NTS almost inevitable, says chief”, The Herald, March 22). Legislation would quite possibly be required. NTS taking on the responsibilities of HES would seem the most likely option, given that taking NTS into Government control is unlikely to be acceptable to many. The legal obligations on trustees mean that the NTS board would have to seek considerable compensation from the Scottish Government, or contractual guarantees of future funding, before accepting the maintenance liability of the HES estate. That might not represent value for money from the Government’s point of view, by comparison with continuing the current funding arrangements for HES.
There is also a high risk of loss of membership income. Both organisations have a membership or supporters’ scheme, involving payment of subscriptions. Some people will be a member of both. I am one. It is unlikely that a single subscription for a combined organisation could be as much as the sum of the current NTS and HES subscriptions without the scheme becoming unaffordable to many. Therefore, subscription income from people with dual membership will go down.
However, there is no doubt that NTS and HES have much in common, including a need to be economical. It would certainly be worthwhile for the two organisations to examine how administration could be shared. Both must have membership, personnel and finance functions carrying out essentially the same activities. There might be scope for having a single maintenance department. A contractual arrangement under which one organisation provided services to the other would be much simpler, quicker and far less expensive to set up than a complete merger, but could still achieve many of the financial benefits.
Gregory Beecroft,
4 The Shores, Skelmorlie.
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