Change is afoot at SRUC with Powell firmly in saddle
Comment Andrew Arbuckle
In films about the Wild West, the cowboys would often get off their horses, hold their ears to the groundandthenannounce to us wide- eyed youngsters sitting in the front row of the picture house that the Indians were approaching fast.
Now without holding my ear to the ground but through more modern methods of communication, there are rumblings of change beginning to ripple through SRUC - Scotland’s Rural College.
Principal and chief executive, Professor Wayne Powell has been in post for almost two years. During that settling in period, he has spelt out his vision for the college not only as a provider of rural education and agricultural advice but also as a leading research facility.
As one of the world leaders in rural research, he claimed SRUC work would influence farming across the continents.
Duringthepasttwoyears, SRUC has also carried out major changes in its top management team. In a similar fashion employed by the presidents of the United States, the principal has surrounded himself with his own team.
A great deal has been accomplished in his two years in the top seat in Scottish rural academia.
However, one part of the SRUC business has remained almost untouched – the estate or the educational buildings, the farms, the advisory offices and all the other properties scattered around Scotland.
The property portfolio owned by SRUC is varied and complex which is no surprise considering the organisation has been created out of a number of smaller, regional facilities. When SRUC was formed from the Scottish Agricultural College, and Barony, Elmwood and Oatridge colleges it brought with it a jumble bag of buildings; some more useful in another era and others duplicating resources elsewhere.
Not long after the amalgamation, Powell’s predecessor, Janet Swadling, commenting on the range of property now under the heading of Assets in the SRUC balance sheet, remarked that rationalisation would be required; rationalisation being the weasel word for selling off parts of the body.
She has now departed the scene but her comment is still very true, witness the rumbling now coming from SRUC. Powell has toured the SRUC estate extensively during his tenure. While he has not uttered a public word on sorting out the college property portfolio he is a shrewd man and knows it is a matter that has to be addressed.
In today’s tight financial controls, anything that is not helping generate cash or even reducing expenditure must be investigated.
The changes will not be highlighted as disposals or sales of property previously valued but now surplus to requirement. The clever public relations people at SRUC will instead call the change an investment in the future as some of the sale cash will be used to tart up – sorry modernise -the remaining properties into more efficient “suitable for the twenty first century” premises.
However the changes to the SRUC property are dressed up, there can be onecertaintyandthatisthe natives will be angry. They may even be described as revolting. They do not like change.
Local politicians will jump up and down and oppose any closure just as they do with any assets, be they hospitals, post offices, banks or bus stations. Their moans will have little to do with current usage of the asset, merely the need to retain it.
National politicians will also indulge in this sabre rattling exercise and give reasons why it should not happen without giving an alternative solution to the central issue which is SRUC has too many properties on its hands.
Others resisting change will search property titles and long forgotten deeds to prove some properties were gifted to SRUC and its predecessor bodies, thus proving they cannot be disposed of.
The rationalisation programme will eventually cover the whole of Scotland but it will start in the South and West of the country where a number of buildings are, frankly, underutilised
Politicians in other parts of the country cannot be smug. The process will roll out in two other phases; one in central Scotland and one in the North and East. Both have buildings surplus to needs.