We believe in the principle that decision making should be as close as possible to the people who are affected, with the responsibility for making decisions held by representatives that are democratically accountable to those people.
We will continue to engage all stakeholders on this overarching principle.
The Council campaigned, through Our Islands: Our Future, for income generated by Crown Estate assets to be allocated to Islands Councils. When this was secured, we established a local scheme, the Shetland Coastal Communities Fund. This scheme seeks to support the community and economic development of coastal communities by investing in infrastructure, community capacity building, and developing community assets and encouraging inclusive growth.
The Council has received the following funding over the past four years: 2019 
£1.01m, 2020 – £1.36m, 2021 – £1.57m, 2022 – £1.61m and, to date, has committed over £3.5m of this. The fund is a good example of local decision-making in action, where income generated from around our islands is passed back and directed, at local level, to community-based projects.
The Council submitted a response to the pre-consultation on the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill in 2021 and the then Convener appeared at the Local Government and Communities Committee to give evidence. Incorporation of the Charter into Law has been a long-held shared aim of this Council’s and COSLA. Articles in the Charter contain important provisions relating to the scope and financial resources of local authorities. Although it was unanimously passed by the Scottish Parliament, the Supreme Court ruled that some of the things the Bill sets out to do are not within the powers of the Scottish Parliament, so the Bill cannot become law in its current form.