For all serving and ex members of the RAF Mountain Rescue Service

MRT Funding for Scotland

MOUNTAIN rescue teams were awarded a fourfold funding increase yesterday as Jack McConnell, first minister, announced the results of a financial review.

However some of Scotland's busiest teams, who were responsible for getting the initiative off the ground, said they were disappointed at the way the cash is to be distributed and that the money was less than they had been led to expect.
Mr McConnell announced the increase to £400,000-a-year during a visit to Ballater.

He had promised to review the funding after visiting the Cairngorm mountain rescue team in March and said he had hoped to be able to double the £100,000 allocated annually but had in fact been able to quadruple it to £400,000.
However John Grieve, leader of Glencoe Mountain Rescue team, said that the figure was misleading.

"No figure had actually been mentioned but the hints we had received suggested the figure would be £500,000. There is only £300,000 extra which works out at a maximum of £12,500 a team. The other £100,000 has already been spent."
The teams in the Northern Constabulary area do more than half of the rescues and they received £60,000 with the major teams allocated £7500.

The allocation of the money will be the responsibility of the Association of Chief Police Officers who will work with the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland (MRCofS) to establish what it said would be "a fair but simple method of distribution" so that funding is provided to all teams on an equitable basis, taking account of each team's geographical coverage and workload.

The announcement was welcomed as a "significant contribution" by the MRCofS.  However, Mr Grieve said teams such as Lochaber, Cairngormand Glencoe objected to the mechanism. He said that MRCofS had asked for the financial accounts of all the teams but had given an artificially low indication of how much was required.  "Because they had no money their spending was low. What should have been asked is what budget they required to do their job."

He said that the money, divided among about 900 mountain rescue volunteers, worked out at about £350 per head per year and a decent pair of boots cost £240 "so you can't even buy boots and a jacket. It is not a lot of money".

The leader of Glencoe rescue team added: "We are very happy we have convinced the Scottish Executive of the need for funding mountain rescue teams and that teams like Oban, who receive not one halfpenny from Strathclyde Police, will now get funding.

"What we are deeply disappointed about is that the teams within the Northern Constabulary area, who were responsible for starting this, have been told nothing about it."

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