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oppose commercial development in Future campaigns to
Chapter 1: Andrew oppose commercial
Carnegie and “The the Glen.
Glen” development in the Glen.:
The citizen’s fight goes on because there
Chapter 2: Early
history of the Trust, will be a next time.
the Deed and Royal When the Chairman of the Trust announced that Mace had abandoned their
Charter
interest in a business school in the Glen the people of Dunfermline had won their
Chapter 3: Recent battle, for the time being at least. But the statement by Angus Hogg that
history of the Trust,
accompanied this news made it clear that other ideas to bring in income will be
and Royal Charters
considered by the Trust, and rather puzzlingly gave Mace’s reason for not
Chapter 4: Harvard pursuing their interest as being their inability to “own the land they wanted to build on”.
business school and
the Second
Supplementary The latter statement is puzzling because the Supplemental Charter is a radical replacement of the
Charter
original charter, and certainly makes the purchase of land in the non-core Glen possible. With the
Chapter 5: Is new entities of a core and fringe Glen, the ability of the Trust to sell or lease land and the cut in
Pittencrieff Park number of the elected members all enshrined in the new charter, any future attempt to develop
safe with a Trust
that can’t spell it? the Glen is likely to be more successful.

Chapter 6: Reflection
The PPS group have continued to meet and are ready to meet the next assault on the Glen armed
on how the Trust has
failed Carnegie and with the signatures of 10,000 citizen’s who signed the petition to prevent commercial development
the people of their “people’s park”.
Chapter 7: Future
campaigns to oppose What are we fighting for?
commercial
development in the
The terms on the public petition state clearly enough the aims of the PPS which was to protect the
Glen. Glen from commercial development and keep it as a place of recreation for the people of
Dunfermline, in perpetuity. I feel strongly that those of us who collected the petition signatures
Contact Form
have a mandate and a duty that extends beyond the first skirmish.

Recent How the Trust has fallen in the public’s esteem.

Comments Before the Harvard business school petition I was only vaguely aware of the Carnegie Dunfermline
TheMill on Chapter 7:
Future campaigns to
Trust. I had an idea that the Carnegie Trustees were pillars of society and were held in some
oppose commercial esteem by most, including myself. I, like many others had witnessed—perhaps for the first time in
development in the
their history—the Trust’s weaknesses when they were questioned about their stewardship. The
Glen.
Trust’s attitude to question was typified by their Chairman, Angus Hogg who simply attacked
john.lynne on Welcome
to Saveourglen.com anyone who had views differing from his own. This resulted in a backlash against the Trust and
jlowry on Chapter 7: helped the PPS collect petition signatures, as the public did not take kindly to the arrogant attitude
Future campaigns to of the Trust as typified by Angus Hogg.
oppose commercial
development in the
Glen. In the past the signs of the Trust’s financial difficulties had been there for all to see, but they never
impinged on the man or woman in the street and most did not delve too deeply into their cause. I
had only been vaguely aware of their lack of funds when I heard in 1965 that the Trust would no
longer support the Gala Day and there was a danger of this tradition—originally instigated by Mrs
Louise Carnegie—being discontinued, but various private bodies stepped in and bridged the
funding gap and the matter simply petered out.

Fife Council has the Trust in their pocket, and don’t let them forget it.
The apparently subtle change between the Trust and the Fife Council cutting the grass in the Glen
in 1978 did not flag up to me the extent to which the ratepayer was subsidising the Trust. It
took the ultimate betrayal of Carnegie’s wishes—the imminent sale of parts of the perimeter of the

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Glen to bring into focus just how badly the Trust had failed Carnegie and the people of
Dunfermline.

No matter how one looks at it the Trust are beholden to the council as the council are footing the
bill for the major expense the Trust would incur (the upkeep of the Glen), were it not unable to do
so. The extent of the beholdenness is demonstrated by the Fife Council application for HLF which
saw the Trust dancing to the tune dictated by the council who were ultimately the applicant for the
HLF grant.

Perhaps it is not surprising that he who pays the piper (or the gardeners) calls the tune, but it was
demonstrated recently the contempt with which the Fife Council hold the Trust when the Trust
objected to the Glen Pavilion being placed in the ownership of the new Arts and Theatre Trust. The
Trust’s reluctance to this move was met with a thinly veiled threat by a councillor to cut back
how much the council spent on Pittencrieff Park every year.

Of course the Trust would not be able to hand over the Glen Pavilion to the new charitable trust set
up by Fife Council, but for the new terms of the Supplemental Charter which allows the Trust to
“convey ownership of the whole or part of Pittencrieff Park to another charitable body”. These are
the terms that Ms Rundell and Mr Hogg euphemistically refer to as simply modernising!

Can the citizens reform the Trust from the outside?

It would seem that the ordinary member of the public has no input into the workings of the Trust.
Those nominated by Fife Council –who now appear to be trustees by sufferance and not as of
right—will not respond to polite and reasonable representations from members of the public. I
have 20 odd identical letters from trustees sent in reply to my private letters to them to prove
this point. Even the two ex-members I wrote to, who had been trustees when the supplementary
terms had been approved, reverted to the C.E.O. of the Trust and did not respond to me. So it
seems unlikely that we can persuade the Trust to drop their aim of making the Glen a money
spinner through commercial development.

Strength in numbers and communication can counter the Trust’s aims.

Although we have no idea of how big a factor public opposition was in the abandonment of the
Harvard Business School, it is fair to assume that it might have had some bearing on the matter. If
public opinion can be harnessed, and publicised, as with the public petition on the proposed
business school, the Trust might be forced to abandon any future commercial development in the
Glen.

The impotence of the lone man or woman who objects to a proposal, such as the development of
the Glen can be turned into a powerful tool if sufficient numbers feel the same, combine and make
their views known. Unity is strength. If unity in a common purpose is a first priority then good
communication comes a close second. This site hopes to act as a focal point which will fill the void
that existed in the past because there was no dedicated site for all who are concerned with the
protection—for all time to come—of our unique heritage the Glen. Perhaps the terms of the Save
Our Glen campaign can widen when the scope and nature of the changes to the Royal Charter are
known.

Thanks are due to those websites that reported the struggle.

Dunfermline Web Portal in particular and Dunfermline City websites served the PPS well in their
recent campaign and kindly gave us a platform from which to air our concerns. I would like to
place on record our gratitude for this help. We would be wise to contribute to these forums again
to augment this site in any future campaign.

Lobbying bodies that have an influence in the Trust’s affairs.

Those bodies that have a hand in the Trust’s affairs such as the Privy Council Office and the Office
of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) might be persuaded to encourage the Trust to abandon
commercial development in the Glen. These bodies would be unwise to ignore the views of so
many members of the public, who are certain in the nature of their inheritance being a leisure
asset for all time. If the next fight to save our Glen concerns a commercial development of a
similar nature to the Harvard-business school then those (almost 10,000) petition signatures
collected can be used as a starting point to petition afresh.

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Faced with perhaps 20,000 petitioners who are backed up by proof that the supplemental charter
changes are at odds with the original deed and letters of 1903, I cannot see the Privy Council
Office do anything other than review the grant of the Supplemental Charter. From my informal
contact with the PCO I rather think that they have been duped by the Trust in approving the new
terms, and they might be smarting from this. It would not look good if they are found wanting by
public opinion or the courts in this regard [more of this later].

Representations to OSCR to the effect that the Trust has acted outwith the original purpose of its
charter, could also be effective by an individual or an organisation especially if such a move was
backed up by a large volume of petition signatures.

Write to HM The Queen

I will be sending the Queen a link to this website and will ask her to consider it carefully so that
she can see the parody of democracy that is being enacted in her name. I will also be sending the
link to HRH Prince Charles who has asked to be kept informed of any future developments.

The lure of grants is the driving force for change in the Glen.
The possibility of a grant of £5 million from the National Heritage Lottery Fund seems to have been
the catalyst that drove the proposals to commercially develop the Glen. However initially it was not
clear who the applicants for this grant were. Nora Rundell, the CEO of the Trust was clear at the
meeting she had with the PPS group that the Trust could not apply for such a grant and Fife
Council had been the applicant.

If, in the past, there were a ban on the Trust applying for charity funds then this is now likely to
have changed with the new terms of the Royal Charter which allow the Trust to lobby for charity.
However, whether it was the Trust, the Council or a combination of both the statements by the
Trust to the effect that they would only be considered for a grant if the Glen was a viable concern
is disturbing.

The Glen has never been a commercially viable entity on its own. Andrew Carnegie knew this and
that is why he left $2.5 million in 1903, £0.5 million in 1908, and then a further $1.25 million to
the Trust in 1911. The proposition that a Trust that has squandered the funds that were for
(among other things) the upkeep of the Glen and is now looking for ways to access monies meant
for voluntary groups and other good causes who rely on charity is disturbing.

The 10-year Action Plan was the genesis of the charter changes.
There can be little doubt that the 10-year Action Plan published in December 2003, which
concluded that the charter could be changed to allow the sale or lease of parts of the Glen was a
means to facilitate the “partner agencies” obtaining a £5 million HLF grant. The 10-year plan was
commissioned by a member (and past Chair) of the Trust Dr Alexander Lawson. In the production
of such a report the one who pays the piper calls the tune, and in this regard the £10,000 bill for
the 10-year plan was paid for by a grant to Dr Lawson from the Trust. The supplemental terms can
be seen to have their genesis in the 10-year plan and these terms were not simply modernising, as
the Trust mentioned matter-of-factly in the briefest of terms (4 words) hidden away in the
Introduction to the 2004 Annual Report and Accounts.

Trustees were conned into believing the charter changes were minor & modernising.
From my informal conversations with several trustees it is clear that there was no Special General
Meeting (with two thirds of the trustees present) convened to discuss and vote on the terms of the
Supplemental Charter, as required under the terms of the Royal Charter. Nor was there discussion
on the radical nature of the changes to the Royal Charter which instead were portrayed as if they
were of a minor nature and were necessary to comply with new charity legislation requirements.

The CEO Nora Rundell in answering my personal letters to all of the members of the Trust stated
that the revision to the Royal Charter was “to take account of the new regulatory regime and the
need to update the governance position”. She went on to say that the draft Supplementary Charter
was approved at a “regularly constituted meeting of Trustees before the draft was submitted to the
Privy Council”. This again is in accordance with my understanding that the actual supplemental
terms were misrepresented and discussed in general, but the specific details of the radical new
terms were not discussed or voted on at a Special General Meeting with two thirds of the trustees

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present.

Trust not properly constituted.

It is also the case that the Royal Charter was not supplemented in 1996 to reflect the changes in
the Local Authority and there should have been 9 trustees from the council on the board of
trustees. As the changes to the charter were made under a board of trustees not properly
constituted in accordance with the terms of the charter then they must be null and void.

There is a case to be made that the trustees are not acting in a manner consistent with
the aims of the Trust Deeds and should be disciplined.
A charity trustee must, in exercising functions in that capacity, act in the interests of the charity
and must, in good faith; ensure that the charity acts in a manner which is consistent with its
purposes. Given the nature of the changes that have been made to the charter, some of which are
to take account of the new regulatory legislation, but most of which are radical and repugnant to
the terms of the Royal Charter there is a case to be made that the Trustees have acted in a way
that is incompatible with the aims of the charity. To have the trustees disciplined would involve a
petition to OSCR. The radical new terms are not limited to the sale or lease of parts of the Glen.

Schmoozing with the rich and famous

As part of the “Carnegie Awards and Symposium” held on Tuesday 4 October 2005 in the Scottish
Parliament the Trust organised a grand reception at Holyrood to present medals for philanthropy
to His Highness The Aga Khan, Tom Farmer and other fabulously wealthy people from home and
abroad. This reception was attended by a carefully selected list of people including the President of
the Carnegie Corporation of New York and seems to have been more about making contacts with
wealthy donors with a view to receiving donations than honouring philanthropy. The trustees would
have done this safe in the knowledge that they would soon have power to allow them to appeal for
donations when HM The Queen approved the supplemental terms.

Carnegie hoped that his trustees would be the ones who would be showered with honours for their
philanthropy. However since his Trust are no longer in a position to do much in the way of
philanthropy I am sure that he would he have preferred them to devote their energy into trying to
keep the Glen from—what Angus Hogg so colourfully described as— its “spiral into further decline”,
than having champagne and caviar canapés at Holyrood to seduce potential donors. Planting,
pruning, and policing Pittencrieff is what we should except of the trustees, not begging for Bucks
from our American cousins.

Where will tomorrow’s Carnegies come from?

In his opening speech to the 2005 Holyrood symposium the Presiding Officer of the parliament,
George Reid, MSP gave the opening address by way of a speech entitled “Rethinking
Progressive Philanthropy” in which he commented on the major role played by Scotland in
philanthropy and the need to nurture present and future philanthropists with emphasis on the
proper legal framework.

If potential or current philanthropists see a supplemental “coach and horses” being driven through
the very specific terms of trust deeds—such as those in the Royal Charter of the Trust—there will
be a reluctance among them to give their wealth to Trusts or local authorities. If donors cannot
have their bequest terms honoured then the supply of donors will dry up.

Trust’s “double fault” at the Tennis Club.

A good example of the need for the Trust to get back to basics is their recent grant of £10,000 to
the Dunfermline Lawn Tennis and Bridge Club. The Trust would of course be bankrupt if it were
made to uphold its charter commitment to fund the upkeep of the Glen, and has Fife Council and
the local taxpayer—who now pay for this—to thank for its very existence. Despite this
beholdenness, and at a time when Fife Council are shutting down tennis courts due to funding
shortfalls, they are subsidising the Trust, who are in turn subsidising a private tennis club.

Fife Council’s actions may have been understandable if the club in question were in dire straits but
it seems that this club is completing something of a “grand slam” of victories in recent years,
having been granted charitable tax exemption by a former under-16 club champion Gordon
Brown MP, and having also been given a HLF grant of £50,000 as well as the £10,000 grant from

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the Trust.

Would it not be simpler if the Trust paid—or helped pay for—the upkeep of the Glen themselves
and let private charitable organisations such as the Dunfermline Tennis and Bridge Club Ltd. use
their wit and influence to make their own way in the world?

If this were to happen the resultant relief of the financial burden presently borne by the local
taxpayer through Fife Council might enable the council to re-open some of its closed-down tennis
courts that were (unlike the private Dunfermline Tennis Club) open to all of the people.

A prime example of charity beginning at home.

The HLF application by Fife Council that followed the 10-year Action Plan Report included an
amount to allow the Pittencrieff Park Management Group to employ a “Park Champion”–similar to
the role of the Park Rangers of former years–in the Glen to stop vandalism. Given the neglected
state of the Glen as a result of Fife Council’s budget problems no one would argue that a Park
Ranger would help matters. However, would it not make more sense for the Trust to stop making
substantial donations to groups such as the Dunfermline Lawn Tennis and Bridge Club and spend
their money instead on funding the employment of a Park Ranger to assist Fife Council in their
management of the Glen? The various groups such as the Bridge Club could then seek help from
the HLF without having to compete with the Trust for these finite funds. In short cut out the charity
to others and start self-help where Andrew Carnegie insisted it should begin–in the Glen!

Power to appeal for donations is repugnant to the original trust deed.

I would argue that the Trust should stop their highly publicised charitable giving, and get back to
the basic task of looking after the Glen. Those few recipients of the relatively small amount
annually granted by the Trust (about £100,000 in 2005, and the same in 2006) would probably
qualify for HLF grants. It seems to me that the Trust is now a net recipient of charity–when one
considers the ratepayer’s money to fund the Glen maintenance–rather than a dispenser of charity
and this is repugnant to the terms of the original charter.

The granting of new terms by the PCO to allow the Trust to appeal for donations is against the
spirit and the letter of the original charter and like the new terms allowing the sale or lease of
parts of the Glen should be challenged.

If OSCR failed to pull the trustees back into line, and as a last resort it is possible to have the
trustees removed. This would involve petitioning the court. Like Nora Rundell–with the propriety of
her charter changes–I have taken legal advice on this and there is an arguable case to be
answered.

Abuse of the Royal Prerogative could have been countered by the Scottish Parliament if
they had known of it.
In the case of the Trust’s secret supplementary charter changes the public only found out about
them when it was too late. The Queen had agreed the changes on the advice of her Privy
Counsellors and the Supplementary Charter only required the Scottish Parliament to ratify this
process before it became law in Scotland.

Given that the changes were repugnant to Andrew Carnegie’s original charter and letter, and the
Royal Charter of 1917 there was a case for the Scottish Ministers to withhold the application of the
Scottish Seal and thus prevent the Supplementary Charter becoming law in Scotland.

In an eleventh hour bid I attempted to persuade the First Minister of Scotland that the changes to
the Trust’s charter were repugnant to the original charter, however given that the new terms were
secreted from the public—and only shown in glimpses when the Trust were caught red-handed—it
was difficult if not impossible for me to make a cogent case for withholding Scottish Parliamentary
approval, and the Scottish Executive rejected my plea.

Petition the Scottish Government for laws to stop abuse of the Royal Prerogative.
Scotland has changed dramatically in the last few years and we now have a body with enough
confidence to call itself a Government and it must be the case that this Scottish Government would
be less willing than the previous Scottish Executive to simply rubber-stamp all matters emanating
from Whitehall.

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The public petitions system of the Scottish Parliament affords citizens the opportunity to have
unjust laws changed or new laws introduced if the case can be made and approved by the Scottish
Parliament.

A petition calling for all supplementary terms to Royal Charters to be advertised and published in
Scotland together with the original terms of the charter to allow objectors the opportunity to object
to the Scottish Government’s application of the Scottish Seal—citing the example of the Carnegie
Dunfermline and Hero Fund Trustees’ secretive actions, and misleading statements—would surely
succeed in a Scottish Parliament committed to openness and accountability?

Closing remarks.
I would conclude by stating that the views on this site are mine and do not necessarily represent
the views of the PPS group. I make my own observations, on views which I genuinely hold, and
make them known in the public interest.

I do not hold a personal grudge against any member of the Trust but I do believe that a few
dominant trustees are leading the others by the nose and I also believe in the dictum of Bailie
Morrison: “Dare to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm and dare to make it known“.

I hope that I have made my views on the Trust known; some will share my views and others may
not and I have no doubt that those who feel strongly enough about it will say so. With this in mind
I welcome feedback by post or e-mail to:
Tom Minogue, 94 Victoria Terrace, Dunfermline, Fife, KY12 0LU.
E-mail: tomminogue@btinternet.com

I will also offer anyone referred to on this site the right to reply which will be posted on this site.

This site will continue to be updated with topical developments on an ongoing basis.

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Comments
Comment from jlowry | Edit comment
Time: December 14, 2007, 9:33 am

This is a very informative website which paints a convincing argument…I wish you every sucess in this
worthy campagain.

on a seperate note I would like to say that I would have left a message on previous visits if this screen was
easier to find

Comment from TheMill | Edit comment

Time: February 23, 2008, 10:29 am

I live in Dunfermline and have been following the trust v people of dunfermline debate on the glen. I am a
mother of two young children and use the glen and was incensed when I found out that this state of the
art ’sculpture’ being built in the glen was the Carnegie Trusts HQ. What a great pity that the Trust now
locked away in their fortress is so out of touch with what the people of Dunfermline want for the Glen.
Perhaps some of the trusts funds could have been used to make the Greenhouses more child friendly and
educational (as parks in Aberdeen have), re-vamp the shoddy train, bring back the cycle park or utilise the
empty paddling pools which have become nothing more than litter bins. This is what the people of
Dunfermline want a glen which we can be proud of, not some Hans Christian Anderson tale where the
royalty live in their castle and the peoples views mean nothing. Good site, thank you.

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