First Minister to announce £5 million in funding for various island initiatives

John Swinney will make the announcement on Friday.

First Minister John Swinney, who is to announce £5 million in funding for Scottish islands across various initiatives on Friday. (Michael Boyd/PA) (PA Wire)

The First Minister will announce a £5 million package for the Scottish islands to help tackle child poverty, grow the economy, invest in green energy and improve public services.

John Swinney will make the announcement during an upcoming visit to Shetland on Friday.

£1 million will go towards a new scheme to support the islands’ net zero 2040 goal, and a further £1 million will go to the Island Cost Emergency Fund to tackle poverty across Scotland’s six island local authorities.

The remaining £3 million will support locally designed island infrastructure projects, which will be announced during a visit to Cope Shetland – the Island’s leading centre for community reuse and recycling.

Ahead of the announcement, Mr Swinney said: “I have made it clear that I will be First Minister for everyone in Scotland – including our island communities who face a number of unique challenges but have enormous potential.

“Islanders have been clear that more needs to be done to help them fulfil their ambitions and that is why we are developing a new National islands Plan, to be published next year.

“We will listen to island communities, and speak with local authorities to ensure the new plan meets their needs.

“In the meantime we will continue to invest in our Islands Programme, which over the last three financial years, has distributed over £12 million to support of 61 projects on 50 islands.”