History and Purpose of the Trust
We are sorry to report that Peter F Scott CBE passed away on 13th November 2010. A Thanksgiving Service is being held in London on the 11th January and Kendal on the 14th January 2011. A copy of the published obituary can be downloaded here.
Peter Scott was Chairman of the Provincial Insurance Company when FCSCT was created by Deed of Trust on October 1st, 1963 with wide powers to distribute funds for charitable purposes. Peter Scott and his sister, Dr Joan Trevelyan, endowed the Trust with significant holdings of Provincial Insurance Company shares between 1963 and 1971.
The Trust was named after Peter’s father, Francis C Scott, in recognition of his philanthropic work and established with the aim of continuing to support the type of causes and projects that he had sponsored himself. FC Scott’s philanthropic interests included: music and the arts, youth development, local community life and conservation of the natural environment. Paramount amongst these was the formation of the Brathay Hall Trust a residential centre dedicated to “the opening of young people’s minds” on an estate F C Scott purchased in 1939.
From the very beginning, FCSCT has given grants to a wide range of charitable organisations with an enduring commitment to supporting disadvantaged communities and young people. For many years the Trust used a system of priority geographical areas to award grants:
Priority Area 1 = Cumbria & North Lancashire
Priority Area 2 = the rest of Lancashire (inc. the unitary authorities of Blackpool and Blackburn)
Priority Area 3 = the rest of the UK (mostly Manchester, Merseyside, Scotland and Northern Ireland)
From 1963 to 1989 the majority of grants were directed to those projects or causes in which the Settlor’s family had a close involvement and which were of benefit to the local community in Kendal, headquarters of the Provincial business (which at its height employed over 2,000 people). The largest such charities were the Brewery Arts Centre, Abbot Hall Museum & Gallery and the Brathay Hall Trust. Broadening the range of beneficiaries was precipitated by a significant policy review undertaken in the late 1980’s involving Peter Scott’s son, Alexander.
Since that time, revenue funding to the Brewery, Abbot Hall and Brathay has ceased with all three receiving significant endowment fund contributions by 1999. In 1997, Trustees dropped Priority Area 3 and agreed a five-year funding plan for projects working in the fields of youthwork and family support work – areas long supported by the Trust. A strategic review in 2003 further refined the beneficial area of the Trust to just Priority Area 1 with a focus on children/young people, a commitment to supporting charities for up to eight years and a stated preference for funding coal-face work rather than second-tier support organisations.
In the first year of the Trust’s grant-making (1964), 15 grants totalling £6,000 were distributed. In the past five years, the annual average is just over £1.3m.