Happily, earlier this month, the Co-op finally opened our bank account and Highland Council transferred the promised funding to us.
The experience with the bank is a cautionary tale for all you community groups and not-for-profits out there. It wasn’t that we were rubbish at filling in the forms, it’s that the financial and anti-terrorism regulations for non-business accounts introduced by the government last year have made the process cumbersome and complex. It also didn’t help that the bank seemed to apply the rules differently each time we spoke to them.
Still, we have the promised funding from Highland Council at last….almost a year after it was awarded to the project. Not exactly their fault…it was in Nairn River Community Council’s coffers for most of that time.