ABSTRACT
The Government’s Highland policy is in general terms to promote economic growth in the Highlands, and to provide suitable amenities and social services so that viable communities with modern standards of living and opportunities for useful employment may be established and retained there. The average unemployment rate in the Highlands and Islands runs at a rate of 7 to 8 per cent, double that of Scotland as a whole, and four times the rate for the United Kingdom as a whole. Responsibility for administering the Highlands is now vested in a bewildering array of local, regional and national agencies. The setting up of the Board itself in 1965 is the most important single development in Highland administration this century; and in the foreseeable future the Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland, which is taking evidence at present, could well change the whole structure of local authority administration in the Highland area.
