Leaders of Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles are looking at plans to split from UK and Scottish governments

As the first minister, Alex Salmond, looks south and campaigns for an independent Scotland, leaders in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles to his north have quietly begun talks among themselves about their own "home rule".

The three leaders, who run the three largest island groups in the British isles, will meet in Shetland on Monday 25 March to discuss a joint project on whether they should demand a split from the Scottish and UK governments after the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 – the date of which is expected to be announced in Holyrood on Thursday.

Malcolm Bell, the convenor of Shetland Islands council, said the independence referendum offered an opportunity for the islands to carve out a new political settlement. "There's no point in Westminster devolving powers to Edinburgh if they are going to stop in Edinburgh. When you're 300 miles from Edinburgh, or 700 from London, at those kind of distances, Edinburgh feels as remote as London," he said.

The councils are investigating plans to model themselves on the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands or the Falklands, which are crown dependencies and overseas territories, largely independent from the UK government, or to mimic the self-rule deal struck by the Faroe Islands with Denmark in 1948.

Other less radical options include pressing for control over all their local fisheries, merging local health and social services, and taking control of the sea bed from the Crown Estates in London to help the islands profit from the boom in windfarms, on land and offshore, and marine energy projects about to start off northern and western Scotland.

The three island groups are poised for a huge growth in investment by global energy companies: major tidal and wave energy parks are planned around their shorelines, while Shetland and Orkney are already seeing hundreds of millions of pounds spent on extra oil and gas terminals to service new fields being opened up in the Atlantic and North Sea.

Their alliance conjures up parallels with a campaign by rebellious Shetland islanders in the 1970s, when the Shetland Movement was formed to demand much greater autonomy for the islands as oil companies set up bases for the first wave of North Sea oil rigs.

Tavish Scott, the MSP for Shetland and former Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, told party activists on Saturday that the constitutional debate was the islands' chance to fight for their own "home rule", and a case study for the Lib Dems' localism agenda before the next general election.

Scott, who first raised this argument in a paper last year, fears that whichever side wins the independence referendum, more powers will be centralised by the Scottish government in Edinburgh, 300 miles south of the islands' main town, Lerwick.

Political leaders in the islands worry that their separate local authorities could be abolished after the 2014 referendum, either combined into a joint islands council or merged into a new super authority for the Highlands and Islands as the next government tries to rationalise Scotland's diverse group of 32 local councils.

Scott said there had been a "remorseless pattern of centralisation" under Salmond's Scottish National party government.

"For me, this is about home rule; our islands being able to assert their natural and local identity, their distinctiveness, and get the powers and responsibilities they need to make the best of the modern world," Scott told the Guardian.

"If we don't set out our position, we will be subsumed into Greater Grampian or Greater Highlands. As night follows day, both Labour and the Scottish National party are centralising parties. They won't talk about public sector reform, but we know discussions are going on behind the scenes that Scotland is too big infrastructurally."

The councillors distance themselves from Scott's rhetoric, arguing they need to tackle the matter as apolitical civic leaders rather than as campaigners.

But Bell, whose officials have drafted a detailed strategy on how to investigate Shetland's constitutional options, said he shared Scott's fears. Even the pro-UK parties are planning greater devolution of powers to Holyrood, he said, so it was important the islands made sure they gained from those reforms.

Orkney council officials have compiled a 300-page briefing paper on the constitutional and political options which is being discussed by councillors this week.

Steven Heddle, Orkney's council leader, said: "We need to do this on a proactive basis because, if we don't do something ourselves, we're going to find the nationalists and the unionists pursue their aspirations, which don't necessarily tally with what we want."

Heddle said pressing to become crown dependencies like the Isle of Man, after centuries as an integral part of Scotland, would be the least likely option – despite Scott's rallying cry on Saturday to copy the Manx model. Crown dependency would mean losing their vital European Union funding, which is essential for local farmers, and expose them to the whims of the UK government.

Jersey and Guernsey were forced to drop their low VAT regimes, heavily exploited by internet retailers such as Amazon, after pressure from other retailers and the UK Treasury. "This is why we need to do the research: be careful what you wish for," said Heddle.

But Shetland already has some unusual, even unique deals which set a less dramatic precedent for all three councils to follow in future. After oil was first struck in the North Sea in the early 1970s, it was granted a surcharge on every barrel of oil landed at Sullom Voe which has helped it fund a community trust which eventually became worth £300m.

In 2000, Shetland was given complete control over its inshore shellfishery, which allows it to decide on the ecological and conservation rules for its fishing boats.

Shetland

Population: 22,400

Capital: Lerwick

A large archipelago of 16 inhabited islands and more than 80 others. Famously closer to Bergen in Norway than Edinburgh, Shetland is best known for its annual Viking-inspired winter festival Up Helly Aa, its Iron Age brochs, salmon farming, Sullom Voe oil terminal and its excellent public services: its oil fund pays for impeccable roads, numerous swimming pools and cheap ferries.

Its fishermen have a reputation for entrepreneurialism: in 2010, Shetland's main fish-processing firm and wealthiest trawler owners pleaded guilty to a multimillion-pound fisheries fraud, landing thousands of tonnes of undeclared mackerel and herring.

Orkney

Population: 20,100

Capital: Kirkwall

A cluster of 20 inhabited islands and about 50 others separated from Caithness by the mighty Pentland Firth sea channel and some of the Earth's strongest currents. Orkney has the world's most advanced wave and tidal energy test centre and is famous for its 12th-century St Magnus Cathedral, minimal crime rate, the neolithic village Skara Brae and its fudge.

It was the site of Europe's largest underwater scrapyard: in 1919, just before the Treaty of Versailles, more than 50 German battleships were scuttled in Scapa Flow by their commander, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter. It is a hotspot for scuba diving.

The Western Isles

Population: 26,500

Main town: Stornoway

A long string of 15 inhabited and 50 smaller islands on the edge of the Atlantic, dominated by Lewis, Harris and the Uists. These Gaelic-speaking islands are famous for hand-woven Harris tweed, their beaches, the Callanish standing stones and, on Lewis and north Harris, Sabbatarianism, the orthodox Protestant rule banning work and play on Sundays.

One tradition – the annual hunt for guga, the smoked, gutted gannets caught on Sula Sgeir – is regularly attacked by animal rights groups. The delicacy with a very small fanbase has a taste which is a cross between duck and strong fish oil.

• This article was amended on 21 March 2013 to clarify that the Falkland Islands are not crown dependencies. They are a British overseas territory.