Examination of witnesses (Questions 440
- 459)
WEDNESDAY 12 JANUARY 2000
MR RICHARD
WAKEFORD, MR
EWEN CAMERON
and MS PAM
WARHURST
Chairman
440. It is coming along a bit slowly, is it
not?
(Mr Cameron) It is all tied up with the Comprehensive
Spending Review and the Rural White Paper exercise. It would be
very foolish of us to set up a corporate strategy that went directly
against the Rural White Paper. I might say that the process of
the Rural White Paper is coming along very slowly as well. That
is something that we regret. Many of those PIU ideas I believe
originated from conversations with us.
Mr Randall
441. Would you say that your clear vision differs
from the PIU's vision?
(Mr Cameron) No, I do not think it does very much.
442. A little here and there?
(Mr Cameron) There are possibly things that they have
left out. We were trying to encourage them to look, for instance,
at the fiscal barriers to economic development within the countryside,
which I felt maybe they had put on one side. Certainly some of
the more innovative ideas we would support.
443. Generally speaking, you think it is all
going a bit slowly. There are too many reviews going on for you
to actually get your teeth into anything at the moment?
(Mr Cameron) There is a feeling of that, yes.
Mr Olner
444. Do you think that MAFF assists or hinders
in the formulation of the rural policy?
(Mr Cameron) This all hinges around the question of
the Department of Rural Affairs, I imagine, that has been mooted
in some quarters, DORA, as she is affectionately known. The answer
is that it is wrong to look at the countryside to say, "Ah,
the countryside. That is purely food production". MAFF is
definitely settled in a kind of post-war area whereby that was
its remit. It has needed to change.
445. MAFF still retain that thinking, do they?
(Mr Cameron) I think there are elements within MAFF
which have been changing over recent years, but it has not been
broad enough; nor have the countryside section in MAFF been given
enough kudos and power to develop its thinking.
446. You mentioned in your opening comments
that the Rural White Paper should be a strategic document setting
out a clear vision. Have you told the government what you want
precisely in fulfilment of each of the 11 points in annex one
of your submission?
(Mr Cameron) We have spoken to the government about
all those points, yes.
447. For example, what do you think the interdependence
between town and country means?
(Ms Warhurst) Whereas the Countryside Agency has been
doing a lot of work behind closed doors and is in discussion with
government departments, I might take up the point about things
moving along slowly, because there has been a very significant
agenda. I believe that influence on the PIU has been very significant.
In terms of the interdependence, we need to be very specific about
this. We need to be able to hang that interdependence on some
key themes. One of those has to be market towns. We have housing;
we have planning; we have transport. We can write the script on
where those interdependencies need to be articulated clearly.
What we are working on with others is to make sure that we do
not just put forward the rhetoric but we put forward some deliverables,
some indicators and means by which these things can be monitored.
It is not enough to say that they are interdependent. It is causing
some confusion in some quarters. We need to be very specific about
that. Not least of those interdependencies should be the concept
of governance, about how we actually deliver this and how we share
that joint agenda between those who have the urban brief and those
who have the rural brief.
448. What do you mean by the nature of strong
support involving local communities in decision making?
(Ms Warhurst) If you are going to have sustainable
regeneration or vitality brought back into rural—it applies
to urban as well—you need to make sure that that is all
at a local community level. I think that has been recognised by
the government in terms of its thinking on community planning.
What we are actually saying is if you want to make sure that you
do the right things in the housing field, that you have the right
transport partnerships delivering what people need as opposed
to what people at some distance might think they need and so on,
extrapolating from there, you need to make sure that you engage
with local communities. One way of doing that is through their
local representatives. One way of doing that is through the voluntary
sector, but we need to make sure that that is all embedded within
the community planning concept, so that we understand at all levels
of influence just what people need in rural settings.
449. Do you think, as a Countryside Agency,
you are the lead role in redefining rural policy?
(Ms Warhurst) I think the Countryside Agency's potential
has not been realised yet. Its expertise, its passion and its
knowledge of what matters in rural areas have been relatively
untapped of late and I do believe that it can work more effectively
with government for its influence to be optimised. I do think
it is the right body to move forward, yes.
Mr Cummings
450. Can you indicate to the Committee how you
are utilising this passion and this knowledge towards the protection
of rural post offices?
(Mr Cameron) Obviously post offices are under threat
from the potential change in the benefit system.
451. They are under threat now but they have
been under threat over a number of years. It is not a new phenomenon.
(Mr Cameron) It is not. We grant aid village shops.
We support ViRSA, the Village Retail Service Association.
Chairman
452. When you say you grant aid village shops,
how many?
(Mr Wakeford) We would need to come back to you with
the details on that. In many of the rural post offices, it is
not just that the importance of the rural post office; it is the
interdependence between the rural post offices and the village
shops which they support. It is not that one can exist without
the other or the other without the one. It is important to look
at that. The PIU does have another review under way at the moment.
It is quite important that that rural angle of the changing business
of post office counters and especially the change in the payment
of benefits is properly analysed. That review will enable—
Mr Cummings
453. We understand the problem. I am trying
to ascertain the answer to the question I have asked. Having indicated
to the Committee your immense personal knowledge of all things
in the countryside, are you being proactive in terms of submitting
evidence, in terms of making representations to the appropriate
government departments?
(Mr Wakeford) We are.
454. Can you tell me how you are doing it and
how far along the road you are?
(Mr Wakeford) We were involved in giving advice as
the government produced its Post Office White Paper. We are doing
some research on the relationship between post offices and small
towns and the importance of a post office to a small town at the
moment. We are talking to government ministers in different departments
about the future of the post office. Certainly there are some
opportunities, we believe, for rural post offices to serve as
a kind of information point for modernising government. The government
is pursuing an approach of modernising government in which many
more services would be delivered electronically. What it also
needs to do is to look at how those would be received by those
in rural areas who may not have such easy access to electronics,
who may not have access to the web and so on. In the rural post
offices—in all post offices—there will be IT; there
will be skilled public servants; there will be a place at a convenient
point in many communities. When you want to get a passport form
and in future it is downloaded through the Internet and you do
not have the confidence to do that through your own Internet or
you do not have your own Internet, you may well be able to go
along and find that the clerk is the person who knows which buttons
to press to produce that particular service for you. There is
a vision for post offices being a very important public service
provider in the future.
455. Are you in the vanguard? Are you making
the correct noises?
(Mr Wakeford) Yes.
(Mr Cameron) We are looking at using post offices
and village shops as single unit outlets for all sorts of services,
for banking, for deliveries of food from supermarkets, to be pharmacists,
all sorts of services—even to be pubs as well—within
one community.
Chairman
456. This is all into the future. You promised
us a note on the number of rural shops you actually subsidise.
Can you just give us an idea of the scale of that situation now?
Are we talking about a handful or are we talking about 1,000 or
more?
(Mr Wakeford) The Countryside Agency inherited from
the Rural Development Commission a longstanding programme of village
shop schemes of different kinds. I would prefer to provide you
with a note rather than to do anything else. It is not something
that we are just doing in one part of the country; it is a national
programme of support to village shops in particular with reference
to post offices.
457. In other words, you cannot tell us the
scale of it?
(Mr Wakeford) Given notice I can tell you the scale
of it.
(Mr Cameron) It is certainly hundreds.
Mrs Ellman
458. English Nature told us that they were disappointed
with the treatment of biodiversity in the consultation paper "Rural
England". Do you share that concern?
(Mr Cameron) The Countryside Agency is enthusiastic
about biodiversity as an aspect of landscape and countryside management.
We certainly encourage it, but I think probably the Rural White
Paper is more about and should be more about communities. Biodiversity
problems are being addressed in the countryside legislation and
I would feel that perhaps the Rural White Paper should focus mainly
upon communities and the social problems in rural areas.
459. You are not agreeing with them?
(Mr Wakeford) Does it not depend on what the objective
is? The government's consultation made clear at the time that
there had been a number of consultation papers on different aspects
of things, not only on wildlife conservation, on which it has
a special consultation document, but also on Areas of Outstanding
Natural Beauty. In some ways, the environmental side of the countryside
had already been covered. Its consultation document gave a nod
to those things but said that the main focus of that particular
consultation paper was about the rural communities and rural services.
I think you have to take that explanation at face value.
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