House of Commons - Farming in the Uplands - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

Farming in the Uplands - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Contents

2 The Commission for Rural Communities

8. The Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), a Defra-funded non-departmental public body, was created by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006. The CRC received £6.48 million Grant in Aid from Defra in 2009-10 and employed 74 staff.[17] There are currently ten Commissioners in addition to the Chairman. Under the Act, the Commission's purpose was to promote awareness of rural needs among relevant authorities and the general public and its three main functions were: representation, advice and monitoring; research; and information services.[18] The CRC also supported Defra's role of encouraging other Government departments to take into account rural matters when developing policy and designing delivery. The process, known as 'rural proofing', requires policy-makers to consider the impact of rural issues such as more dispersed population, fewer service outlets, greater travel needs or smaller economic markets on the effectiveness of new policy, legislation or delivery mechanisms.[19]

9. On 29 June 2010, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP, announced that the CRC would be abolished in March 2011 and that rural policy would be subsumed back into the department.[20] Defra anticipates that the abolition of the CRC will cost approximately £2.5m in redundancy costs and save around £18m. Understandably, Dr Burgess, Chairman of the CRC, expressed sadness at the decision to abolish the Commission.[21] He told us that he expected the CRC's evidence-based work and working with stakeholders would be taken into Defra.[22] Professor Shucksmith, Commissioner at the CRC, told us that he would wish the Rural Communities Policy Unit to take on the Commission's focus on rural disadvantage and that its advice would be transparent to the public.[23]

10. Following the announcement disquiet was expressed about whether and how the Government would sustain the work done by the CRC.[24] The NFU welcomed the decision to bring policy-making back into Defra but identified two risks resulting from the demise of the CRC. First, whether Defra would be as good as the CRC had been at listening to farmers and local communities and second, ensuring Defra was influential within Whitehall. Several rural and upland issues are the primary responsibility of other Government departments. Dr Clark, Head of Policy at the National Farmers' Union (NFU), told us that:

"The uplands are not led just from [Defra HQ]; they have to be led from CLG, DECC, the Home Office and also the MoD, which has important landholdings. All these different groups need to be brought together, so we depend on the champion being able to influence all of those policy levers".[25]

11. Defra's Ministers have argued that their knowledge and experience of rural issues enable them to be effective advocates for rural communities and issues within Government. Mr Paice, for example, told us that:

...there is a great wealth of knowledge within the ministerial team, for a start, but also within the Department and on the Government benches in the House of Commons [...] We feel that the understanding of the problems of rural areas is there already.[26]

At the time of the announcement of the CRC's abolition, the Secretary of State said that "focusing rural policy making within the department will give rural communities and interest groups a direct link to central policymakers and a stronger champion for rural issues at the heart of Government".[27] However, given that Defra is supposed to be taking on the breadth of the CRC's advocacy role within Government, it was disappointing that the Minister of State felt unable to comment on several issues raised in the CRC's report, for example, on rural housing, tourism and broadband.[28]

12. The department intends to reinforce its capacity to undertake rural policy work by strengthening its Rural Communities Policy Unit. The unit, which will have a complement of 33 staff, came into being on 1 December 2010, when 14 staff were formally transferred from the CRC to join Defra's existing rural team.[29] The Secretary of State has said that the new unit would work across Government to ensure that the interests of rural communities were reflected.[30] Defra did not produce a rural impact assessment of the Government's Spending Review, but its Rural Statistics Unit produced a "one page summary entitled 'Carrying out rural-urban distributional analysis of spending decisions' [which] included a link to the Commission for Rural Communities Rural Proofing Toolkit...", which was circulated to all departments in late August 2010.[31] Defra's Rural Statistics Unit and Rural Communities Policy Unit have also provided advice to Government departments in response to requests for assistance.[32]

13. The CRC was not only able to provide independent expert advice and analysis to Government on rural issues, but also took the initiative in bringing concerns to the attention of departments, Ministers and the Prime Minister. Defra describes itself as "the rural champion within Government", but we are yet to see any evidence that it will provide the same vigour as the CRC in pursuing solutions to rural problems.[33] The decision to abolish a source of external challenge and expertise should not be justified on the basis of whether or not the current Defra Ministers have experience of rural issues. It is not clear to us that abolishing the CRC will result in an improvement in Defra's rural policy development functions, or that rural issues will receive greater attention across Government.

14. We are concerned that, following the abolition of the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), there is a real risk of a diminution in rural expertise within Defra and across Government.

15. The Secretary of State told us that the new arrangement would provide "a stronger champion for rural issues at the heart of Government". However, we recommend that Defra set out in clear and unambiguous terms how its Ministers and Rural Communities Policy Unit will build their capacity and expertise in relation to rural issues and how they will provide the degree of 'challenge' across Government to act as effective advocates for rural communities. We further recommend that Defra's Rural Communities Policy Unit be required to:

work across Government to ensure policy is 'rural proofed',
make its work accessible to the public, and
continue the data collection and analysis work of the CRC.

Fulfilling these requirements should be included in the objectives of the Head of the Rural Communities Policy Unit.

16. Defra should, within six months of the final winding up of the CRC, publish an assessment of the work of its Rural Communities Policy Unit and an analysis of the overall savings achieved in providing Defra's rural policy and statistical work as a result of abolishing the CRC. Following publication of that report this Committee will wish to scrutinise the work of Defra's Rural Communities Policy Unit.

17 Commission for Rural Communities Annual Report and Accounts 2009-10, 20 July 2010, HC 200 Back

18 Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, sections 18-21 Back

19 See http://ruralcommunities.gov.uk/category/our-work/impact4/ruralproofing/ Back

20 For the written ministerial statement, please see: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100629/wmstext/100629m0001.htm Back

21 Q 7 Back

22 Q 8 Back

23 Q 8 Back

24 Ev 53; CPRE responds to scrapping of Commission for Rural Communities (CRC), 29 June 2010, http://www.cpre.org.uk/news/view/686; The countryside will be the poorer, The Daily Telegraph, 2 July 2010 Back

25 Q 101 Back

26 Q 166 Back

27 "Spelman announces agencies shake up" Defra press notice, 29 June 2010. Back

28 Qq 219, 220, 235, 183 Back