Environment, Food and Rural Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Quantera Limited

1. My interest and expertise in relation to this inquiry is as:

(a)A director of Quantera Ltd, a small policy and management consultancy (www.quantera.co.uk) where I have carried out assignments across a range of public policy areas, including rural areas policy.¹

(b)Chairman of the Board of the Plunkett Foundation since 2010 and a board member since 2008. The Foundation promotes community-ownership and other social enterprise approaches as a means of strengthening rural communities (www.plunkett.co.uk).

(c)A board member of the Community Council of Devon (www.devonrcc.org.uk) and of the umbrella body for rural community councils, Action with Rural Communities in England or ACRE (www.acre.org.uk), both appointments held since 2011.

(d)An adviser to the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), both to the national organisation since 2008, and to the Devon branch since 2011.

(e)Until 2006, a senior civil servant, latterly a deputy director for rural policy at Defra with particular responsibility for policy on support to rural businesses and for the Department’s approach to social enterprise.

In both my roles at (b) and (c) I have had recent dealings with Defra Ministers and RCPU officials.

2. What follows are my own views and do not necessarily represent the views of the Plunkett Foundation, ACRE or the Community Council of Devon.

Rural Communities Policy Unit

3. Any assessment of the RCPU has to recognise the limitations of its mission. Until the creation of Defra in 2001, most of the policy levers in relation to rural areas lay in the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, the exception being the rural development elements of the Common Agricultural Policy which resided in the former MAFF. DETR sponsored all the “countryside” bodies, particularly English Nature and the Countryside Agency (CA) whose chair was also the Rural Advocate. The CA had a wider economic and social remit than its predecessor, the Countryside Commission, apparently in response to a vocal lobby arguing that rural areas were disadvantaged in terms of access to services. Lord Haskins’ review in 2003 of Defra’s rural delivery bodies² recommended that the policy development and social and economic programme delivery function of the CA should be transferred to Defra and the Regional Development Agencies, with its landscape and recreation management functions being incorporated into what became Natural England. While accepting most of the Haskins prescription, Ministers decided to retain the policy and associated functions of the CA in a separate body which became the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC). The rationale for this decision appears to have been based on the political impact of abolition of the CA on the rural lobby rather than on any compelling policy or managerial grounds. The decision by the present government—with a stronger rural constituency than its Labour predecessors—to abolish the CRC tends to confirm this conclusion.

4. It is also relevant that Defra’s former Rural Policy Directorate, numbering about 100 officials at its peak, had a rural advocacy role—including rural proofing—inside government, with the CA/CRC monitoring Defra’s effectiveness. Although the Directorate was able to raise the awareness of rural differences within Whitehall, ensure that the Regional Development Agencies operated rural investment programmes, and use small sums of money to stimulate innovative activity (usually by the public sector) on the ground, it is difficult to make an evidence-based link between Defra activity in the previous decade and improvements in the economic performance and quality of life in rural communities.

5. The RCPU was therefore set up to exercise functions which both the Haskins review and the set of ministers appointed in May 2010 had concluded were unnecessary and which Defra itself had spent the better part of a decade trying to make effective. This is an unpromising remit. It may in part explain the “Year Zero” stance written into the RCPU’s objectives published on 1 April 2011 and adopted by some RCPU officials in public, which appears to ignore the substantial amount of research, analysis and policy development work carried out in the previous decade.

Effectiveness in engaging with rural communities, including the hardest to reach

6. The RCPU has shown considerable willingness to field officials to speak at local meetings and conferences. In my experience, officials come in listening mode rather than as defenders of government policy, offering to take back concerns to the relevant department. Whether the relevant department will act on what it hears is considered below.

7. That said, it is unrealistic to think that the RCPU can engage directly with rural communities to an extent sufficient to understand the diversity of rural community circumstances and ambitions. It should not try. Instead, there is a range of non-governmental organisations that can—and do—gather relevant evidence. Sources range from specialist university departments and research units to community development organisations—the intelligence collected by ACRE from the county-based rural community councils and submitted as quarterly reports to the RCPU is an example of the latter.

Effectiveness in engaging other government departments; and transparency

8. The RCPU’s functions are exercised inside government and so the conversations between RCPU and other departments (including other parts of Defra) which form the substance of its influencing activity are invisible to outsiders. It is therefore impossible to assess, in respect of any policy announcement by a department, whether:

(a)the RCPU was successful in ensuring that any distinctive factors in rural areas were recognised in the design of the policy; or

(b)the RCPU lobbied to ensure such factors were recognised, but was ignored by the lead department; or

(c)the RCPU itself did not spot that there was a rural proofing issue.

A published annual survey which categorised each policy announcement in this way would be a valuable aid to transparency and assessing performance, though of course revealing inter-department disagreements does still go against the Whitehall grain.

9. Without this information, we can only speculate. Published sources reveal some information. Recent examples are:

(a)The House of Lords Communications Committee’s recent report on the government’s broadband strategy highlighted the difficulties for rural communities posed by the operation of the Rural Communities Broadband Fund that is meant to assist them.³

(b)The CRC found that the number of young people who were not in education, employment or training in rural areas was increasing at at faster rate than elsewhere.⁴

(c)In evidence to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, Cornwall Council and Devon County Council are reported as claiming that the rural south west is disadvantaged in the allocations of regeneration funding to Local Enterprise Partnerships. DCC criticised the one-size-fits-all approach of the allocation of Regional Growth Fund money as unsuitable for rural areas.⁵

(d)The Department for Transport’s invitation to tender for the Great Western rail franchise includes a new flexibility which allows operators to reduce the number of times trains stop at rural stations.⁶

10. A particular test of the RCPU’s effectiveness would be in relation to the five rural priorities set out by Defra ministers. However:

(a)Broadband. As noted in paragraph 9(a), the House of Lords Communications Committee has identified weaknesses in the support for rural broadband provided from a fund run by Defra itself.

(b)Fuel. The RCPU report on fuel costs⁷ does not enable any analysis of the extent to which Defra has influenced what are largely Treasury decisions. The reference to the discount on petrol and diesel in remote communities relates only to islands, mostly located in Scotland outside the RCPU’s remit. Considerably more practical aid to mainland rural communities has come through the bulk oil-buying scheme devised by Oxfordshire Rural Community Council⁸ and now being rolled out by many RCCs across England.

External review of rural proofing

11.Rural proofing is not new. There has been a succession of reviews⁹ and guides on how to rural proof since the concept became government policy in the 2000 Rural White Paper.¹⁰ However the effectiveness of rural proofing depends less on guides and toolkits, helpful though these can be, and more on the influencing capability of the RCPU. This latter depends partly on collecting and deploying strong evidence which demonstrates the risks to the lead department’s policy objectives of failing to rural proof; but also requires political clout, particularly where the evidence is not compelling. At the end of the day, Whitehall is about trade-offs.

12.As noted in paragraph 8 above, external review of these internal dialogues has been limited. A National Audit Office study would be a useful means of securing a report where the facts are agreed between the NAO and Defra: this could provide the information proposed in paragraph 8.

Rural Advocate

13.The roles of the Rural Advocate and the CRC have frequently been blurred. Since both are meant to offer independent advice to government, this blurring is of little practical consequence.

14.Much of the objection to the proposal to abolish the CRC was based on the premise that there needs to be a strong, unified rural “voice” to government. This view diminishes the knowledge and expertise of those non-governmental organisations working with rural communities. Those organisations will have different perspectives, depending on their remit, but those differences serve to illustrate the plurality of issues affecting rural areas. By purporting to speak as the voice of rural communities, the CRC either interposed its own interpretation of reality between the information it gathered and the advice it gave to government, or it served as no more than a collator of information to be passed on to government. If the former, government itself is better placed—because it has the democratic accountability—to make choices between conflicting advice. If the latter, there are far cheaper ways of collating information.

15.These considerations apply equally to the CRC and to the Rural Advocate.

16.The notion of a Rural Advocate with direct access to the Prime Minister is, and always was, a presentational gimmick. Responsibility for responding to his reports has in practice fallen to the sponsor department (DETR, then Defra). It is arguable that the Prime Minister already has too many direct sources of advice. The competence of government might well be improved if departmental ministers took back the responsibility for being the sole source of advice to the PM and Cabinet within their areas of responsibility.

Government Policy

Rural Policy Statement

17. There is now considerable evidence¹¹ that social enterprise and community ownership approaches deliver benefits to rural communities, both in terms of ensuring the continuation—or initiation—of important local services and of building the social capital that underpins resilient communities. Many initiatives of practical value to rural communities have started within communities themselves rather than as a response to government policy, although small sums of targeted funding have been valuable. A firm endorsement of this proposition as part of the government’s rural policy would be significant. Evidence-backed statements by ministers across government about the benefits of community ownership will be powerful in developing sympathetic attitudes by public bodies—particularly local planning authorities, local enterprise partnerships and procurement agencies (national and local).

18. This approach, which is enterprise-led, is wholly in line with the government’s stated objectives of promoting policy drivers which are driven by civil society rather than reliant on the public sector. It would mark a complete break from the default mindset of the CRC which has been to see rural communities as victims whose woes could be solved (by others) if only the public sector would get its act together. Even at this late stage in existence, the CRC’s response to the lack of opportunities for young people in rural areas is to call for another coordinating minister.¹²

19. There are signs that Defra ministers accept this. It would nonetheless be useful to have it confirmed in the Rural Policy Statement.

References

1 See http://www.quantera.co.uk/governance/publications/index.html, particularly Rural Challenges, Local Solutions (an assessment of the effectiveness and recommendations on how to take forward the outputs of the government’s Rural Delivery Pathfinders programme) and Defra Land Use Project - Demonstrator Case Studies (A review of a set of land use case studies identifying key characteristics in the decision-making process and issues for policy-makers), and The Role and Potential of Rural Social Enterprise in the South East of England.

2 Defra, October 2003: Rural Delivery Review by Christopher Haskins (http://archive.defra.gov.uk/rural/policy/services.htm - accessed 1 Sep 2012)

3 House of Lords Select Committee on Communications First Report, 24 July 2012: Broadband for all – an alternative vision, paragraphs 153-160

4 Commission for Rural Communities, July 2012: Barriers to education, employment and training for young people in rural areas. (http://www.defra.gov.uk/crc/barriers-to-education-employment-and-training-for-young-people-in-rural-areas/ - accessed 1 Sep 2012)

5 Source: Western Morning News article, 1 August 2012: Growth funding failing in West

6 Department for Transport, 27 July 2012: Great Western Franchise Invitation to Tender, Document A, Train Service Requirement, paragraph 5.2(b). (http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/rail-passenger-franchise-great-western/a-service-requirement.pdf - accessed 1 Sep 2012)

7 Defra, March 2012: The Cost of Fuel in Rural Areas (http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb13741-fuel-cost-rural.pdf -accessed 1 Sep 2012)

8 See http://www.oxonrcc.org.uk/home/bulk-oil-buying-scheme (accessed 1 Sep 2012)

9 Such as the Rural Services Reviews – see http://archive.defra.gov.uk/rural/policy/services.htm (accessed 1 Sep 2012)

10 Our Countryside: the future, Cm 4909, November 2000: chapter 13.2. (http://archive.defra.gov.uk/rural/documents/policy/ruralwp/rural.pdf - accessed 1 Sep 2012)

11 For example, a Review of Rural Social Enterprise in England, December 2011 by the Plunkett Foundation for Defra (http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&Completed=0&ProjectID=17308#Description - accessed 1 Sep 2012); and the Plunkett Foundation’s annual reviews of community shops (2012 review at http://www.communityretailing.co.uk/whats-new/a-better-form-of-business.html - accessed 2 Sep 2012)

12 See note 4

September 2012