Project summaries
This pamphlet focuses on the major service deficits which rural people face and suggests a new direction for policy to tackle the problem, aimed at bringing services closer to where people live, rather than expecting people to travel often long distances to reach the services they need.
In doing this, the pamphlet is contributing to the deep change that is taking place in perceptions of rural Britain, and perhaps of rural England especially. The most important shift is the loosening of the association between ‘rural’ and ‘agricultural’. The recent Cabinet Office report on rural economies not only recognises the difference between these two but, through its proposals for promoting non-agricultural economic development in the countryside, seeks to widen it. Meanwhile, newer associations, such as that between ‘rural’ and ‘environment’ receive further practical support through the new Common Agricultural Policy Rural Development Regulation and the government’s specific proposals for enacting it.
In developing the various arguments about rural service provision, this pamphlet also questions a number of popular perceptions, namely:
The difficulties facing poor people living in rural areas have recently become front page news and moved onto the government policy agenda. It is now agreed that there are serious problems, even if these are not immediately visible to the casual visitor.
Drawing on extensive discussions held in recent months with people in different parts of England, Ken Jones’ paper examines who rural people are, where they come from, what their expectations are and what their links are within the country. His key conclusion is that there is now a gulf between country towns and what he calls the ‘deep rural’, leading to doubts about whether the former can serve as a the basis of a regeneration strategy for the latter.
Many of the problems in rural areas are similar to those in inner cities. Peter Kenway’s analysis of newly available data on the number of people receiving the main means-tested benefits (Income Support, Family Credit or Job Seeker’s Allowance) shows the large numbers of poor people living in rural areas. For example, one third of recipients live in non-metropolitan counties, while every rural or semi-rural district studied has at least one ward where 1 in 6 of the population can be classified as living in poverty.
Whilst action is underway on inner city problems, much less has been done for rural areas. Although the problems may be similar, the priorities may be different. One important issue which has received relatively little attention, and which is the subject of this pamphlet, is that of service deficits for people living in rural areas. Such deficits cover both access/availability of services and service quality. Ken Jones’ and Phil Smith’s paper provides examples of the problems across the spectrum of services: from health through leisure and community services to shops and financial services. And these problems are not confined to the rural poor.
For at least the last decade, service provision, in both public and private sectors, has become increasingly centralised, with people then travelling to access these services. Whilst the economic reasons for this are clear, so is the potential impact on people living in rural areas, particular for the poor and the elderly.
The obvious response is to address the transport issues, but to some extent this only address symptoms rather than causes. More radically, all the papers in this pamphlet conclude that the policy framework should also include a drive to bring services, both public and private, closer to their recipients, wherever needs demand and the economics can be made to work.
Health services: In North Cumbria, local postmen, shopkeepers, what North Cumbria called ‘community connectors’ are being seen as a health resource – linking the isolated with service networks. In South Shropshire, there is a service providing locally responsive young-person-led provision to young people. Both these projects aim to overcome the conflicting issues of privacy of delivery and a limited number of outlets in rural areas.
Local resources: Pubs which are also shops and post offices, city-rim supermarkets with parking-lot farmers’ markets and village schools with community IT facilities are hampered either by planning constraints or by revenue costs. Herefordshire is currently developing IT links between centres in a range of villages, but the training catalyst for the project is concerned that it is dependent on volunteer-led initiative in each village. A drop-in centre with free Internet access and subsidised services and a training facility is used by an average of 850 callers per month from a catchment population of under 6,000.
Community enablers or ‘wardens’ are already being piloted in some previously troubled inner-city estates, where these paid individuals co-ordinate the provision of services so as to maximise the use of existing facilities. 80% of villages have village halls or at least one shop/post office. Financial institutions, legal and counselling services, add-on and complimentary health services, charity outlets and local produce and meat suppliers could make use of currently under-utilised facilities such as these if properly co-ordinated on a regular schedule, with frequency of service being dependent on take-up. This model has been piloted in rural areas in Canada and Australia.
Shopping: A project is soon to be launched creating a virtual supermarket from the forty or so different businesses in the High Street. Using a smart card, customers will shop in whatever store they wish, but only pay once, at the end. This new idea gains added value for the community by retailers and customers using the locally-owned and operated credit society as the clearing ‘bank’ for transactions.
Such a framework will need to explicitly address the issues of ‘deep rural’, avoiding the assumption that market town regeneration will automatically help communities and in particular poor people within the rural hinterlands of towns. It will also need to focus on empowerment - providing ways of helping rural communities to help themselves. Finally, reversing the trend to centralise service provision will only be possible if the viability of such provision can be shown in terms of cost effectiveness and long-term commercial viability.
In this context, many of the initiatives necessary to redress the problem of service deficits in rural areas will require government action at the national level in terms of policy and on the regional and local levels in terms of implementation. Andy Harrop’s paper provides a summary of current initiatives and concludes that a shift in emphasis may be needed.
The message that emerges from the papers is that a multi-dimensional approach to services is needed:
Much of what is written in this pamphlet is by way of hypothesis, to stimulate thinking and perhaps challenge received wisdom. This applies particularly to the underlying direction for policy being put forward, of seeking to shift services towards people rather people towards services. In the abstract, there is no doubt that this is a good idea. The question, though, is how much practical application it has.
In order to establish this, we propose to take this work forward through a series of detailed investigations in rural areas, both to understand needs better and to investigate emerging and innovative schemes for service provision that accord in broad terms with this perspective. In doing so, we will be working with both individuals and small, local groups, as well as rural councils and major, private sector service providers. On the basis of these investigations, we will then move on to develop a series of policy proposals, for government and others, in order to address the issues raised.
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