National Council of Rural Advisers ‘A Rural Conversation: Together We Can, Together We Will’

Policy makers need to think about the impact for the rural economy and communities from the outset when exploring issues and drawing in ideas that lead to policy development.
• Look at the range of people and networks contributing to discussions and bring in people and groups to give a rural perspective.
• Remember that there is more than one rural perspective on any issue.
• Ask those organisations who represent people and businesses across Scotland to specifically check with their rural members and identify their experiences and perspectives as part of their contribution.

Policy makers need to reconsider the processes they use in consultations.
• Include questions about the impact on the rural economy and/or on rural communities in each formal consultation, even when at first sight the topic does not seem to have a direct impact here.
• Allow long enough consultation periods for news of consultations to circulate to a wider range and larger number of people. They then need time to circulate to members and local people, hold discussions and gather views, and put together the response.
• Hold more events and meetings in a wider range of places, not just a few based in cities.
• Actively encourage national and sector networks to share with members and have their own conversations, and feed these in to formal consultations.
• Remember the challenges in areas where there is poor digital access and take more steps to enable people living in these areas to have the same opportunity to contribute as other citizens.
• A lot of this reflects the good practice in the National Standards for Community Engagement and would also bring greater involvement by people in all parts of the country.

There is also a major problem in many Council areas, when local consultations are on-line and meetings to develop or discuss policies and strategies are based in the main towns. Scottish Government setting an example of the good practice that all public bodies should achieve will be good. But there also needs to be more action to require other public bodies in Scotland to improve the way people and communities in rural areas participate in decision making.

A major opportunity and priority is more jobs for people in local communities for people who provide social care and related support. The population of older people is growing in rural communities, yet there are still huge gaps in the levels of care services in rural areas. As a result, people are forced to move away to towns or continue living in their homes with a poorer quality or life and higher risks. Creating more jobs will both keep older people in these communities, and so continue to contribute economically, and give jobs to younger people. There are good examples - such as the partnerships between Highland Home Carers and Boleskine Community Care and other local groups in the Black Isle and other parts of Highland, and the Care and Wellbeing Co-operative in Highland Perthshire - but these are exceptions.

More and better locally-controlled social care and related community supports will also help address the gender pay gap, as most of the people taking on these roles are women. Better process for encouraging and then the public sector commissioning small, micro and family support providers would also result in more businesses that are owned and controlled by women getting established and flourishing in rural areas.

The first inequalities are the differences in access to services and opportunities for people living in rural and remote areas and those for people of the same age, etc living in the main towns. This applies to people in all of the Equalities Groups.

It is important that the higher proportion of older people living in rural areas than in the rest of Scotland is not seen as a problem, which is implied by some local rural strategies. Older people make a significant contribution to their communities in buying goods and services form local retailers and businesses and in their roles as volunteers and informal carers and friends.

The rural businesses that are developing innovative social care models are producing good quality care that is often at an equivalent or lower cost than the models that are used in many other parts of Scotland and gives better quality of response. They also keep the value within that community rather than going to organisations based outwith the area and sometimes outwith Scotland.

In addition to the benefits to local people, they are also reducing the high levels of travel associated with conventional approaches to care delivery.

These models have the potential to also work in urban areas and could bring similar savings and benefits. This is another example of the value that the rural economy makes to the national economy and wellbeing.

We need more locally based development support that has the values, approach and ethos of Growbiz. This should be available in every part of Scotland.
• Locally based and going out to people
• Covering the range of stages and development support, from initial sketchy ideas to keeping established ventures going
• Supporting user-led initiatives and working well with people who are older, disabled and from other equalities groups.

We also need more development support that works across sectors – social enterprises, commercial activities, voluntary and community and initiatives growing from the public sector – and gives people opportunities to work together and to learn form each other’s skills and experience.

It will help if there are opportunities to do this built in to all initiatives led by the Scottish Government, such as sharing good practice on education or social care provision. Most of the current networking brings people together in cities with no opportunities for people to visit other projects in rural areas, etc – mostly because this is easier for the organisers and to reduce travel costs. Building in at least one learning or networking session each year that specifically looks at learning across urban and rural areas would get this increased understanding more of a routine thing that people do.

This is in addition to any other initiatives that are developed to share ideas and joint working across rural and urban areas more generally.

Care and Wellbeing Co-operative in Highland Perthshire: https://thecareandwellbeing.coop


Dementia- friendly community in Helmsdale: https://adementiafriendlycommunity.com

People we meet say they need locally based services that are flexible and can adapt to what people in each place need, rather than standard services based on models planned for urban areas. This applies to all the services they use – childcare, social care services, health care services, community development support and more.

More social care support is a high priority for people living in most rural areas.

There also needs to be more activities that bring together people from across the community. This is more about creating the circumstances in which local people can organise this themselves.

There needs to be more emphasis on health services going out to local areas. We hear of good outreach services being cut because it takes staff time - but the impact for local people who rely on the services and find it difficult to travel to hospitals etc is huge. NHS services need more positive encouragement and expectations to find partnership solutions with voluntary and community groups etc.

Having more, and more flexible and locally-based, community development support would enable more people to develop micro enterprises and peer support –based activities that would help fill many of these gaps.

In some areas a significant problem is access to physical spaces where people can meet and do things. There are many factors contributing to the problems, but positive promotion of the opportunities around asset transfer and more development support to people in local communities to get to the point where they can take on these opportunities will make a big difference.

The procurement and commissioning polices of many Councils, NHS services and other public bodies undermine the rural economy rather than support it. There would be a significant impact if they did more to encourage
• small, micro and family businesses, and
• locally based providers.

Our understanding is that there is already more flexibility within the procurement guidelines than staff in many public sector roles use, but the EU procurement rules and risk (even if very small) of potential legal challenge (even if very unlikely to be successful) is often given as the reason who public bodies use full competitive tendering in circumstances when it is not needed and/or results in outcomes such as the gaps in social care support and undermining local businesses.

It will help if the Scottish Government talks to Councils and other public bodies about their procurement and commission practices across all service and responsibilities:
• How to make this support the rural economy – take a wider view of benefits and value
• What forms of tendering etc work in which circumstances
• How to make sure the social benefit and other clauses are included and ways to both support the rural economy and give good quality and value for money
• What will support potential suppliers for work with the public sector – both as part of developing a varied suppler base and supporting the rural economy.

This is alongside having initiatives like Growbiz that enable more small and micro providers to cope with tendering processes and other ways ot dealing wit the public sector.

Housing is a major problem in many areas – finding enough smaller, accessible and affordable houses for older people to move to and for younger people who want to work in the area.