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06/06/2006
Rural communities must reject the subsidy culture
Rural communities throughout the UK and Ireland must move away from the subsidy culture which has sustained them for decades if they are to continue to survive and prosper, a major investigation has concluded.
The 20-month inquiry into country life is one of the most comprehensive ever conducted. The inquiry, carried out by the Carnegie Commission for Rural Community Development, was headed by Dame Diana Brittan and Lord Steel of Aikwood.
The Commission brought together a 28-strong group of international experts ranging from former NFU president Sir Ben Gill to former Northern Foods chairman Lord Christopher Haskins and Forum for the Future programme director and environmentalist Jonathon Porritt.
Today, 6 June 2006, the Commission publishes its first progress report. A final report containing firm recommendations will be published early next year.
Commission director Kate Braithwaite said: “We will be making a series of policy recommendations when the final report is published. However, there was one issue which was so obvious and so prevalent virtually everywhere we took evidence that we feel able to make it a firm policy recommendation now.
“We believe that the sustainable development and future viability of rural Britain and Ireland must rest less upon subsidy and grant and more upon the capitalisation of rural communities,” she said.
The investigation discovered that members of rural communities expressed a desire to be free from a dependence on outside funding, grants and subsidies. Excessive bureaucratic procedures and short-termism were often inhibiting rural community development. Additionally, the eventual disappearance of farming subsidies made asserting the independence of rural communities all the more pressing.
“We are urging what we term the asset-based approach as the most sustainable way forward for rural communities. The subsidy culture worked well in its day but that day has gone. We must now empower rural communities by way of wider access to and use of wealth and income-generating assets. For example, one of the DVD case studies produced for the Report tracks the progress of a small community in Scotland that manages woodland, a working watermill and several community buildings,” Ms Braithwaite added.
Other initial findings by the Commission indicate that the additional principal challenges facing rural communities include:
• Lack of affordable housing
• A low wage culture
• Limited employment opportunities
• Out-migration of young economically-active people
• Overly-complex rural development programmes
• Centralisation of services
• Management of land assets
The Commission also discovered that in many areas there existed huge untapped reservoirs of enthusiasm, commitment, knowledge and innovative thinking within communities which, if encouraged and replicated across the UK and Ireland, could fuel community development and reverse negative trends.
The Commission identified scores of community-run projects throughout Britain and Ireland. These projects, all underlined by a “fiery spirit” and the desire for community “self-help”, succeeded in spite of “global influences, byzantine funding streams and a spider’s web of British and European bureaucracy.”
The Commission has also discovered in the course of hundreds of interviews and a fact-finding mission covering thousands of miles that among rural communities there is some anger allied to a sense of not being able to influence change.
“This is not a new phenomenon. The history of rural Britain and Ireland is as much a story of hardship and despair as it is of hope and opportunity. Globalisation, changes in EU policies, the crises of BSE and Foot and Mouth, with the impact far beyond the faming community, and ever growing evidence that our models of economic development are not environmentally sustainable, indicates that we are at a watershed,” it adds.
“Decisions made on the other side of the globe have led to job creation and to job losses in rural communities throughout the UK and Ireland. Nowhere is globalisation more evident than the supply of food, with the average meal travelling thousands of miles before it reaches the plate.
“The effectiveness of governments – at supra-national, national, regional and local levels – and the market to address these challenges is quite rightly under scrutiny. Local communities seem powerless to respond,” says the report.
The Commissioners encountered frustration among communities which felt their efforts to tackle the challenges they face were being hampered by ‘one size fits all’ government policies. Often, these policies failed to recognise the individual characteristics and needs of particular rural areas.
Scotland’s ‘right to buy’ legislation, introduced by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act in 2003, was seen as an example of a policy which has encouraged creative, income generating partnerships between communities and landowners and which many communities called on to be rolled out across all regions.
Dame Diana Brittan said: “Over the past 18 months we have identified and analysed ideas, policies and programmes designed to improve the sustainability of rural communities and strengthen their voice. We believe that a cross-party consensus can now be created. More work, however, needs to be done to explain and develop the relationships between policies and practices designed to stimulate rural economic development and those designed to help rural communities as rural entities.”
The 20-month inquiry into country life is one of the most comprehensive ever conducted. The inquiry, carried out by the Carnegie Commission for Rural Community Development, was headed by Dame Diana Brittan and Lord Steel of Aikwood.
The Commission brought together a 28-strong group of international experts ranging from former NFU president Sir Ben Gill to former Northern Foods chairman Lord Christopher Haskins and Forum for the Future programme director and environmentalist Jonathon Porritt.
Today, 6 June 2006, the Commission publishes its first progress report. A final report containing firm recommendations will be published early next year.
Commission director Kate Braithwaite said: “We will be making a series of policy recommendations when the final report is published. However, there was one issue which was so obvious and so prevalent virtually everywhere we took evidence that we feel able to make it a firm policy recommendation now.
“We believe that the sustainable development and future viability of rural Britain and Ireland must rest less upon subsidy and grant and more upon the capitalisation of rural communities,” she said.
The investigation discovered that members of rural communities expressed a desire to be free from a dependence on outside funding, grants and subsidies. Excessive bureaucratic procedures and short-termism were often inhibiting rural community development. Additionally, the eventual disappearance of farming subsidies made asserting the independence of rural communities all the more pressing.
“We are urging what we term the asset-based approach as the most sustainable way forward for rural communities. The subsidy culture worked well in its day but that day has gone. We must now empower rural communities by way of wider access to and use of wealth and income-generating assets. For example, one of the DVD case studies produced for the Report tracks the progress of a small community in Scotland that manages woodland, a working watermill and several community buildings,” Ms Braithwaite added.
Other initial findings by the Commission indicate that the additional principal challenges facing rural communities include:
• Lack of affordable housing
• A low wage culture
• Limited employment opportunities
• Out-migration of young economically-active people
• Overly-complex rural development programmes
• Centralisation of services
• Management of land assets
The Commission also discovered that in many areas there existed huge untapped reservoirs of enthusiasm, commitment, knowledge and innovative thinking within communities which, if encouraged and replicated across the UK and Ireland, could fuel community development and reverse negative trends.
The Commission identified scores of community-run projects throughout Britain and Ireland. These projects, all underlined by a “fiery spirit” and the desire for community “self-help”, succeeded in spite of “global influences, byzantine funding streams and a spider’s web of British and European bureaucracy.”
The Commission has also discovered in the course of hundreds of interviews and a fact-finding mission covering thousands of miles that among rural communities there is some anger allied to a sense of not being able to influence change.
“This is not a new phenomenon. The history of rural Britain and Ireland is as much a story of hardship and despair as it is of hope and opportunity. Globalisation, changes in EU policies, the crises of BSE and Foot and Mouth, with the impact far beyond the faming community, and ever growing evidence that our models of economic development are not environmentally sustainable, indicates that we are at a watershed,” it adds.
“Decisions made on the other side of the globe have led to job creation and to job losses in rural communities throughout the UK and Ireland. Nowhere is globalisation more evident than the supply of food, with the average meal travelling thousands of miles before it reaches the plate.
“The effectiveness of governments – at supra-national, national, regional and local levels – and the market to address these challenges is quite rightly under scrutiny. Local communities seem powerless to respond,” says the report.
The Commissioners encountered frustration among communities which felt their efforts to tackle the challenges they face were being hampered by ‘one size fits all’ government policies. Often, these policies failed to recognise the individual characteristics and needs of particular rural areas.
Scotland’s ‘right to buy’ legislation, introduced by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act in 2003, was seen as an example of a policy which has encouraged creative, income generating partnerships between communities and landowners and which many communities called on to be rolled out across all regions.
Dame Diana Brittan said: “Over the past 18 months we have identified and analysed ideas, policies and programmes designed to improve the sustainability of rural communities and strengthen their voice. We believe that a cross-party consensus can now be created. More work, however, needs to be done to explain and develop the relationships between policies and practices designed to stimulate rural economic development and those designed to help rural communities as rural entities.”
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