The future of LEADER in post-brexit Scotland

Last month the Scottish Government launched a public consultation to inform agricultural policy in a post-brexit Scotland. Proposals for a five year transition period for farming and rural support, should Scotland leave the EU, were announced by Fergus Ewing MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy.

The consultation is aimed at everyone who receives or benefits from Scottish Rural Development (SRDP) funding, including Scotland’s wider rural communities and consumers.

Put simply, if you have something to say about the way that direct payments or SRDP funding might work in the future, this is your chance to speak up, suggest improvements and influence policy makers at this crucial time for the future of Scotland’s rural economy.

A key proposal of the consultation document concerns the future of LEADER - a bottom-up method of delivering support to communities for rural development. Since the LEADER initiative’s launch over 400 applications for funding have been approved with 350 more applications in the pipeline, and over £40 million has been committed for new project approvals and LAG running costs. To quote from the consultation document:

“…the EU rules and processes governing LEADER can be perceived as prohibitive. Therefore, an approach during the transition period may be to continue with the current approach of vesting responsibility for relevant projects in the LAGs, guided by Local Development Strategies, but allow delegated authority for each area to manage the funding within local areas as they see fit, within some outline principles set by the Scottish Government. This would have the benefit of removing additional layers of bureaucracy, however, there would be a potential reduction in the benefits of central co-ordination which is likely to result in differences in approaches between LAG areas.”

This is a crucial opportunity for you to have your say on how the current approach adopted by LEADER can be adapted once it is no longer governed by EU rules and processes.

The UK Government have suggested that the future of support through LEADER may come under the new Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF), which proposes to replace EU economic aid after Brexit. There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the proposed SPF, and it is understood that a further public consultation will be launched in Autumn 2018 to help shape it’s future.

The deadline is now fast approaching for you to contribute your ideas on the future of LEADER funding and Scotland’s rural economy, with the consultation closing on the 15^th August.

You can take part in the consultation here.

Watch our video below for some great examples of LEADER projects in Scotland.

Scottish LEADER programme from ScottishRuralNetwork on Vimeo.