Horizon Europe projects helping to inform Scotland's Rural Lens Toolkit & Rural Delivery Plan

Dr Jane Atterton, Senior Lecturer, Rural Economy Environment And Society, Rural Policy Centre and Senior Lecturer, Scotland's Rural College recently attended a webinar on rural proofing, organised by Horizon Europe funded projects working on the RUSTIK* and GRANULAR** projects.

The aim of the meeting was to bring together people working on rural proofing in different countries and organisations to share their perspectives and learning and to highlight gaps in knowledge and research that need to be filled. Learning from teh event will help inform development of Scotland's Rural Lens Toolkit & Rural Delivery Plan,

Below are her reflections as posted on Rural Exchange. 

These are particularly interesting times for rural proofing. EU Member States are being asked to do it as part of the EU's Long Term Vision for Rural Areas.

Closer to home, the Scottish Government's approach is to mainstream rural issues. In December 2022 there was a Cabinet Secretary commitment to take account of the specific circumstances of Scotland's rural communities in projects funded under the Government's National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET). 

Officials in the rural policy team in Scottish Government have developed a rural lens toolkit which is being used by several policy teams across Scottish Government and they are providing feedback on the process of using it to enable it to be refined. The Rural Delivery Plan (a commitment from former First Minister Humza Yousaf in April 2023) is also now being drafted which will demonstrate how all parts of the Scottish Government are delivering for rural Scotland. Expertise from academics who formed a SEFARI Specialist Advisory Group have contributed to these policy developments. All of these rural policy developments are particularly interesting alongside the legislative commitment to undertake Islands Community Impact Assessments (effectively to island proof) through the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018.

The webinar discussion was wide ranging, but I came away with a few take home messages which may be interesting to rural stakeholders across Scotland. First, we still lack up-to-date, fine grained data and analysis on rural circumstances. This is certainly not a new take home message! Hopefully the Scottish Government's Rural Data Dashboard and SRUC's annual Rural and Islands Insights Report (our 2023 Insights report can be found here, and the 2024 report will be published shortly) go some way towards helping improve this situation. 

Second, is rural proofing a process or an outcome? Betty-Ann Bryce from the OECD highlighted their recent report on rural proofing lessons from different countries and its potential application to health where this issue is discussed in more details. If the process of rural proofing is undertaken by a policy-maker as it should be (with reference to appropriate data and working through a checklist, with advice from rural policy colleagues, for example) but the policy is not changed as a result, does that mean that rural proofing has failed?

Third, there is a lack of spaces for informal policy learning. Several countries have at least talked about, if not tried to impose, sanctions when rural proofing isn't undertaken. But what might be more useful perhaps is the creations of 'safe spaces' where policy-makers in different departments can come together with rural policy colleagues and external stakeholders to discuss in a more informal and constructive way, how things might be done differently, and better, in future.

Fourth, the timing of rural proofing is critical. It needs to be started when the policy is just an idea or 'in pencil form' (to use Betty-Ann's term). But who is present and 'in the room' when this short window to rural proof opens? And where is the room? It may just be a small group of ministerial advisers or senior policy officials who meet in central government 'HQ' (usually in an urban location) and who do not have the time or capacity to start effective rural proofing at that point.

Fifth, the wider 'rural system' is critical to supporting the rural proofing process, and how this looks and operates will differ between countries. In Scotland for example we have biennial Scottish Rural and Islands Parliament and work to strengthen a rural movement, we have Scottish Rural Action, and we have a Scottish Government-funded Environment, natural resources and agriculture Strategic Research Programme. All of these should help to provide evidence (both rapidly and over the long term) and infrastructure to support rural proofing, but do we have the mechanisms in place to facilitate access to, and the exchange of, evidence and information as efficiently and effectively as possible?

Other issues were discussed too, including how we create a more positive narrative for rural proofing which emphasises the assets of rural areas and the value that can be gained for everyone by doing it, rather than being about rural needs and simply an extra thing for policy-makers to do. We also talked about the need for multi-level rural proofing at EU, national, regional and local levels. Professor Sally Shortall, who has done lots of work on rural proofing - including in Northern Ireland where it is part of legislation in the form of the Rural Needs Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 - brought a healthy dose of critique to the discussion too.

The meeting finished with a discussion about how the network of people present can continue to meet and discuss rural proofing which I personally think will be very valuable. I hope that the cross-sector dialogue can continue (and indeed expand) to bring together policy-makers, practitioners and researchers from multiple national contexts to share their insights on rural proofing.

Dr Jane Atterton

SRUC

*RUSTIK Rural Sustainability Transitions through Integration of Knowledge for improved policy processes

** The GRANULAR project, funded by the HORIZON research program, is dedicated to improving rural development through collaborative research and innovation. It aims to create sustainable and inclusive rural economies by leveraging the expertise of various partners.