The Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland: Process Evaluation published

Scotland's rural economy contributes significantly to providing employment for people and to the national economic output. Rural areas face particular skills challenges, including skills shortages, talent retention and attraction, and demographic challenges.

In response, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Government launched the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland: 2019-2021 in June 2019.

This plan sets out the strategic, partnership approach to support skills needs in rural Scotland, addressing the challenges through enhanced work-based learning pathways and by increasing access to education and skills provision in rural areas. It was intended to bring together a range of actions that would meet the current and future skills required for jobs in rural areas.

Evaluation

An independent process evaluation of the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland: 2019-2021 has been undertaken and has now been published. It considers how effective its Implementation Steering Group has been at driving actions, the extent to which the plan has delivered on its five priority areas and whether the creation of the plan contributed to additional activity and investment.

The evaluation covers all aspects of the plan including effectiveness, progress and benefits and details the evaluation methodology along with recommendations and conclusions.

Next Steps

The findings from this evaluation will be used to inform options on the future of the Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland.

You can find the full report here