Rural Affairs

Chapter 12: Local power for country towns and villages

The issues

  • Rural communities could play a much bigger part in running their own affairs, influencing and shaping their future development but they often lack opportunities, and support.
  • Lack of involvement can result in an adversarial approach to change and less well targeted services.
  • There is a need for better partnership between all types of authorities, a greater willingness to work together and deliver locally managed services.
  • Rural areas often have a strong sense of community and a valuable network of voluntary groups, but these are under threat as ways of life, people and attitudes change.

The future - what we want to see

  • People living in rural areas being fully involved in developing their community, safeguarding its valued features, and shaping the decisions that affect them.
  • Flourishing local councils acting as the voice of the local community.
  • Strong partnerships between county, district and town and parish councils, supporting and encouraging rural communities on matters which local councils can manage themselves, and working in partnership on wider local services.
  • Support for established local voluntary networks in rural areas.

Summary of measures

  • The quality parish - a new role for town and parish councils;

  • Town and parish councils working in partnership with counties and districts to deliver more services locally, where this is best value, including Community Information Points;

  • Help for over 1,000 rural communities to prepare Town and Village Plans to shape their future;

  • Training and support for parish councils;

  • Better consultation between counties, districts and town and parish councils;

  • Increased support for voluntary groups.

Contents

12.1. Introduction

12.2. Strengthening town and parish councils the most local tier of local government

12.3. Town and village plans

12.4. Modern local government for rural areas

12.5. More active rural communities

12.1. Introduction

12.1.1. People in rural communities care strongly about the places where they live, about the services and activities that hold the community together, the local landscape and its features, and how it is likely to evolve in the future. Every country town and village has its own priorities, local strengths and distinctive features which are special and unique.

12.1.2. We recognise that diversity and local pride. We want to enable rural communities to improve their quality of life and opportunity. We want to give them a bigger say in managing their own affairs and the chance to give everyone in the community a say in how it develops. To achieve this we will:

  • Encourage all town and parish councils to reach the standards of the best, to achieve a new status in local government as the voice of their community and enable them to work more closely with their partners;
  • Enable larger and efficient towns and parish councils to deliver a wider range of local services in partnership with principal authorities;
  • Help all rural communities develop Town, Village and Parish Plans to indicate how they would like their town or village to develop, to identify key facilities and services, to set out the problems that need to be tackled and demonstrate how its distinctive character and features can be preserved;
  • Create stronger local partnerships in rural areas through more modern local government, including the Community Strategies prepared by Counties and Districts;
  • Help rural communities train and attract volunteers to support local projects.

12.2. Strengthening town and parish councils - the most local tier of local government

12.2.1. We want to give rural communities a bigger chance to run their own affairs. For most country people, the town or village is the defining measure of local identity and the parish or town council, as the most basic unit of local government, is closest to their communities. But there is a large variation in the size, role and vigour of local councils. Some represent a hamlet of 50 people and others a town of 25,000 and it would not be right to seek the same role for all. While some already set an outstanding example in community leadership, a large number could or would like to do more and we will help them achieve that.

Quality town and parish councils

12.2.2. The potential for towns and parishes to take on a stronger role has been highlighted over the last decade but too often the right framework of support from Government or local partners has been missing. We will put this right. We envisage a new concept of a quality town or parish council to equip local councils to take on a stronger role and which would be achievable by any parish council, whatever its size or role. We will be consulting widely, including with the Local Government Association in the Central/Local Partnership, on how best to achieve this. We will want to see piloted innovative and imaginative partnerships involving such quality councils, their principal authorities (counties, districts and unitary authorities) and others so as to give rural communities a better deal on local services and a stronger voice in decisions affecting people's day to day lives. A quality parish council will:

  • Be representative of all parts of its community;
  • Meet a quality test - show that it is effectively managed, with audited accounts and a trained clerk (See Box);
  • Be committed to work in partnership with principal authorities;
  • In proportion to size and its skills, deliver local services for principal authorities;
  • Work closely with voluntary groups in the town or village;
  • Lead work by the community on the Town or Village Plan;
  • Working with its partners, act as an information point for local services.

A quality test would operate through a series of simple criteria which can be easily validated. We will be consulting further on the details of these but we think they are likely to include

  • Electoral mandate - for example all parish councillors to have stood for election;

  • Minimum number of meetings in year (greater than the 3 meetings and annual meeting already required to show activity of council);

  • Trained parish clerk (to indicate a basic competence);

  • Published annual report describing its activities;

  • Up-to-date, unqualified and properly audited accounts;

  • For Best Value parish councils the test could include that the annual performance plan had been cleared by the auditor, and that no adverse report following an inspection had been issued;

  • A further test - of minimum size (perhaps based on annual expenditure) - would be used for councils wishing to consider taking on services from district councils. It would be open to smaller parish councils to meet this test through a partnership with a neighbouring parish council. It may be possible to require that councils wishing to qualify as ‘quality' parish councils, who are below the best value income threshold (£500,000 pa) but above, say, £100,000 pa, ‘opt in' to the best value arrangements and have their compliance certified by the auditor.


How a Quality Parish would work
The first requirement of a quality parish council is that it is representative of its community. To demonstrate that, it will actively engage all its residents, businesses and surrounding landowners and managers in its work through regular meetings and events, newsletters, surveys, working groups, youth councils etc. In conjunction with them it will identify the needs of its community and set out its priorities for action in a readable and widely available parish plan. Working in partnership with principal local authorities (counties, districts and unitary authorities) and other agencies affecting its village, it will be a key part of their local consultation processes - contributing to housing, transport, health and other local plans. Already, those parish councils who are best value parish councils (budgeted income in excess of £500,000 a year - see paragraph 12.4.7) will be doing many of these things to fulfil their best value duties.
The quality parish council, working with partners, including the voluntary and community sector, will undertake services funded from its own resources - looking after the village environment (litter, bus shelters, village green, cemeteries etc) and provide public facilities such as playgrounds and village halls. It will help to draw up a town or village plan, and support local biodiversity action plans. To promote inclusive communities it will support community transport schemes and childcare provision; seek suitable sites and projects for affordable housing, and help develop youth activities and services for the elderly. The quality parish council in partnership with its principal authority and others, may wish to take on the delivery of some services (eg facilities management, litter collection, street lighting) on behalf of its partners, where this represents best value and gives the local community the best deal.
Wired up through ICT, the quality parish council will be an access point for information about local services (bus times, taxis, community transport, concessionary fares, housing applications, council tax rebates/housing benefit, council agendas/minutes, local plan/planning applications etc) and for further advice.

"Do you feel that you get left out when it comes to sharing the money around?" "I'm sure we do, yeah, I'm sure we do" "The town was a lot better off when we had our own council"

See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan

Towns and parishes influencing and delivering local services

12.2.3. A parish council which meets the quality standard is demonstrating that it is active, competent and representative and, in relation to its size is able to play an enhanced role in partnership with principal authorities. We see the key elements of this role as being:

  • an integral part of all consultation and co-ordination arrangements set up by principal authorities and other service providers on how services are delivered in its area including Community Planning (see paragraphs 12.4.3-5);
  • partnership with principal authorities on the discussion, management and delivery of services which they, as parishes may carry out and deliver, on their partners' behalf, or using their existing powers, to give best value to local communities;
  • quality parishes to work with partners on provision of access points to information on services of principal authorities and linked to their IT systems, for example through operation of high street kiosks, information points or a community office which can be used by a range of different services (County, District, Parish and other service providers).

12.2.4. In most local areas strong links already exist between parish and town councils and the principal tiers. Following the joint Local Government Association/National Association of Local Councils concordat on relations between the tiers, many local authorities have agreed local level concordats and agreements on consultative and other links. These agreements can help parish and town councils, whatever their size, to contribute more effectively to local governance.

  • We will set out in guidance, which we will publish in draft for consultation, how a Quality Parish might work, what tests it should meet, and, building on the LGA/NALC protocol, how principal authorities and town/parish councils can work together in partnership to better meet the needs of their communities. We will include a model ‘charter' based on existing Best Practice by Counties and Districts which will enable principal authorities to set out the basis on which well managed parishes could act in partnership with principal authorities and deliver on their behalf neighbourhood services including provision of public information, management of facilities such as car parks, markets, or local amenities and maintenance and cleaning of public space;

  • Subject to consultation, we will amend our guidance on Best Value (see paragraphs 12.4.6-7) so that principal authorities include their terms for partnership with parishes on neighbourhood service delivery and to enable Town and Parish Councils who wish to do so to put their own proposals on service delivery. To support this process we will also consider changes to bring more Town and Parish Councils into the Best Value regime (as set out in paragraph 12.4.7).

  • We expect to see over time a significant increase in the number of service delivery partnerships between principal authorities and parishes which meet Best Value principles. These would entail Town and Parish Councils who are able and willing, taking on more of the most basic local functions, such as running the local market, car parks or providing public information, with the support of their partner authorities.

Case study - Staffordshire Parish Council Charter
The Staffordshire Parish Council Charter between Staffordshire County Council and the Staffordshire parish and town councils was agreed in 1995 and reviewed and renewed in 1999. It covers themes such as consultation, service provision, practical support and information and complaints. Under the charter, parishes have agreed to undertake routine highways maintenance (grass cutting, sign cleaning etc); to manage local public footpaths, and to assist in monitoring waste management sites for the county council. The county council has also led a number of training courses for local councils and has agreed the use of its central Print and Design Unit for local council publications and leaflets. The principles of the charter are also carried through into locally agreed charters between district councils and local councils. There is general agreement that the Charter has been a real benefit to improved inter-tier working in the county.

See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan

12.2.5. Our modernising local government agenda will promote much closer working between authorities - for example through community planning and Best Value. These give principal authorities a strong incentive to work in partnership with parishes among other local partners. And we want to encourage both parishes and principal authorities to work much more closely together. Our goal is greater co-operation between all tiers. As part of our consultation on Quality Parishes (as in paragraph 12.2.4) we would welcome ideas on how best to achieve this, including the contribution that conciliation based on local government best practice might make in bringing this about.

12.2.6. To help parish councils to meet the quality standard we will give them support and assistance. We will making available £2m over the next three years to help:

  • A national strategy to provide training and support for parish and town councils in partnership with NACC, LGA and IDeA - the local government training organisation;

  • The Countryside Agency will equip every town and parish council with access to an internet linked management and best practice toolkit to help provide simple guidance, learn from experience elsewhere, and make parishes more effective, representative and accountable.

See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan

Funding for parish councils

12.2.7. We want to make sure that the financial arrangements for parish councils will help them take on the new quality parish role. We are consulting in our Green Paper Modernising Local Government Finance on several reforms including:

Increasing or removing the limit on the amount that parishes can raise for expenditure that will benefit their area and for which they have no specific powers;

Strengthening the prevention of ‘double taxation' of parish residents - where they pay for a service to be provided in their area by the parish but also have to contribute to the cost of provision of that service elsewhere by the principal authority;

Simplifying the financial regime for funding capital expenditure by parishes and reducing the auditing requirements for small parishes.

12.2.8. The Green Paper also looks at whether different financial regimes should apply to smaller and larger parish councils (including the possibility of the latter having similar controls, freedoms, responsibilities and access to government grants and the business rate as principal authorities; and at how access to such funding could be managed in practice). To ensure that parish councils act with propriety the new ethical framework being introduced by the Local Government Act 2000 will apply to parish councils and provide a mechanism for upholding their ethical standards.

12.2.9. To help parishes do more to support their local communities we have also decided to give parishes more direct access to government funding for parish led transport schemes (as set out in chapter 6) and for the development of parish plans (see 12.3.3) and community projects identified in them (set out in chapter 3).

12.3. Town and village plans

12.3.1. We want to give rural communities the chance to set out what their town or village should look like and to guide its future development. The best decisions on these issues result from giving local people a share in those decisions. That means not only the opportunity to comment on individual proposals, but the ability to set out a vision of what is important, how new development can best be fitted in, the design and quality standards it should meet, how to preserve valued local features and to map out the facilities and services which the community needs to safeguard for the future. This can include the surrounding countryside, for example including Estate Plans and farm diversification.

12.3.2. By taking the policies set out in the local Development Plan and setting out their views on how those should be achieved, local communities have a real opportunity to influence the nature and quality of future development. Town and parish councils are well placed to lead this process and providing their Plan is consistent with the local Development Plan, and the relevant national planning guidance, the design and land use aspects can be endorsed by the planning authority as Supplementary Planning Guidance. This approach has the potential to reduce the adversarial nature of new proposals and reduce costs for all, but this will only be achieved if everyone in the community has a real opportunity to contribute their views.

12.3.3. Some communities and local authorities have prepared local design guides and some have carried out parish appraisal and Village Design Statements but overall less than 2% of rural communities have a plan or appraisal which is specific to their community. Creating such plans takes time, effort, and the commitment to try to achieve a common vision for the future. We will help local communities achieve that:

  • We will set up a new £5m programme administered by the Countryside Agency to help 1,000 rural communities prepare their own town or village plan;

  • We will set out in national planning guidance the role that town or village plans can play now as Supplementary Planning Guidance. We will also examine whether and how the role of more locally based plans in the planning system might be further developed.

Case study - Taunton Deane planning scheme
Taunton Deane Borough Council in 1993 initiated a trial scheme devolving minor planning decisions to eight parish councils (with populations ranging from 380 to 1,200). Planning Officers employed by the Borough Council attended and advised meetings of the parish councils discussing applications, at which applicants and members of the public had the right to speak. By the end of 1996, 249 planning applications had been decided by parish councils - in 237 cases the Planning Officer's recommendation had been followed, 10 had been approved against recommendation, and 2 refused against recommendation. No appeals were lodged in the first three years of the scheme's operation and the scheme has been judged very successful.

See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan

12.3.4. A town or village plan is also about much more than design and land use issues. Developing or safeguarding local services such as shops and leisure facilities and addressing community needs such as the availability of space for playgroups or a meeting room are issues which a comprehensive plan can tackle. The plan is an opportunity to develop community agreement on local priorities and options for addressing them and is an important input to the wider community planning by districts and counties described in paragraphs 12.4.3-6. below.

Case study - Braintree Quality of Life Plan
Braintree District Council's Quality of Life Plan 1999 was produced following extensive consultation and opinion polling, including active encouragement for parish and town councils to carry out their own community appraisals. A ‘Village Appraisal Fieldworker' was appointed to assist parish and town councils and community groups in carrying out the appraisal process. The 54 parish and town councils with the district have also formed 14 parish cluster groups which provide forums for bottom-up feedback to the district council and other service providers on local issues needing action, and an opportunity for neighbouring parishes to discuss issues of common concern.

12.4. Modern local government for rural areas

12.4.1. Town and Village Plans are an important input to a wider framework. To improve the full range of local services for rural communities needs a broader partnership approach which involves not only counties, districts, towns and parishes

12.4.2. Rural areas will benefit from more modern local government which contributes to a process of democratic renewal by ensuring that councils are accountable, open and responsive to local needs. Key reforms are: the duty to prepare community strategies; the changes to the constitutions of councils; the introduction of the best value regime; and local Public Service Agreements. Each of these is being implemented to reflect rural issues. We are also intending to modernise the local government finance system.

Case study - LGA Website of the Year 2000
The Rutnet (www.rutnet.co.uk) site is a partnership between Rutland County Council and Rutland On Line Ltd to provide an essential virtual community and information resource. The site raises awareness of the potential of the internet and e-commerce for local businesses, enhancing on-line information on lifelong learning opportunities and encouraging village communities to join and contribute to the information network.
Community strategies and community planning

12.4.3. Community leadership is central to the role of modern local government and counties and districts are well placed to provide a clear co-ordinated overview of a community's needs across a wide range of services and to ensure that action is taken to respond to them. We have therefore introduced a new duty on principal councils to produce community strategies which promote the economic, social and environmental well-being of their communities. They will be expected to bring together parish and town councils, other public agencies, the private and voluntary sectors and all sections of the local community, to identify and work towards a long term vision and action for improving the quality of life in their area. The town and village plans set out in Section 12.3 will be an important contributor to the community strategy for the wider local authority.

12.4.4. The community planning approach can particularly benefit rural governance because:

  • Typically rural areas have three (and four in areas with national park authorities) layers of local government - encouraging joint working and service co-location between these authorities (and others) can therefore be particularly fruitful;
  • There may be a perception which a plan can dispel that rural communities and their needs can be overlooked in some more urban dominated local authorities with rural fringe and/or hinterlands within their area;
  • Rural communities can be widely dispersed within a local authority area and can have, for various reasons, widely different access to services and different needs and aspirations. The community planning process should help to identify and meet these needs;
  • The integrated planning of services in dispersed communities is particularly critical to ensuring reasonable access to services and preventing social exclusion.

12.4.5. We believe that local authorities themselves, with the local strategic partnerships they establish and with the active involvement of local people, should determine the process for preparing their community strategies. However, we will:

  • Make clear in the community strategies guidance that the approach to preparing them should take account of rural circumstances in relevant areas, also setting out the role that effective parish and town councils can play;

  • Work with the LGA on the production of companion guidance on good practice for community strategies which will include examples from rural areas.

Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs)
We are currently consulting widely on our proposals for Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) which have the goal of improving public services by bringing together all service providers at local level, in partnership with their local communities and business sectors. We are not asking authorities to duplicate existing partnership arrangements, but rather to build on the arrangements they have already established. Partnerships set up in line with the guidance on community strategies would, by definition, be LSPs.

"I just think they need to stop lumping everyone together and think about places as individual rather than looking at one thing overall and saying, ‘Well that's good for everybody', ‘cos it doesn't work like that, ‘cos it's quite unique here - there's not many places that are this far away from anything. I just think it needs to be realised that it is different and needs thinking about in a different way"

Case study - New Commitment to Regeneration

The "New Commitment to Regeneration" approach developed by the Local Government Association provides models of how a Local Strategic Partnership can work. The twenty two local authority-led strategic partnerships comprising public, private, voluntary sector and community partners have included a number covering rural areas.

Herefordshire
The partners in Herefordshire are committed to the concept of ‘One Partnership, One Plan' to provide an overarching framework to link the needs of local people to specific policy agendas and individual organisations' business plans. But although comprehensive it is intended to keep the concept streamlined. The plan will, therefore, serve as a:

  • Community Plan;
  • Local Agenda 21 Plan;
  • Regeneration Strategy;
  • Local Performance Plan.

As a rural area, Herefordshire's main need is for the plan to provide for a widely scattered population where poverty and relative prosperity exist in close proximity. Community involvement and consultation is a crucial feature of a Herefordshire approach.

Case study - South Wiltshire Alliance
The South Wiltshire Alliance (a partnership involving 12 local stakeholders including Wiltshire CC and Salisbury DC) has been developing a joint approach to community planning since June 1998. Community plans have been developed for each of the six identifiable communities in South Wiltshire. Some 32,000 local people have contributed to the area plans which include ‘action plans' setting out targets for the local agencies on the priority themes: young people; crime; rural life and services; rural transport; and health and welfare.

See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan

New constitutions for councils - The Local Government Act 2000

12.4.6. The Local Government Act 2000 provides the powers and structures to help every county and district council to meet the needs of local people more effectively. The changes brought about under Part II of this Act will see the implementation of new constitutions for councils which will ensure everyone knows who is in charge of the local council and the services it provides. It gives authorities greater flexibility to adopt systems to suit their area; for example area committees may bring particular benefits to rural areas. Most councils will have the choice of three styles of executive governance: mayor and cabinet; leader and cabinet; and mayor and council manager. In addition to the executive arrangements available to all councils, there is an additional framework based on a modernised committee system with integral overview and scrutiny available to small district councils in two-tier areas. These options will enable rural councils to develop political management arrangements that will put in place the strong and accountable leadership that is necessary for building thriving rural communities.

Best Value

12.4.7. A central objective for both local and central government service delivery will be to develop clear and published targets for accessibility of all services, and the duty of Best Value (see Box) placed on local authorities sets the framework for this. While this process is still underway and it will take time for the full benefits to feed through, the approach has already helped authorities to improve their services in rural areas. Best value also applies to some 41 larger town and parish councils and we will look again at whether it would be helpful to bring more town and parish councils within this regime particularly where it supports partnership arrangements for the delivery of services on behalf of principal authorities by towns/parishes. In the meantime we will amend Best Value guidance to enable town/parish councils to make proposals on service delivery on behalf of principal authorities.

Best Value is a key element of the government's initiative for local democratic renewal.
The Local Government Act 1999 places the duty of Best Value on local authorities. It aims to improve accountability between local authorities and their communities by requiring best value authorities to produce Best Value Performance Plans showing their record of delivering local services and their plans to improve upon them. Local authorities are expected to set challenging targets for year on year improvements, covering both cost and quality. They need to establish and set out their priorities. These priorities flow from engagement with the wider community and from an authority's performance as an organisation and as a provider of services. Authorities have to draw up a programme of fundamental performance reviews of all their services over a five year period, which require them to:

  • Challenge why and how a service is being provided;
  • Compare with others' performance across a range of relevant indicators, taking into account the views of both service users and potential suppliers;
  • Consult with local taxpayers, service users and the wider business community in the setting of new performance targets; and
  • Use fair and open competition as a means of securing efficient and effective services, taking into account the opportunities for partnership with others in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

12.4.8. We are determined to make sure that Best Value delivers better services for rural communities. To achieve this:

  • The Best Value performance indicators which we are introducing include ‘fair access' to services (in terms of ease and equality of access). ‘Fair access' embraces both getting services to the people who need them and providing services to ‘hard to get at' groups. In both cases an important feature of the Best Value regime is to ensure that ‘fair access' embraces geographic accessibility for dispersed communities and people, for example villages or clusters of villages and market towns;

  • We will amend Best Value guidance so that principal authorities include the terms on which they would work in partnership with town/parish councils on delivery of neighbourhood services (see paragraph 12.2.4) and ask principal authorities to report on their consideration of town and parish proposals in their Performance Plan. To help parishes who wish to take on a stronger role we will also consider how to bring more town and parish councils within the Best Value regime without creating an unacceptable burden;

  • We are supporting the setting up of rural networks for authorities to develop and disseminate best practice within the local government community and promote joined-up and partnership working amongst the various stakeholders;

  • We are asking the Audit Commission as well as the Countryside Agency to review and report on how Best Value is promoting greater accessibility to councils' services in the light of experience;

See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan

Funding for local government

12.4.9. We will be providing average real increases of 3% a year for local authorities over the next three years. The extra costs for rural authorities in delivering services to a dispersed population are taken account of, along with other factors, in the current system for distributing revenue grant. In 1998 (before the current three-year freeze on grant distribution formula changes was introduced) we made an adjustment for the extra costs to social service departments of delivering domiciliary care (such as home helps) in rural areas.

12.4.10. Local authorities in rural areas and elsewhere have been contributing to the review of how grant is distributed to them. We have now issued a Green Paper consulting on proposals to modernise local government finance Modernising Local Government Finance and invited responses by Friday 8 December 2000.

Local Public Service Agreements (PSAs)
We are currently working with 20 local authorities to develop and pilot local Public Service Agreements from April 2001. The intention is that individual councils will be able to sign up to challenging targets in about twelve areas of national or local importance. In return, they will receive agreed operational freedoms and flexibilities to help them deliver their services more effectively, some limited financial assistance up-front and rewards for success if they meet their targets. Local PSAs therefore provide an opportunity for direct discussion between central and local government taking into account local circumstances, including the needs of rural areas.
The pilots include a number of counties with large rural areas (Kent, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Derbyshire and Warwickshire). We are currently discussing their proposals, which include targets for rural issues such as better rural transport, improved accessibility to services and pupil achievement in rural schools

See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan

12.5. More active rural communities

12.5.1. A healthy and active voluntary and community sector is essential to the effective functioning of society - urban and rural. The voluntary sector often steps in to meet local needs and fill gaps in services, and the social networks which link local residents also encourage mutual aid. Activity ranges over a very wide spectrum from organising leisure activities' through relatively informal volunteer-run welfare activities (meals on wheels, community transport schemes, play groups etc), to professionally-run projects by non-profit making organisations. The report by the Social Exclusion Unit Policy Action Team on Community Self-Help (PAT9) concluded that community activity needs sensitive, well directed support by local authorities, government agencies, and other public bodies in the form of commitment, training, and the will and capacity to work across organisational boundaries. Women are often at the heart of the social networks which link local residents and encourage mutual support. They play a key role in understanding and responding to the needs of rural communities.

Case studies - Chillington Village Care Scheme and Benington, Aston and Watton at Stone Transport Survey
Chillington village in Bedfordshire is running a Village Care Scheme. Volunteers have given every resident in the village a number which they can call and ask for help with virtually anything from a lift to the shops or changing a light bulb, to filling in a form or picking up a prescription.

The parishes of Benington, Aston and Watton at Stone in East Hertfordshire have undertaken transport needs surveys for their communities, identifying journey patterns, modes of transport and volunteers for a voluntary car scheme. A community bus scheme for elderly residents has also been piloted in Aston as a result of the surveys, and local transport timetables showing all modes of transport (including buses, trains, taxis community and voluntary transport) have been produced for each village and distributed to every household.
Voluntary and community sector

12.5.2. In rural areas, the voluntary and community sector is highly varied: individuals and purely local groups; branches or members of national organisations; and local development agencies working to support voluntary action. The 38 county-based Rural Community Councils are an important part of the voluntary sector in rural areas. They work to promote the welfare of local communities through voluntary effort and self-help. They undertake research, collect and disseminate information, provide technical and professional support and represent the voluntary sector.

Case study - Wensleydale Community Office
Yorkshire Rural Community Council (YRCC) was involved in setting up a Community Office in Wensleydale. The office is an access point for both district and county services ie housing, planning, social services etc, plus a Job Centre; Citizens' Advice Bureau; a police contact where crime can be reported and documents processed; business advice; trading standards advice; community education; tourist information; and, through links with the local college, training and work placements. They also provide internet access for the public; a laptop computer loan scheme for students; community printing; and paypoints for gas and electricity. Over 10,000 visits are made to the centre each year. The Community Office is the culmination of YRCC work over a long period of time with communities in the Upper Dales area through the Upper Wensleydale Community Partnership consisting of community organisations, businesses and county, district and the parish councils. The office now runs with little YRCC involvement but their role in setting it up was crucial. The office has been so successful that other communities are asking for YRCC's involvement to set up similar offices in other parts of Yorkshire.

12.5.3. We have increased support for the rural voluntary sector which now receives it from a wide variety of sources. These include local authorities, National Lottery Charities Board, and funding from the EU Leader Programme (in designated areas). The Countryside Agency provides funding for Rural Community Councils and for the NCVO Rural Unit; and for specific initiatives such as the Local Heritage Initiative, Millennium Greens, and Parish Path Partnerships.

Village halls and community centres

12.5.4. A key part of the infrastructure for much local voluntary activity is an adequate community centre - both as a place for meeting and to host activities. Rural communities will generally not have the access to the range of public buildings which voluntary groups in some urban areas will have but will depend on a village or church hall or other community centre. Current availability of such facilities is quite good (70% of parishes have access to some kind of facility) although the size may be limited and quality is very variable. Increasingly village halls are being used as access points for a wider range of services and other activities and we are encouraging this.

Case study - Mickleton Village Hall
Mickleton Village Hall (Teesdale, County Durham) provides a range of facilities for its local community including art, needlework, dance and women°s self-defence classes. The hall is also used for badminton, a youth club, playgroup, film showings, theatre performances and a day club for older people. The Hall has its own website, courtesy of www.teesdalehalls.co.uk, detailing exactly what and when events are taking place, and people are encouraged to come along to the hall°s monthly management committee meeting to offer any ideas or views they may have.
Supporting voluntary activity in rural communities

12.5.5. To strengthen the rural voluntary and community sector we will be taking the following steps

  • Making sure new government voluntary and community sector initiatives are accessible to rural communities. For example the two new Home Office funding projects for small community groups (the Community Resource Fund and the Community Development Learning Fund) which arose from recommendations in the PAT 9 report are both being piloted in rural as well as urban areas;

  • We will continue to support through the Countryside Agency the infrastructure for the voluntary sector in rural areas (the Rural Community Councils) including support for village halls. We are providing additional funds for community development work on social exclusion (see 4.4.14) and for community projects (see 3.2.5)

See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan

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Page last modified: 19 May, 2005
Page published: 28 November, 2000

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs