Chapter 4: Modern rural services
- View findings from the Rural White Paper Review
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[142KB] - See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
The issues
- Quality of life for people in rural areas is generally good, but deprivation exists for people at all stages of life. Isolation poses special challenges for delivering rural services, especially to older people and those without cars, and can make it difficult to access employment.
- As services have become more specialist and diverse they have relocated away from rural communities, making access more difficult. On the other hand, new technology is making it easier to transmit information, bringing new solutions to bear on the problems of isolation. But people also need to be helped to adjust to these changes.
- There is increasing concern about levels of property crime and related issues, including drugs and youth offending. Crime and the fear of crime, especially for the elderly and those living in isolated places, damage quality of life.
The future - what we want to see
- Clear helpful information from service providers on access levels for all services in rural areas.
- A new deal on services which ensures that rural communities benefit from increased investment in public services and which tackles deprivation and social exclusion for all groups, including the jobless.
- Service delivery tailored to suit the needs of rural communities, exploiting ICT and new technology in areas such as health and education. A bigger role for service users and communities in designing solutions.
- Public facilities located to take account of their impact on user travel costs and on access for rural users. Service providers increasingly joining together to deliver a range of services from a single building.
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Summary of measures
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4.2. Health and social services
4.4. Tackling social exclusion
- Neighbourhood deprivation
- Social exclusion in the wider rural community
- Employment and income
- Cultural and leisure services
- Access to legal and advice services
- Our approach
- More resources, and more police on the ground
- Racism in rural areas
- New ways of working
- Greater visibility
4.1. Introduction
4.1.1. The problems of rural communities - isolation, lack of information, high travel costs - and of service providers in rural areas - sparsity, extra costs, scattered clients - are two sides of the same coin. Our new approach to delivering rural services will:
- Tailor services to rural needs and conditions, using new technology where it can help;
- Work flexibly, across organisations and making use of shared facilities;
- Understand the needs of users and plan services to their convenience;
4.1.2. Better services are key to tackling rural deprivation and exclusion, often linked to a severe lack of access to the most basic services or social and economic opportunity. The measures we are taking on health, education and social care will help address this. We aim to ensure that people no longer fall between the cracks: unable to access work or training because of poor public transport; feeling that they are outside the geographical reach of the social services; without a dentist, library or advice centre within easy reach. We want to be sure that the needs of people living in the countryside are consistently and equitably taken into account in the planning of services - whether provided by central Government, national agencies, local government, regionally based bodies or the private sector. The very fact that there will be a published set of targets and standards covering rural access to services (as set out in chapter 2), will focus attention on rural needs.
4.1.3. Not all services will be available in all towns and all villages (although the new initiatives set out in chapter 3 will help). But the ease of access to services is a crucial dimension for planning services in rural areas. It may be helpful to see how we envisage new rural services will be delivered. Services may be delivered to the home, eg by phone/internet, to the village service point (eg the post office) or to the nearby market town (see table below).
Table 4.1: improving rural services - home, village and market town
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In the home
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In the village
- business services
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In the market town
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4.1.4 In reaching decisions on locations of service outlets, it is important that service providers take account not only of the consequences for their own costs, but also of the consequences for their users and other providers - for example additional transport journeys to reach a more distant centre.
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We will ensure that rural needs are taken into account when policies are developed (see chapter 13) and improve the guidance on how to do this. DETR has commissioned research on how external costs such as those relating to rural access can be taken into account in assessing policy options. As a result of this work, a best practice guide will be published next year and made widely available. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.2. Health and social services
4.2.1. The challenge for health services in rural areas is to provide good quality accessible care to an often scattered population, and to ensure that people living in the country with particular needs have the same opportunities to benefit from targeted help as those living in towns. We are committed to the provision of comprehensive, high quality health care for all those who need it, regardless of ability to pay or where they live, and to ensuring greater consistency of access across the country.
4.2.2. The aim of the NHS Plan is to transform the health system so that it produces faster, fairer services that deliver better health and tackles health inequalities. Expenditure on the NHS will grow by one third in real terms in just five years. New investment - and new solutions tackling the problems of isolation - will deliver real improvements for people in rural areas through:
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Care and advice to people at home, and close by in modernised GP surgeries, primary care centres or through mobile service units;
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New primary care centres and new intermediate care facilities to bring care closer to the patient;
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Round the clock medical care for minor ailments and accidents will be available for all within convenient travelling distance;
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More accessible high quality specialist care in modern hospital settings;
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A more responsive pharmacy service.
4.2.3. The NHS Plan sets out the main national priorities. Patients should have fair access and high standards of care wherever they live. At national level the Department of Health will set national standards in the priority areas. National Service Frameworks (NSF) which set national standards for key conditions and diseases have already been produced covering mental health and coronary heart disease. A National Cancer Plan was published in September 2000, the NSF for older people will be published in autumn 2000 and the NSF for diabetes in 2001. Further NSFs will be developed on a rolling basis over the period of the NHS Plan.
Better access to health services in rural areas
"I had to go down and see a specialist and had to go to Poole and we had to leave here at 7.30 in the morning for the appointment, and when I got there it was only 3 minutes but even so it seemed such a... - when you could go just 5 miles to Yeovil."
4.2.4. We are committed to improving services for rural areas through access to quick, authoritative health advice. A single phone call to NHS Direct provides a one-stop gateway to healthcare, to give patients more choice, advice on care at home, getting further treatment, or dealing with an emergency.
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The 24-hour NHS Direct telephone advice service now covers the whole of England. In time NHS Direct will also be able to offer the option of ordering prescriptions and arrange for delivery to the patient's door with a single phone call, even in remote areas. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.2.5. We published a programme for modernising pharmacy in the NHS in September Pharmacy in the Future: Implementing the NHS Plan. Measures that will improve access for those in rural areas include electronic prescribing by ‘e-pharmacies': by 2004 your doctor will be able to send your prescription over the NHS net to a pharmacy of your choice - for example, one which will deliver medicines to your door.
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.2.6. Primary care services are being redesigned to offer faster, more convenient access to a wider range of services. These changes will bring many treatments closer to the patient and improve access to primary care services outside normal working hours and provide quicker and easier access in rural areas. Many more GPs will be working from modern multi-purpose premises alongside nurses, pharmacists, dentists, therapists, opticians, midwives and social care staff. These will include provision for video and telelinks to hospital specialists to help in diagnosis and test results, and direct local booking of operations and outpatients' appointments. An increasing number of consultants will take outpatient sessions in these centres, working alongside GP specialists.
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Capital investment of up to £100m under the NHS Plan in rural areas to provide over 100 one-stop primary care centres or mobile service units will provide better access to services for the majority of rural people. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.2.7. Many of the new resources for dentistry are going to health authorities with a rural population, including over half of the new Dental Access Centres and about three quarters of this year's £4m Dental Care Development Fund (see Modernising NHS Dentistry - Implementing the NHS Plan).
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NHS dentistry will be made available to everyone who needs it, no matter where they live, by September 2001. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.2.8. Many rural areas have a higher than average proportion of older people. The NHS Plan sets out a major package of investment to improve standards of care for older people. By 2004 the Government will be making available annually an additional £1.4bn for older people's health and social care services, of which £900m will be invested in intermediate care. This will promote independence and improve quality of care for older people, for example through specially designated hospital wards run by nurse consultants, and step down facilities in the community, including a new role for cottage hospitals. It will also include improved care services in the home.
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The NHS Plan will mean more patients recovering from operations in a smaller hospital setting close to home, such as in a community or cottage hospital. |
- Rural areas will benefit from the Government's hospital building and modernisation programme creating 7,000 extra beds in hospitals and intermediate care facilities and over 100 new hospitals by 2010.
- Booked appointments will allow people to go for treatment at a time when it is more easy and convenient for them to do so, enabling them to plan travel arrangements in good time if they have to travel far.
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New ambulance response time targets will apply from March 2001 (see table in Chapter 3) reducing risks to people in rural areas. The target of 8 minutes for life threatening (category A) calls is supported by additional funding for emergency ambulance services in areas where population density is low. And increasingly ambulance services are working with the fire and police services and with community volunteer schemes to deliver basic life support in an emergency, such as a fire or a road accident. For example in Essex, there are now increasing numbers of schemes using volunteers trained in basic life support and defibrillation to improve emergency health care in rural areas. |
| Health Improvement Programmes (HImPs) are the local strategies for improving health and healthcare in each Health Authority through the NHS and its partner agencies. They combine a range of nationally and locally set targets, including distinctively rural health needs - for example of elderly people living remotely who have difficulty accessing GP and hospital services. In Northumberland, one of the challenges identified in the Health Improvement Programme is that of getting services to people living in isolated and dispersed communities within rural areas. Young People's Drop In Centres have been developed in schools serving large rural catchment areas to address health, education and other social exclusion issues. Schools have been selected because they are at the centre of existing transport networks. |
Social services
4.2.9. Social services provided by local authorities in rural areas have a vital role in helping vulnerable people such as the elderly and disabled in their own homes and communities as was shown in the first comprehensive inspection of community care in rural areas Care in the Country published in 1999. They provide access to day care centres and home support such as home helps. We are working to improve access to a consistent standard up and down the country. There will be clearer responsibilities for local government to show how well they are serving local people, and a clearer role for central government to take action where standards are not being met.
| Health Action Zones (HAZs) are multi-agency programmes in 26 deprived areas involving NHS, local government, the voluntary and private sectors and community groups, to tackle major health problems such as coronary heart disease, cancer and mental health. They also represent a new approach to public health, linking regeneration, employment, education, housing and anti-poverty initiatives. Rural or part rural HAZs include North Cumbria, Hull and East Riding, Northumberland and Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. North Cumbria's Health Improvement Programme and Health Action Zone focuses on poverty, deprivation, rural issues and isolation as key determinants of health inequalities. £160,000 was allocated in 1999 - 2000 for innovative services for people living in rural areas in the county such as training a network of volunteers to develop new rural transport services, supplementing the services already available. |
| New initiatives for addressing stress and mental
illness, which are as prevalent in rural areas as
elsewhere, and where the suicide rate is higher, partly
reflecting the higher suicide rate among farmers.
The Department of Health is funding the mental health
charity MIND to carry out a project called RURAL
MINDS to develop training and education for those
providing emotional support in isolated rural
communities and to help people living in the country to
feel that support and understanding of their problems
are close at hand and a national network of support
for people in rural communities who are suffering from
stress and need help. As part of the Action Plan for Farming, MAFF is giving £500,000 towards a rural stress action plan agreed and implemented by the voluntary sector, including the Rural Stress Information Network (Telephone: 024 7641 2916, e-mail: rusin@btinternet.com). Several organisations are working in partnership to deliver support to make a difference to those in distress; details of the plan were announced in October 2000 (MAFF News Release 351). |
| Case studies - rural social care solutions |
| Dorset, Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire have
negotiated with housing agencies to provide day care
in the communal lounges of sheltered housing units in
villages, which are nearer to rural service users than
day care services in towns.
In Wiltshire, arrangements with cafes and public houses allow for the delivery of meals to recipients' homes or to be taken on the premises. Careline, a service in Derbyshire, provides a network of volunteers to make a daily telephone call to elderly or disabled people living alone and at risk. |
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See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.3. Education and learning
4.3.1. Improving education and learning opportunities for people throughout their lives is fundamental to our objectives for a globally competitive economy, a highly skilled and productive workforce, equality of opportunity, the elimination of child poverty within one generation, and a better quality of life for all. This applies in rural as much as urban areas. We intend to make sure that people of all ages living in rural areas have full access to the range of opportunities available and that obstacles to access are addressed.
4.3.2. Rural transport problems and the location of training can be barriers which deter young people from engaging in further education and training after finishing compulsory education at 16. The New Start and Learning Gateway initiatives involve personal advisers dealing directly with young people to help them overcome these difficulties - as, for example, in Norfolk, where public service providers areworking together to find solutions. Across the country, local education bodies are helping to fit budgets for supporting students with ways for students to travel to classes.
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The new Connexions service will build on this by providing young people with access to a personal adviser who will provide help, support and guidance through their teenage years. The Connexions service will be phased in from 2001 with pilots currently testing aspects of the service in 13 areas around the country. Pilots in Cornwall, Devon and Lincolnshire are focusing on rural issues as part of their activities. As part of the Connexions Strategy the Connexions Card aims to increase participation and attainment in learning by reducing some of the financial barriers, such as transport costs, preventing young people remaining in education. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.3.3. From September 2000 we will pilot the use of Educational Maintenance Allowances for 16-18 year olds to pay for education-related transport costs so as to help widen participation among 16-18 year olds from low-income families. The scheme will be piloted for three years in five areas, including Suffolk, Worcestershire and East Lancashire, and will include two approaches: one which pays the entire cost of the transport, the other which combines a weekly allowance with subsidised transport.
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We will consider extending to the rest of the country education maintenance allowances for 16-18 year olds in the light of the most successful approaches from these pilots. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.3.4. Higher education (HE) establishments are mainly located in larger urban centres and so less accessible to people in rural areas. One response is to take advantage of the increasing availability of distance learning. Degree courses and other HE qualifications available online - including full tutorial and other support services - are being developed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in the ‘e-Universities' project. For those in rural areas travelling to more traditional campuses a Hardship Fund of £57m (which covers both urban and rural areas) and bursaries are available to institutions offering higher education courses for 2000-01 for students who have difficulty in meeting their living and course costs, including travel to and from their place of study.
4.4. Tackling social exclusion
4.4.1. Social exclusion and deprivation in rural areas are significant and persistent problems. Although poverty is less prevalent than in urban areas, distance, isolation and poor access to jobs and services compound the problems of poorer people in rural areas.
Neighbourhood deprivation
4.4.2. In some cases deprivation will be evident across an area. A number of rural areas will benefit from a series of national targets set out in the cross-cutting spending review on Government Intervention in Deprived Areas (GIDA). These are designed to secure major improvements in rates of employment, educational attainment, health improvement, and crime reduction in areas where outcomes fall below the minimum standard we expect. Local communities have a vital part to play in identifying priorities for tackling deprivation and improving services in their areas, and in creating a strategy to tackle these priorities. We are currently consulting widely on our proposals for Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) (see para 12.4.5). These will be an important element in the fight against rural social exclusion.
4.4.3. We are allocating £800m over the next 3 years to the new Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) to help local authorities in the most deprived areas improve services for poorer people and deliver the targets. A number of rural areas will benefit - for example £3.1 milllion will be available for Kerrier and £1.7m for Allerdale over the next three years. A commitment to work towards the establishment of a Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), or alternative acceptable partnership working arrangement, is one of the conditions for those local authorities receiving NRF resources.
4.4.4. We are allocating an extra £210m over the next 3 years for the New Deal for Communities to help implement the Action Plan for Neighbourhood Renewal to be published by the Social Exclusion Unit in the near future. Funds will be used to establish:
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The Centre for Neighbourhood Renewal. It will promote best practice and improve the skills and expertise of those involved. This will include what is likely to work in deprived rural areas. Community capacity building projects and pilot projects for neighbourhood management in deprived (mainly urban) areas, will benefit a number of rural places. |
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The Indices of Deprivation 2000 These are a major step forward in assessing deprivation in both rural and urban areas. They provide new fine-grain information on six key elements or ‘domains', so that - for the first time - small areas experiencing deprivation can be properly identified. The six aspects are:
All 8,414 wards in England are ranked, showing how deprived individual wards are under each domain, as well as in an overall index of multiple deprivation. Information is also available at the local authority district level. The Indices of Deprivation 2000 will raise understanding of the complex nature of deprivation, including rural aspects like access to services. They will also be used across Government to target policies and allocate resources to the most deprived areas. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
Social exclusion in the wider rural community
4.4.5. Where deprivation is more isolated and less concentrated, we will tackle it through improving the targeting and delivery of main programmes, improving information and ensuring that new initiatives are piloted in rural areas (as with Health, Employment and Education Action Zones) so that in developing policies and disseminating best practice, rural impacts are fully taken into account and rural communities can fully benefit.
Employment and income
4.4.6. Providing employment opportunities for all is the single most effective means of tackling poverty and social exclusion. Employment enables individuals to improve their living standards; it also makes constructive use of human resources.
4.4.7. We are is delivering macroeconomic stability so there can be increasing employment opportunities for all; and employment in the UK is at a record level - up by over 1 million since the last general election. The employment rate of 74.7% is the second highest in the EU. We are making work pay through various tax and benefit reforms; raising standards of education to equip young people with the skills and knowledge they need to be able to take up jobs; and developing a culture of lifelong learning so we have a skilled, flexible and adaptable workforce.
4.4.8. We are also assisting unemployed people to acquire employability skills and find work through: the New Deals for unemployed claimants; helping those on sickness and disability benefits get back into the labour market and from there into employment through other welfare to work programmes such as the New Deal for Lone Parents; and taking a wide range of local initiatives designed to improve the functioning of regional and local product and labour markets. To help people further to make the transition from welfare into work, we announced in Budget 2000 a £100 job grant to help people make the transition from welfare into work; extended payments of Income Support for mortgage interest when moving into work, to match the housing benefit run-on already available; simplified rules for applying for these payments to increase take up; and a new childcare tax credit.
4.4.9. In rural areas employment among those of working age is generally higher (78% in rural districts compared to 73% for urban in 1999) and unemployment is generally lower than in urban areas (4.3% for rural compared with 7% for urban districts in England in 1998). But changing employment patterns, relatively high levels of casual and seasonal work, and problems with access to transport are all particular challenges in rural areas. There is also higher self-employment, with many on low incomes. Low wages are common.
"We've got one local supermarket at the moment. So that's retail, pack house work or farm - and that's it."
4.4.10. Although jobs come up all the time even in areas where employment is low, joblessness tends to be concentrated amongst certain groups and in certain localities in both urban and rural areas. A key element of our policy is about addressing this inequality. It is vital that people living in rural areas have good and flexible access to the employment services which will help them find suitable jobs; and that the services provided, such as the new Action Teams for Jobs in some rural areas, address the particular mobility and childcare problems people living in the country may have (see paragraph 6.3.3). New developments such as the telephone advice service Employment Service Direct are already making a big difference as people no longer have to go to job centres.
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From this Autumn 2000 vacancy information will be available on the internet and via computerised information kiosks at conveniently located public places. ICT Learning Centres will give access to Employment Service Direct and the Employment Service Learning and Workbank. This will increase the availability of access to jobsearch facilities and help for those people in isolated rural areas. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.4.11. Our welfare to work policies aim to assist people not in employment, particularly those on welfare, into work. The New Deal programmes (for 18-24 year olds, the long term unemployed, the over 50s, lone parents, partners of unemployed people and disabled people) concentrate support on those who find it most difficult to obtain work and improve their prospects of remaining in sustained employment. Personal advisers consider with participants how to break down barriers to employment through programmes such as improving basic skills and understanding of the qualities employers are looking for, training opportunities, in-work benefits and information on local childcare provision.
4.4.12. For Job Seeker Allowance claimants and participants in the New Deal and New Deal for Lone Parents schemes, individually tailored help is available for people living in rural areas, including help with transport and childcare (see chapter 2). The National Minimum Wage will particularly benefit rural workers because a higher proportion of rural workers are on low wages.
| Case study - Working Family Tax Credit: North Cumbria |
| The Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) provides support for low and middle income working families. The WFTC, together with the National Minimum Wage, provide a guaranteed minimum income of £208 a week for a family with someone working at least 35 hours a week. In Northern Cumbria a partnership approach led by the county council, and involving other local authorities, the voluntary sector, NHS, and parish councils, has successfully increased the uptake of this scheme. Some 5,400 local families with children are benefiting from the WFTC. The increase in the take up of the benefit was particularly noticeable in rural areas of the country, where many people are on low incomes. |
| Case study - Sure Start South Fenland |
| The Government's Sure Start initiative brings together
early education, health services, family support and
advice on nurturing to disadvantaged families. One
rural area selected as a Trailblazer for the approach
is South Fenland in Cambridgeshire. The area has
considerable problems including: low population
density and isolation making it difficult to sustain
community facilities and services and to access them;
low wages and high unemployment; the highest crime
rate in Cambridgeshire, including youth offending and
drug misuse.
Central government funding of nearly £2.9m over three years will enable a programme to go ahead to include: a mobile play and learning centre; a Sure Start shop; improvements to buildings and upgrading of outdoor play areas; a bookstart scheme; a network of trained childminders; information and advice for families, including early support for families who may be facing difficulties; specialist teaching and support for children with special needs; and a community transport scheme to improve access. The aim is to achieve social cohesion within communities in the area, with equal opportunities for quality, confident and independent lifestyles for tomorrow's children and their families. Sure Start South Fenland will be one of 500 programmes aimed at deprived communities in urban and rural areas. £1.4bn has been allocated to this initiative over the financial years 1999-00 to 2003-04. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.4.13. Successful action to tackle social exclusion in rural areas requires partnership action involving both local and specialist agencies. The Countryside Agency has a key part to play in developing expertise and knowledge, and we have already allocated an additional £3m over three years to the Agency to develop its programme of research, pilot projects and dissemination of information and good practice.
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See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.4.14. Over 50 rural local authorities are actively working with anti-poverty and social exclusion strategies. The Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) is working to encourage networking and good practice sharing, including between urban and rural authorities. Improved access to fine grained local benefits data has recently helped authorities to identify very small pockets of need in their areas. Local community action, through rural community councils, parish councils and voluntary organisations, is important in helping to assess and present needs, develop solutions and deliver services. Much hidden need has been identified and valuable innovative practice put in place as a result of community level action (for instance through the formation of village companies in coalfield areas with support from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust).
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See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
Cultural and leisure services
4.4.15. Access to cultural and sporting activity helps to provide an increased quality of life for rural communities. We are encouraging all local authorities to develop local cultural strategies which are based on a partnership approach. These encompass sport, countryside, parks and tourism as well as arts, cultural heritage and libraries.
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.4.16. Libraries play an important role in providing local facilities in rural areas through their branches and mobile units. They can draw on new technology to improve services and provide easy access to information about the locality and its services. Our aim to ensure a high quality library service will lead, in April 2001, to the introduction of the first library standards. These will cover location and opening hours to mobile as well as branch libraries.
4.4.17. The Government and three Lottery distributors have recently announced the Spaces for Sports and the Arts scheme providing £130m aimed at improving facilities in primary schools for dual school and community sports, drama, dance and other activities. It is targeted at areas of greatest need, including 14 largely rural counties such as Cornwall, Cumbria, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Kent, Norfolk, Northumberland and Somerset. This is part of our strategy for sport, A Sporting Future for All, the twofold purpose of which is for more people of all ages and social groups to take part in sport, and more success for our top competitors and teams in international competitions. This support is in addition to the commitment given by Sport England to fund 500 different facilities projects in rural areas as part of its current 10-year Lottery strategy.
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
Access to legal and advice services
4.4.18. Advice services, which help people resolve disputes and enforce their rights effectively, have a vital role in tackling poverty and achieving social inclusion. People in rural communities have traditionally had poor access to advice and many do not claim all the benefits due to them. We launched the Community Legal Service (CLS) in April 2000 to improve access to good quality legal advice. The CLS will focus particularly on access to advice on benefits, housing, debt, immigration and employment problems, based on an assessment of local needs. Local networks of legal advice services, consisting of solicitors, Citizens Advice Bureaux, independent advice agencies and local authority services, will be created and supported by local CLS partnerships - local authority, Legal Services Commission and other local bodies involved in advisory services. Their job is to find the best means of meeting local needs. In rural areas, this will mean overcoming problems of reaching remote and disperse rural communities.
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.5. Safer communities
4.5.1. Evidence from the British Crime Survey shows that the levels of general crime, and fear of crime, are significantly lower in rural than in urban areas. Burglary, violent and vehicle crime in rural areas declined from 1995 to 1997 and again from 1997 to 1999; violent and vehicle crime declined more in rural than in non-rural areas. But the threat of crime felt by rural communities is still very real. Greater isolation, personal experience and publicised cases can all add to this. Some crimes are specific to rural areas - thefts of livestock and farm equipment, wildlife crime and mass trespass. In some areas and for some individuals, these can pose particular and serious problems.
Our approach
4.5.2. There is no ‘acceptable' level of crime, and we are fully determined to tackle crime, and the fear of crime, wherever it exists. We have already launched a range of rural initiatives and are now building on these by
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promoting partnership working in ways that meet rural needs;
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providing extra resources to tackle the extra costs of policing rural areas;
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introducing new ideas and ways of working.
4.5.3. Local communities can identify problem areas, contribute to joint solutions with the police and provide vital intelligence through initiatives such as neighbourhood watch. This is additional to, not a substitute for, the growing resources committed by the police themselves and gives the community access to sophisticated crime fighting techniques.
4.5.4. Local crime reduction partnerships and strategies (set up under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998) bring together local authorities and local people, including parish councils. They are developing solutions such as ‘Watch' schemes covering farms, vehicles, horses, and increased provision for young people (such as dial-a-ride, schools-based community activities and young people's projects) to help prevent young people drifting into anti-social and criminal behaviour. Police and the farming community have together established 500 farm watch schemes across England and Wales. New regional crime directors will help local partnerships to deliver their goals.
| Neighbourhood Watch (Rural Watch in the
countryside) is based on the idea that getting together
with your neighbours can not only cut local crime but
can help to create communities which care. The aims
of Rural Watch are to improve two-way
communications between rural communities and the
police, to reduce opportunities for crime, and to
strengthen community spirit. It has given rise to a number of specialized "watches", including Horse Watch and Farm Watch. Horse Watch has resulted in many animals being freeze-branded and some having their owners' postcodes etched into their hooves. Tack is postcoded and postcodes are painted onto the roofs of horseboxes. Farm Watch schemes have arranged such measures as postcoding property, wheel-clamping mobile equipment, and painting postcodes on the roofs of vehicles. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.5.5. Closed circuit TV (CCTV) is increasingly being introduced by local partnerships as a proven way of tackling local crime problems, such as rowdy behaviour in small towns. A CCTV fund of £153m was announced in July 1998. Only 16 of 350 first round bids had a clear rural element, but rural bids have been specifically encouraged in the second round. Local communities can apply for Home Office funding through their local crime and disorder reduction partnership, perhaps contacting their local crime prevention officer or community safety officer in the first instance.
4.5.6. The use of neighbourhood wardens by rural communities to provide a uniformed, semi-official presence is another potential option for tackling crime at local level. Wardens can promote community safety, assist with environmental improvements and housing management and also contribute to community development.
| Case study - Neighbourhood Wardens |
| The village of Mullion in Cornwall is setting up a neighbourhood wardens' scheme with assistance from the Home Office/DETR Neighbourhood Wardens' Grant Programme. Mullion is in an isolated location and has high levels of unemployment and deprivation. The wardens' scheme aims to reduce crime and fear of crime, and reduce anti-social behaviour by involving the community in finding solutions to these problems. Two part-time neighbourhood wardens will provide an interface between the police, local authorities, older residents and the youth of the village, in an attempt to improve community relations. The wardens will take a proactive approach to tackling vandalism and will encourage the repair of existing community facilities. The wardens will work very closely with Cornwall's Youth Service. |
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.5.7. A rural family suffering domestic violence will feel extremely isolated when there is often literally no-one nearby to turn to. Four of the 34 projects being funded under the £7m Violence Against Women initiative of the Government's Crime Reduction Programme specifically address issues of rurality in connection with domestic violence
| Case study - domestic violence support |
| Victim Support in the Cotswolds have recently produced a publication entitled «Raising awareness of domestic violence in rural areas'. This covers an enormous number of initiatives they have been organising such as information stickers with contact numbers for Victim Support which are placed in public toilets. Another initiative involved Victim Support Cotswold working with British Telecom to place information sheets in all telephone kiosks throughout the Cotswolds - approximately 500 in total - to raise awareness of the services Victim Support offer and to enable victims to make untraceable calls for help. They advise that in many isolated communities there may be no Church or Village Hall, but there is always a phone box. |
More resources, and more police on the ground
| Case study - Community Safety Partnership |
| The Boston Community Safety Partnership scheme involves extending a current town centre CCTV system to cover a housing estate and to provide a mobile system for rural areas. The rural system will be targeted at crime hot spots but will also address the high level of fear of crime that exists in the rural area. |
4.5.8. Funding for rural policing has increased steadily since 1997. £15m from the Police Modernisation Fund has been earmarked for rural policing for this year and £30m next year. It has been allocated to police authorities on the basis that they must demonstrate real improvements in the policing of rural areas, responding to the needs of rural communities, including the farming community, for whom crime and fear of crime are a real concern. Police authorities will be required to set out clearly in each year's Best Value performance plans how that money has been used to improve services and how it will be used in the coming year. They will be required to demonstrate improvements that can be measured by Best Value Performance Indicators, focusing specifically on rural force areas. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary will inspect on the basis of this.
| Case study - response times | |
| Each police force sets and monitors key performance
targets, including speed of reaching incidents requiring
immediate attention:
Lancashire Police Authority covers both major towns and extensive rural areas such as the Ribble and Lune Valleys. The target is for officers to arrive at an incident requiring an emergency response within 15 minutes, in both urban and rural areas. The force has consistently achieved a high success rate over the past four years. In 1999/2000, officers attended 83,063 emergency incidents, arriving at 95% within the target 15 minutes. Response times are inevitably quicker in urban areas (average 5.5 minutes over a three-month period) than rural areas. But a well-developed road infra-structure assists in providing rapid access to rural communities when needed. For example, in one rural area the average response time to emergency incidents was 11.5 minutes (over three months). Both the Police Authority and the force place a high priority on officers arriving at an emergency both as quickly and, very importantly, as safely as possible.
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See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.5.9. Rural police forces have also benefited from the ring-fenced Crime Fighting Fund (CFF) money, which will allow forces in England and Wales to recruit 9,000 officers over and above their previous plans over the three years to March 2003. The Government and the public will expect to see results from the CFF recruitment - reduction in crime, with more offenders being brought to justice.
4.5.10. In the past 10 years, the pressures of modern policing have led to a reduction in the number of local police stations and of a permanent policing presence in many rural areas. An efficient police service does have to reappraise its estate. But we recognise the concern of many in rural areas at the loss of a visible police presence. We will encourage more active public consultation by police authorities and forces before any police station is closed.
See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
4.5.11. We are also working to increase the number of special constables in rural areas. Not only will this provide an additional visible presence in rural areas, but local recruits will bring local knowledge and expertise to the job of reducing crime and offending.
4.5.12. Illegal drugs are not just a problem of the inner city, but have spread deep into the countryside. We are ensuring that treatment services will follow by investing an extra £33m in drugs treatment services over the next three years.
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See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
Racism in rural areas
4.5.13. Research suggests that, relative to the number of ethnic minority people in an area, racist incidents and crime may be more common in the countryside than in urban areas. We are determined to tackle racism everywhere.
| Challenging Racism in the Rural Idyll This rural racism project reported in July 1999 and contains important information. Isolated families and members of ethnic minorities lack the support of a larger community and can feel, and be, more threatened. There is little official infrastructure to support ethnic minorities, by comparison, for example, with the activities of Race Equality Councils in more urban areas. "No problem here" is a common approach on the part of statutory agencies. |
4.5.14. Local crime reduction strategies should ensure that racist crime, and racist overtones to crime, are properly tackled. Low level vandalism and other nuisance directed at people from ethnic minorities may be especially significant. The Racist Incidents Standing Committee produced guidance in 1998 on multi-agency working, including in rural areas. Local crime reduction partnerships in rural areas should use positive recruitment campaigns to attract members of ethnic minority communities
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See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
New ways of working
4.5.15. We are enabling police officers to be more visible and effective on the ground, by reducing bureaucracy and by investing in new police technology so that police officers do not have to return to the police station to complete paperwork, but can process arrests and send the information back to the station on the move.
This year's budget provided a total of £285m to be spent on this area. Measures of particular benefit to rural communities include:
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See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
Greater visibility
4.5.16 One of the main concerns which rural people have on policing is to see and know more about how their area is being policed - how many officers patrol their area and what is being done to fight crime. Several police forces have developed good practice in this area, for example through measures to provide a regular police presence in village facilities such as the Post Office or community centre or a mobile police station, and to inform local communities how policing in the area is being delivered.
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See progress towards this commitment in the Rural White Paper Implementation Plan
Page last modified:
19 May, 2005
Page published: 28 November, 2000