Rural Affairs

Chapter 4 - Summary of the Delivery Reforms

  1. The new delivery arrangements described in Chapters 1-3 adopt and build on the principles set out in Lord Haskins' Rural Delivery Review. They are aimed at delivering services in a more streamlined, customer-focused way by a smaller number of organisations, with clearer, and therefore more accountable, roles working in partnership within an overarching sustainable development framework.
  2. We have set out our action plan at Annex C in the form of a recommendation by recommendation response to Lord Haskins. In summary, the main elements of the delivery reforms are:

    1. Rationalised funding programmes. There are currently around 100 rural funding schemes by which grants are provided to beneficiaries. Defra will reduce these to three major funding programmes linked to Defra strategic priorities:

      • Rural Regeneration
      • Agriculture and Food Industry Regeneration
      • Natural Resource Protection

      Through this rationalisation process Defra will sweep away a huge number of (sometimes overlapping) rules and regulations that currently surround each funding scheme and which can frustrate customers as well as staff. A very small number of funding programmes will also allow greater flexibility of decision-making at the front line, to best address the particular needs and benefits sought.

    2. More professional and streamlined support for rural people, targeted on their needs. Defra will work with DTI, the RDAs and others to ensure that the national network of advice and support provided through Business Links and other business support providers meets the needs of rural businesses. This year, we are putting an extra £2 million into Business Links to improve support for the economically lagging rural areas. In 2005 we will participate with the Small Business Service and the Regional Development Agencies in a rural pilot to join up a wide range of services. Our aim is to ensure that a quality 'first port of call' service is available to rural businessmen and women that is tailored to their circumstances. This will include learning from existing good practice, including partnership working. We will be seeking feedback from rural businesses to check that their needs are being met.

      In parallel, and to underpin a better, more accessible service, Defra will streamline and professionalise the information services available on grants and support available from Defra and its agencies. This task will be greatly aided by the rationalisation of funding streams.

      We will also commission - with the Devolved Administrations - an independent and fundamental review of the role of the five statutory, producer levy-funded organisations covering the various agricultural sectors (meat, milk, cereals, potatoes and horticulture). This review will address strategic questions such as the extent to which existing organisations and functions remain appropriate, including whether a statutory levy should be retained; whether existing bodies might be merged; the relationship with non-producer parts of the chain; the interface with Government; and the inter-relationship with other private and public sector bodies in the agriculture, food and rural arenas. The underpinning context will be an assessment of the needs of both the industry and Government as the UK moves through very significant changes for agriculture and food supply chains in general - not least the implications of the June 2003 CAP reform agreement. The review will be asked to report in 2005.

    3. Clear responsibilities for policy and delivery and hence better accountability. Defra will assume full responsibility for rural and environmental policy functions, including the policy functions of the Forestry Commission in England. This will allow Defra better to address strategic issues across the board. Defra is also reviewing its policy-making function for the future.

      We will continue to devolve delivery responsibilities from core Defra. The Rural Development Service will move from the policy core of Defra and be given a substantially greater degree of autonomy from April 2005, as part of making rapid progress during the transition to the Integrated Agency. Our delivery organisations will be better empowered to provide expert advice to policy-makers, with close working relationships between policy-makers as 'intelligent customers and demanders' and the front line.

      At the local level, we will encourage the spread of existing good practice in the identification of a 'lead delivery agent' within a partnership, to avoid overlap of responsibilities and provide a clearer focal point for the customer. And - given the vital role of local authorities as community leaders - we will conduct a number of pathfinders at sub-regional level to look at innovative delivery solutions at the most devolved level.

    4. Better mainstreaming of the Government's response to rural socio-economic needs, and better targeting of deprivation in lagging rural areas through the devolution of decision-making to regions and of funding to RDAs. Defra will devolve some £21 million additional socio-economic funding, previously disbursed by the Countryside Agency, to the RDAs' Single Pot. We will also, from January 2007, devolve to the RDAs control of the EU social and economic schemes of the successor to the England Rural Development Programme (ERDP); to ensure the EU funding is joined-up with other rural regeneration and sustainable farming and food programmes. In the meantime, we will involve RDAs in decision-making in relation to the current ERDP.

      To ensure that decisions on rural requirements and funding are taken in a joined-up manner, including with spatial and other regional strategies, but reflect the particular regional circumstances, we will empower the Government Offices to broker and bring forward proposals for arrangements at the regional level that meet our policy principles.

      Key to these new arrangements will be the adoption of mechanisms to provide the 'Rural Priority Board' prioritisation function envisaged by Lord Haskins; and the strengthening of the Regional Rural Affairs Forums or some similar institution to provide a strong voice into the regional decision-making process from the customer perspective - for example on the quality of support provided to rural businesses. Also important will be the involvement of key delivery partners such as local authorities in the regional decision-making process. And the processes put in place should build on existing mechanisms, and build on good practice in relationship-building and partnership ways of working.

      In addition, and in order better to join up with other programmes for the voluntary and community sector, which help ensure capacity for tackling social exclusion and achieving renewal and regeneration, Defra will run its programmes through the Government Offices (up to now this has been through the Countryside Agency).

    5. Thinking 'rural', accepting regional variation, but holding to account against national standards. Devolving regional decision-making on the delivery of social and economic regeneration to RDAs, working in close partnership with local authorities and others - and avoiding imposing the same institutional solution on all regions - will help address regional variations in a more sophisticated way. This needs to be matched by a strong performance management framework. Defra will expect to see robust performance management arrangements for our delivery partners.

      To provide challenge to Government and fresh thinking on rural solutions, the Countryside Agency will be refocused as a New Countryside Agency - a small expert body providing expert advice to government and advocacy on behalf of rural people and businesses, especially those suffering disadvantage, and monitoring results. It will no longer be distracted from this important charge by delivery functions.

      The Government will also strengthen the link between Ministers and rural people in the regions, by developing a closer relationship with Regional Rural Affairs Forums and their Chairs. This will help Ministers understand the differences as well as similarities across rural England, seen from customers' perspectives. Defra Ministers will also hold an annual rural conference to hear a broad range of views direct from rural stakeholders from national, regional and local organisations.

    6. More coherent and effective environmental outcomes through organisational streamlining. English Nature, the landscape, access and recreation part of the Countryside Agency, and the environmental functions of the Rural Development Service will be brought together into an Integrated Agency with a remit across England's rural, urban and marine environment. The Integrated Agency will be a statutory executive NDPB. It will deliver stronger, more coherent management of our natural environment, with general land management improvements supporting the delivery of biodiversity PSAs; and with public access to, and the sustainable management of, our natural heritage addressed as mutually reinforcing aims. The agency will work closely with key partners, including the RDAs and others at regional level, but also with the Environment Agency, English Heritage and the Forestry Commission in England, and with local authorities. Prior to primary legislation, English Nature, the Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Service will continue to deliver their respective statutory duties, and will come together as a strong and tight confederation of partners, working jointly to achieve a common overarching vision and purpose that they will now develop.

    7. Sustainable development proofing the delivery arrangements. All delivery bodies should seek to work in partnership to achieve sustainable outcomes. It is right for each delivery organisation to have a primary economic, social or environmental remit - this provides focus and avoids confusion and overlap. But by coming together in partnership within a shared sustainable development framework, such organisations and bodies can integrate their goals towards sustainable rural communities and countryside.

      The Government Offices, with their cross-cutting leadership and brokerage role, will have a key part to play in ensuring that processes and programmes are coordinated within a sustainable development framework. The New Countryside Agency will, through its contacts at regional and local level, report on achievement on the ground in rural communities, in a sustainable development context.

  3. These new arrangements, as they are introduced, will be evaluated to ensure that they do indeed bring benefits to:
    • rural businessmen and women - who for example will spend less time filling in forms; will be helped through to sources of advice and assistance more quickly; and will be able to build better working relations with a smaller number of delivery organisations;
    • people living in the countryside - for whom decisions by government will be more relevant because taken closer to the ground; and who will have a strong expert body focusing exclusively on them, especially those suffering disadvantage;
    • people enjoying the countryside - from a single, coordinated approach to conservation and access looking for the 'win-win' solutions;
    • for the environment - from a more coherent, area-based approach to addressing the health of the environment and improving biodiversity;
    • for the taxpayer and society as a whole - from more efficient and effective administration, and decisions taken closer to communities where they are more likely to deliver the right outcomes; and
    • for staff in the bodies in question - who will have greater freedom and responsibility to make things happen and to make a difference.
  4. Taken together, this package of reforms and the benefits they will bring, represent a step change in the delivery of rural policy and services. The Government looks forward to working with partners at national, regional and local level to make the changes happen - and so be better placed to deliver on the priorities set out in this Rural Strategy.

Page last modified: 19 May, 2005
Page published: 21 July, 2004

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs