Book Description

This is the 11th report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (HCP 544-I, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215524201) and focuses on the potential of England's rural economy. A report from the Rural Advocate to the Prime Minister in June 2008 (http://www.ruralcommunities.gov.uk/files/CRC74.pdf), estimated the untapped potential from rural business as between £236 billion and £347 billion per annum. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has not commented on these figures, but the Committee believes that if the figures are accurate, tackling the factors that inhibit growth of businesses in rural areas could make a substantial difference to the performance of England's economy as a whole. The Committee states that DEFRA should produce its own estimate and that the Department's present approach to the rural economy will not deliver the tailored solutions that rural business needs. DEFRA's new Departmental Strategic Objective (DSO) does not convince the Committee that this will identify the factors inhibiting economic growth. The DSO is spilt into two intermediate outcomes: (i) that the needs of rural people are met through mainstream policy; (ii) by supporting economic growth in rural areas with the lowest levels of performance. Both these outcomes are directed towards the objective of developing "Strong Rural Communities". For the Committee, DEFRA should focus on achieving economic growth across rural areas as a whole, and not exclusively concentrate on areas of the lowest performance and that the indicators obtained from the DSOs are incomplete, because they do not include transport, communications, planning and further education. Also, there is no distinction between different types and sizes of rural community. The Committee further states that DEFRA needs to consult with the Commission for Rural Communities on whether the indicators represent the best way of identifying problems. The delivery of the DSO's will also depend heavily on other Departments, Regional Development Agencies and local authorities and DEFRA needs to produce a delivery plan setting out what assistance it needs from these bodies.