RDC(3) P&D30

Rural Development Sub-Committee

Inquiry into Poverty and Deprivation in Rural Wales

Response from The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA

Introduction

1.  The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) represents the 22 local authorities in Wales, and the three national park authorities, the three fire and rescue authorities, and four police authorities are associate members.  

2.  It seeks to provide representation to local authorities within an emerging policy framework that satisfies the key priorities of our members and delivers a broad range of services that add value to Welsh Local Government and the communities they serve.

3.  This response has been discussed and approved by the WLGA Rural Forum.

The WLGA Rural Forum

4.  On the 30^th of November 2007, the Council of the WLGA agreed to the establishment of a new WLGA Rural Forum.  This step now formally acknowledges the important status of rural affairs within the Association and allows us to explore those matters, whether socio-economic, demographic, cultural and so on, which may play out differently in rural areas.  The purpose of the WLGA’s Rural Forum is:

• To provide a local government forum for exchanging views on key issues affecting rural Wales;(1)
• To provide a co-ordinated approach to key strategic issues affecting local authorities in rural Wales;
• To identify items of common concern and to discuss ways of addressing them in co-operation;
• To co-ordinate "lobbying” / representational actions on issues of common concern to achieve better outcomes for the communities and people of rural Wales;
• To identify potential areas of collaboration and joint work for the benefit of rural areas;
• Where possible, to speak with one voice for and represent the interests of local authorities in rural Wales;
• To undertake such other collaborative discussions about rural Wales as are agreed to be appropriate, to further the economic, social and environmental well-being of rural areas.

5.  The WLGA Rural Forum includes leading local politicians of the councils seeking to serve the population of rural Wales who have first hand information on how Assembly Government policies impact on rural Wales.  The aim of the WLGA Rural Forum is to promote actions aimed at sustaining rural communities - maintaining, and where necessary restructuring the functionality and balance of rural settlements to provide reasonable and affordable access by rural residents and communities to the range of services, facilities and opportunities which are necessary to achieve economic and social

wellbeing.  

General points to raise from the WLGA Rural Forum

6.  Members of the Rural Forum fear that there is a view in Cardiff Bay that rural Wales is somewhere where 'people go for a pleasant holiday’.  It is nice to look at and therefore must be a privilege to live in.  It seems to be forgotten that 70% of Wales is eligible for European Convergence Funding because of the relative poverty of rural Wales.  

7.  One problem in rural Wales is that poverty within these areas is dispersed rather than concentrated and often therefore fails to meet the eye of the holiday maker or the data of the statistician.  

8.  The Government is increasingly using the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation despite arguments that it only includes concentrations of poverty and fails to capture the isolated and dispersed rural poor.

9.  Health statistics report higher life expectancy at the level of the rural counties. They fail to capture the fact that there are wards in rural Wales with Wales’ lowest life expectancy where the low incomes, isolation, fuel poverty and lack of access to fresh food are causes of ill-health.

10.  The regeneration of rural communities is at the top of the priorities for the WLGA Rural Forum. But it is unclear as to who it is we should be working with at the Assembly Government.  Elin Jones AM is the Minister for Rural Regeneration, but Ieuan Wyn Jones AM has responsibility for the economic development of the whole of Wales and Leighton Andrews AM is the Minister for Regeneration.  How do all these Ministers work together to serve rural communities?

11.  The increases in fuel prices are having a disproportionate effect on rural populations. Car ownership in rural Wales is the highest in the UK, not because of affluence, but because there are no other means of transport. The Welsh Assembly Government is now putting in over £40 million a year into free bus passes but in rural Wales there are no buses. This is yet another policy which is not designed to meet the needs of rural Wales.  The Local Transport Services Grant that local authorities might use to protect our limited bus services has been cut every year in real terms. Combine this with rising fuel costs and it is predicted even fewer rural bus services will operate in the future.

12.  The rural local authorities believe that the various funding formulas used by the Welsh Assembly Government take insufficient account of the extra costs of delivering services in a sparsely populated environment. Equally it is believed that the measures used do not recognise the demands created by the rural poor who may be dispersed in such a way as not to be picked by deprivation indicators. In the Assembly there are many voices that make the case for urban deprivation; we feel that the case for deprivation in rural areas is not heard often enough.  In principle, the Forum believe that, wherever possible, responsibility for delivery should be decentralised to ensure that the needs of rural communities are fully taken into account, and the community leadership role of rural county and county borough councils reinforced.  

13.  Rural services depend on the people who provide them; both awareness of, and the demand for, essential public servants has grown, but action is needed to ensure that rural areas have access to a pool of key workers.  This means recruitment and retention, training and development, and affordable accommodation designed to support key workers should be given particular attention.  

14.  Whilst technological advances mean that rural communities should be able to gain virtual access to many services, the value of mobile services shouldn’t be underestimated.  Fiscal relief in this area would greatly assist.  

Living in a rural area: assumptions, preconceptions, myths

15.  Rural areas have natural advantages in abundance; open space, tranquillity, low levels of crime, and a generally better balance between work and life.  However, there is also much that countryside communities lack; affordable housing, transport and employment opportunities for their local people.

16.  The image of the rural idyll often masks a harsh reality of low earning, unaffordable accommodation, low wage and low skill economies based on a large number of small businesses, or self employment, and low levels of public and private service provision.  Work and lifestyle choices are limited in terms of availability and accessibility.  Whilst it is impossible to direct the private sector to provide work in any one part of the country, a strong rural infrastructure will, in and of itself, influence a more favourable distribution of employment.  

17.  We are beginning to see areas where the population imbalance will lead to severe problems in the future in terms of care, for example, areas with a preponderance of older people without the benefit of the subsequent generation to support them.  Isolation is particularly acute for older people and young people, and this problem is aggravated by a local of transport, including to and from work and post-16 education and training.  

18.  Low wages and under-employment: whilst official figures may be low, real earnings in the countryside fall way behind the national average, and many are only partial or seasonal forms of employment.  There is a significant level of out-commuting, and increasing costs of fuel have a very significant impact on peoples’ outgoings, especially given the lack of an integrated transport network. All those who cannot drive because they are too young, too old, disabled or the second adult in a household with only one car are disproportionately affected by the lack of public transport and by the lack of local services within reach in a reasonable time on foot or by public transport. The economically active without cars for the same reasons are also excluded from access to jobs.

19.  There are a disproportionate number of people working in the public sector in rural Wales, and overdependence on one or a limited number of employers is risky.  Well educated young people are leaving, and there’s an inflow of people retiring to the country and rural coastline for better lifestyles.  There is severe local pressure on affordable and accessible housing, and in terms of planning and delivering high quality and sustainable public services for the future, a large question hangs over the ability to recruit, train and maintain local staff.

Question 1

What are the poverty/deprivation problems faced by rural areas? What are the specific needs of rural areas in relation to this issue?

20.  In terms of rural areas deprivation tends to be hidden or dispersed in isolated pockets; often people who experience poverty and deprivation in rural areas live alongside individuals with a greater degree of affluence. WAG deprivation indicators and measures do not capture this problem, and particular forms of this deprivation include:

- Household deprivation - low incomes and lack of affordable housing

- Resource / opportunity deprivation - inability to access services and job opportunities

- Mobility deprivation - obstacles to access suitable jobs, services and resources such as training, childcare, social services etc

21.  There are some big challenges on the horizon for rural areas, ranging from likely effects of climate change to the rise in fuel poverty, and also the demographic challenge of dealing with a growth in the older people population across rural Wales.

22.  Fuel poverty is a growing and critical issue across Wales. In essence this is closely related to the price of fuel (i.e. the dramatic recent increases against a backdrop of generally more expensive provision), income (which as WAVE demonstrates tend to be lower in certain rural economies e.g. Powys) and the energy efficiency of dwellings. This means that there are specific issues relating to fuel poverty and rural circumstances.

In broad terms the characteristics of the Welsh housing stock leads itself to be a challenge within the energy and carbon conservation arena i.e.:-

- 32% of the Welsh Housing Stock has Solid Walls which are difficult and expensive to insulate. Many of these are across Rural Wales.

- 37% of the Welsh Housing Stock is off the gas network which means householders must use more carbon intensive and expensive heating fuels i.e. oil and electricity. Alternative low carbon technology is available but the market is not mature enough for prices to be affordable. 90% of all new build in the much colder countries of Scandinavia install heat pumps as the main heating technology. Although these technologies consume electricity, they are considerably more efficient and will halve carbon emissions in comparison to oil and electric heating systems. They are also much cheaper to run. A high capital cost is what is preventing the uptake of these technologies.

23.  Some rural authorities also have a higher portion of these 'hard to heat’ properties e.g. of Gwynedd’s properties:

1. 60% have solid walls
2. 50.8% do not have access to mains gas
3. 44% of Gwynedd households earn less than £10,000 per annum which equates to high numbers of fuel poverty.

Demographic issues

24.  Broadly speaking, Older People can span 5 decades from 50+ people preparing for retirement through to a growing number of people living well beyond 85. Their individual circumstances and needs will vary considerably. Also this group spans the wealthiest, most powerfully articulate citizens to those who are the most excluded and poorest in our society. Living in rural areas for the latter group adds to the difficulties that they face in everyday life.

25.  There is little research in this area but some studies a few years ago(2) emphasised that there can be pockets of poverty in general affluent communities. In small isolated communities the real extent of a person’s poverty or deprivation can be concealed in order to keep up appearances.

26.  A key component of older age is the degree to which people are able to maintain their independence. The ability to access transport is often key to living an independent life e.g. the ability to do your own shopping for food and to get it home is vital. Inability to maintain social contacts and friendships can lead to isolation and loneliness, which can lead on to mental health issues. A comment often heard from older people in rural areas is that free bus passes for older people are fine but no use if there are no buses or you cannot get on one. Free swimming might be good but may be difficult to achieve between bus timetables so in reality is an advantage only to those with their own transport.

27.  There is a considerable amount of good will and neighbourliness which enables older people to manage many functions of daily living but this good will be stretched by events like health treatment, where journeys can be long, hospital transport poor and unsuited to an elderly patient (e.g. incontinence problems). The issue is how do older people maintain their dignity and independence in these circumstances?

28.  It is difficult to determine to what extent older people live in poverty/deprivation in rural Wales as individuals might not identify themselves as deprived. Income may be lower bur expectations may be as well. It may well be that older people manage on a weekly budget but have difficulty in replacing household goods or have to make choices about eating or heating (a study looking at these issues is currently underway in the Northeast of England).

Rural premium

29.  The costs of providing local authority services in rural Wales are higher, and, to an extent, this is recognised by WAG in terms of the settlement and dispersion indicators used to take account of the additional time and distance costs associated with service delivery to dispersed communities.  For example, waste has to be transported for greater distances before it can be disposed of; Social Care and Health staff have to travel significant distances between clients.

30.  However, although the costs of providing services in rural areas is recognised to an extent by some in WAG this is not recognised or understood universally across the board by policy and decision makers.  This is a key lobbying point for the WLGA Rural Forum.

31.  Prices tend to be higher in rural areas.  This is partly a reflection of transport costs to deliver goods and services to a widely dispersed and low density population in rural areas, but it is also partly due to the lack of competition.

32.  In relation to increases in road fuel costs, those living, working and providing services in rural areas are hostage to fortune; any increase in fuel cost simply has to be absorbed and other things have to go by the wayside as a result of this critical dependence.  

Restricted access to basic services and facilities

33.  Restricted, partial, or no access to services are the most commonly quoted drawbacks of living in a predominantly rural area.  The public have to travel a long way to access services, which is inconvenient and expensive in terms of high levels of car ownership and escalating costs of fuel.  

34.   There is also the problem faced by authorities who have to take their services to the public - high costs associated with transport, 'down time’ between visits, the need to maintain large numbers of peripatetic staff and maintaining outreach facilities. Recruitment of specialist officers can also be very difficult.  

35.  The most worrying and motive manifestation of this problem is in relation to emergencies; the public are at higher risk due to the time taken for emergency services to reach them, and the time taken to travel those distances, which can be considerable, to reach appropriate medical facilities.

36.  Choices are limited in terms of goods and services on offer.  High speed broadband connectively would help, but the availability of this service is patchy and the impact of that will be felt most keenly when the digital switchover takes place and some people may have to rely on internet based services for television.  

37.  The Access to Services Domain in the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2005 set out to identify people who could not access basic local services within reasonable time on foot or by public transport. 46% of the 80 Lower Super Output areas (LSOAs) in Powys were among the 10% most deprived LSOAs in Wales for Access to Services.(1)

There are a number of national/strategic drivers to support improvements in access to services.  These include:

One Wales: A progressive agenda for the government of Wales

"Our programme of government over the next four years will involve:

• Improving regional and national transport
• Improving accessibility.”

People, Places, Futures: the Wales Spatial Plan (2004)

"Ensure that we provide high quality services as accessibly as possible by reflecting changing demographic structure and distribution, providing community services in the main local settlements and specialist services in the area centres.”

• "Improve links between settlements, their hinterlands, and with regional centres in sparsely populated areas to provide access to employment, shops and services, appropriate to the needs of the local population.
• Develop to provide innovative solutions for the delivery of public services, education and training and business opportunities locally.”

Making the Connections: Delivering Better Services for the People of Wales (2004) and Delivering Beyond Boundaries: Transforming Public Services in Wales (2006)

Which stress putting citizens first (and involving them in the design of public services is central to achieving radical change), the importance of delivery agents working together to share ownership of actions and the need to be measuring and reporting on public satisfaction - and using citizens’ experience of accessing services to improve business processes and drive up performance.

The fundamental dilemma for public services is how to provide minimum standards of service within the resources available, and in the absence of the economies of scale, available to more populated urban areas.   

Question 2

Are anti-poverty/deprivation activities best dealt with by the Welsh Assembly Government or by the Local Authorities? Why?

38. Anti-poverty and deprivation activities are best addressed when everyone works together to address them, and this involves national, regional and local sectors, organisations and agencies. Tackling poverty requires strong partnership working to deal with all its forms and causes which are complex and cross cutting.  What is important is that there is a clear strategy and direction of travel with all partners understanding their contribution to reducing poverty and deprivation.

39.  In terms of the role of WAG, it needs to provide and demonstrate national strategic leadership and direction that enables others to act and provide a context that encourages collaboration and joint working. Further, it needs to work closely with the UK Government on poverty and deprivation issues as many of the policy and delivery levers that need to be acted upon rests with the UK Government, not least the benefits system. WAG also has a significant role in terms of ensuring that there is sufficient funding in place to fulfil its policy aspirations.

40.  Local authorities are an important partner in demonstrating local leadership and enabling partnership working at the local level. Given the role of local authorities as community leaders, articulating a vision for the local area, and as providers of key services, a number of solutions to tackling poverty and deprivation are best dealt with locally, within the wider strategic context set by the Assembly Government.  Authorities have, for many years, prioritised the need to tackle poverty and deprivation and more recently the Strategy for Older People and the Rights into Action agenda have ensured that issues of poverty affecting children and young people and older people are addressed as a corporate issue affecting many aspects of local government policy and direct service delivery.

41.  Organisations in the community and voluntary sectors also have a key role to play as they are often close to the local issues on the ground and key organisations such as credit unions and the citizen advice bureau have an important role in the delivery of solutions to address the issues. By all interested parties working together, aligning priority areas of work for action, concerted efforts and positive outcomes can be achieved in reducing deprivation and eradicating poverty.

Question 3

i)  what anti-poverty/deprivation initiatives (Welsh Assembly Government or Local Authority) are you aware of?

42.  There are a number of such initiatives from WAG (see below). It would be useful to have some clarification and guidance as to how all of them fit together as there is a need to ensure a coherent and coordinated approach to ensure maximum impact and avoid duplication.

Welsh Assembly Government

• Wales Spatial Plan
• Wales: A Vibrant Economy
• Skills and Employment Strategy
• Public Health Strategic Framework for Wales
• Rural Health Plan
• Child Poverty Implementation Plan
• Flying Start
• NEETs Strategy
• Regional Transport Plans
• Structural Funds Programmes  
• Communities First/Next
• Rural Development Plan
• Rural Community Action
• Heads of the Valleys Programme
• Môn a Menai Programme
• Link Age
• Deprivation Grant
• Strategy for Older People

Local Authorities

• 4 Statutory Plans:
• Community Strategy
• Health Social and Well being
• Children and Young People Plan (particularly Core Aim 7)
• Local Development Plan
• Other strategies including: Regeneration and Economic Development Strategies and Action Plans.
• Some local authorities have developed Anti-poverty plans.  
• Local Authority wider projects and initiatives around community cohesion, race, gender and disability equality schemes, access to employment and training opportunities etc.

43.  Child Poverty Pilot Project:  This project, funded by the WLGA, Save the Children and WAG runs for two years (from October 2007 - 2009) with a dedicated staff resource, its primary objectives are to:

• assist councils in developing local approaches to reducing child poverty
• work with two pilot sites to test policy interventions and outcome measures
• develop a National Improvement Tool that will support implementation of a corporate and sustainable approach to tackling child poverty
• mainstream learning throughout local partnerships

The pilot sites include a rural and urban location - Gwynedd and Rhondda Cynon Taff.

44.  In September 2007, the Gwynedd Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership decided to establish a new Planning and Development Group to support its efforts to address and alleviate the causes and impacts of child poverty in Gwynedd. The objectives of this group include supporting and assisting the Gwynedd Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership to identify, analyse and monitor levels of child poverty in Gwynedd and to develop, coordinate and promote policies, plans, strategies, programmes, projects and services to address and alleviate the causes and impacts of child poverty in Gwynedd. Further, by identifying, disseminating and learning from best practice locally and nationally regarding initiatives that seek to address and alleviate the causes and impacts of child poverty it is hoped that good practice can be shared across other rural local authorities in Wales.

i)  Do these anti-poverty/deprivation policies adequately address the needs of rural areas?

45.  Welsh Assembly Government policies do not adequately address the needs of rural areas. There is a need for better understanding and recognition of the issues that face rural areas that require different solutions to address them. It is clear that one size does not fit the whole of Wales and that there is a need for different solutions. Although the Wales Spatial Plan recognises this to some extend the actions of WAG fails to recognise the need for different approaches and solutions in different areas.

46.  The current blanket approach to service delivery fails to recognise and address the needs of rural areas. For example, the emphasis in documents such as the Beyond Boundaries: Citizen Centred Local Services for Wales on providing minimum standards and minimum entitlements provide a real challenge for rural areas. There is a real need to both recognise and identify the additional financial burden of providing services in rural areas, and to allow local authorities the flexibility to innovate and design services and interventions which meet the specific needs of people living in rural areas.  

47.  In terms of minimum entitlements, for example, WAG is currently consulting on proposed Measures for 14-19 year olds as part of its Learning Pathways initiative, which includes a local option menu offering wider choice and flexibility which may require a learner to attend more than one institution and which would include a minimum entitlement for learners in each area. This represents greater challenges in rural areas as there may not be the number of providers able to contribute to these options as there may be in urban areas, where there is likely to be a higher concentration of providers offering a greater number of options. Further, access to learning can be restricted to learners in rural areas as transport issues are magnified.

48.  There is no recognition of the additional costs of providing services in rural areas, the

so called rural premium, to reflect and recognise additional costs of  delivering services to a smaller and sparser population.

49.  The limited amounts of funding, and the short term nature of WAG funding streams,

is a barrier to adequately address the needs of rural areas. For example, the Deprivation Grant only provides £22 million for the whole of Wales.

50.  The new European Structural Fund Programmes for Wales favour urban areas. For example, the WAG decision to use the WIMD to target funding under Priority 5 of the Convergence ERDF Programme for West Wales and the Valleys (Building Sustainable Communities) favours urban areas as the WIMD identifies concentrations of deprivation and is not an effective indicator to measure rural deprivation.

51.  Further, there are concerns that plans for activities within the Research and

Development, Innovation, ICT, Business Finance and Enterprise priorities, which are very predominant parts of the new Structural Fund Programmes, and those that will receive most of the funding, will favour urban areas. There is a need to ensure that national actions developed under these parts of the programmes are relevant for rural as well as urban areas and recognise, for example, that innovation can mean different things and involve different approaches in a rural context. Further, there does not seem to be a recognition in national plans for these activities of the need to address market failures through public sector intervention, be that in terms of ensuring adequate broadband access or providing small level grants to small and medium sized businesses within rural areas. The message seems to be that rural areas should look to the new Rural Development Plan to fund regeneration. However, this is not adequate as the levels of funding involved are very small in comparison to the Convergence and Competitiveness Programmes and, the RDP covers both rural and urban areas.

52.  As a result of WAG’s blanket approach to RDP coverage the limited amounts of funding involved will be spread thinly on the ground making it difficult to deliver strategic interventions that will make a real difference to rural areas. In order to have made it easier to fund strategic interventions, and to ensure that rural areas maximised the benefits from the RDP, it would have been better if a strategic decision was taken by WAG from the outset that only the rural local authorities were eligible to apply for the limited amounts of funding available under the RDP. This would have made it easier for WAG to justify concentrating the funds from Priority 5 of the ERDF Convergence Programme on the more urban areas due to their decision to use the WIMD.

53.  The WAG approach to the RDP originates from a decision taken over 2 years ago to

undertake a ward-level statistical analysis of the whole of Wales to identify and agree a set of wards that could be considered eligible for support under Axis 3 and 4 of the new RDP in Wales. There are a number of reasons for questioning the appropriateness of this approach to defining eligible areas for the new programme. In particular ward-level mapping of eligible areas is inflexible and often results in a 'pepper-potting’ approach with the money being spread too thinly on the ground, which is exactly what is going to happen under Axis 3 and 4 of the new RDP. Such an approach makes it extremely difficult to adopt the WAGs wider agenda of a more strategic approach, collaboration and joint working and deeper interventions, exactly the principles that it expects to see in the new Structural Fund Programmes.

54.  WAG specific initiatives aimed at tackling poverty and deprivation, such as the Flying

Start initiative aimed at improving the outcomes for children in areas of significant deprivation, fail to recognise that there are different issues and needs in rural areas. For example, there are additional challenges in delivering such initiatives in rural areas ranging from transport issues, limited services, availability of childcare in close proximity. Local authorities in rural areas do not receive any additional funding to address such sparsity issues.

Question 4

What specific measures would you like to see implemented by the Welsh Assembly Government to deal with poverty/deprivation issues in rural Wales?

55. Effective rural proofing of all WAG policies and initiatives: this should be incorporated into WAG’s Policy Gateway integration tool. This would demonstrate, for example, when WAG are developing new Strategies, such as the NEETs strategy for young people not in education, employment or training currently under development, that there are different challenges and issues that need to be considered and addressed in rural areas. For example, in relation to this particular strategy, many young people in rural areas experience a poverty of aspiration due to perceived lack of opportunities available in education, training and employment. This can often lead to outward migration to more urban areas, many not returning leading to skills shortages and further malaise in that area.

56.  Recognition of additional costs of providing services in rural areas: need to identify additional financial burden of providing services in rural areas and address this shortfall.  

57.  Develop an effective tool to measure rural poverty and deprivation: There are very good reasons why spatial concentrations of multiple deprivation should be measured. There are strong links between certain types of deprivation which work in tandem to affect people's welfare; poor or limited access to education, income and employment coupled with health deprivation can interact and work in a negative dynamic which can sustain an environment of low aspiration and opportunity.

58.  At present there does not appear to be an overarching strategy or framework for deprivation or poverty in Wales. This is evidenced by the whole range of resources devoted to deprivation from a wide range of sources - none of which seems to be integrated e.g. deprivation grant, communities first, RAISE grant in education etc. This strategy vacuum creates the risk that resources are being used inefficiently and that policy interventions can be ineffective.   It also has the consequence of not knowing how the WIMD fits into a wider deprivation strategic framework.   If deprivation is a multi-faceted inter-related problem, it requires a holistic overarching strategic framework.  

59.  Using WIMD as 'the’ Welsh Index of 'Deprivation’ means that other forms of deprivation do not attract the attention they deserve and the intervention they need.  The nature of deprivation can be different in peripheral areas (rural areas) e.g. access to employment may not be the main barrier to employment in an area that scores highly in the WIMD - the main barrier may be lack of qualifications or health.  As currently structured, it is more suited to density of population and with deprivation in rural areas more dispersed, it may not truly reflect issues of deprivation in rural area. In a peripheral area the barrier to high employment may be access to employment and also the quality of the employment offer and employment vulnerability (e.g. part-time/seasonal).  A person on a given level of income in a peripheral area may have lower purchasing power because of high prices and the cost of accessing goods and services. There is also a wider question about capturing the dynamics of deprivation in peripheral areas that relates to the sustainability of communities e.g. if employment access/quality and housing access and access to essential services is poor, are people being deprived of the opportunity to remain in their community as the community is becoming unsustainable?

60.  There is no protocol for the use of WIMD, nor is its use monitored in any way.  There also needs to be clarity about the domains, and the measures within the domains.  We would like to see WAG develop a peripherality index, possibly as part of a wider initiative to develop an overarching strategic framework to tackle deprivation in Wales.  Potential domains could include:-

• Employment - access
• Access to services
• Housing - access and quality
• Purchasing Power/ cost of living
• Migration and Community sustainability

61.  A longer term approach to rural regeneration is needed: maybe this is something that can be considered and taken forward through the new cross-departmental Regeneration Board set up within WAG.

62.  As a result of WAG’s pepper potting approach to the RDP, and due to the number of different funding streams available in rural areas - Structural Funds, RDP, Rural Community Action and domestic and in some cases fisheries funds - a coherent and coordinated approach is needed to ensure maximum impact and to avoid duplication. Otherwise there is a real danger that the separate funds will develop their own delivery processes leading to confusion and, in some cases, conflicting priorities. There are signs that this is already emerging. Consideration needs to be given to the possibility of longer funding cycles, such as three year funding cycles for rural regeneration initiatives.

63. There are a number of very high profile geographical regeneration programmes which have been established by WAG, e.g. the Heads of the Valleys Programme and the Môn a Menai Programme. These programmes provide welcome support for urban areas but their implementation also gives rise to the question of how the balance might be addressed for rural areas. We would therefore wish to explore the potential for targeted programmes to address the needs of rural Wales in a way which would bring together all the partners, organisations and agencies involved. The WLGA has recognised the need to set up a body for its rural members in the form of the new Rural Forum; it would be good to see WAG compliment and reinforce this through the establishment of an effective forum for key stakeholders to discuss rural issues.

Question 5

What examples of good practice are you aware of in Wales/other parts of the UK/overseas?

64.  We are aware of a number of examples of good practice in Wales and elsewhere and are in the process of collating a number of best practice examples and will send these onto the Committee once completed. For example, all Welsh Local Authorities’ statutory plans, in particular the Health Social Care and Wellbeing Strategies and the Children and Young Peoples Plans, have reducing poverty amongst their priorities. The work undertaken by the Gwynedd pilot on child poverty will assist further in identifying and circulating best practice.

Key messages / recommendations

The WLGA’s Rural Forum recommends:

(A) Effective rural proofing of all WAG policies and initiatives ensuring the impact of new policies on rural areas is considered and appropriately reflected
(B) Further discussions with WAG on the rural premium issue and full recognition of additional costs of providing services in rural areas
(C) A review of the Wales Index of Multiple Deprivation to ensure it is an effective tool in identifying levels of deprivation in rural areas (Members of the WLGA Rural Forum would be keen to be involved in any work undertaken on this issue)
(D) A longer term strategic approach to rural regeneration
(E) Further consideration of the need for a specific programme to address the issues raised in this paper and other issues affecting rural Wales

"Nobody should be disadvantaged by where they live”.

Footnotes:
(1) Rural Wales is defined as encompassing the following unitary authority areas: Powys, Ceredigion, Gwynedd, Denbighshire, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Monmouthshire, Conwy, and the Isle of Anglesey.

(2)  For example, Cloke P, Goodwin M, Milbourne P (1997) 'Rural Wales: Community and Marginalization’, University of Wales Press, Cardiff

Useful references

Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion in Wales 2007, Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Milbourne, P and Hughes, R (November 2005), Poverty and Social Exclusion in Rural Wales, Research Report 6, Wales Rural Observatory.
Should I stay or should I go? Rural youth transitions, August 2006, Commission for Rural Communities and the Institute for Public Policy Research, North.
Strong and Prosperous Communities - the Local Government White Paper, 2006, UK Government Department for Communities and Local Government.
Wales Rural Observatory (September 2004), A Report on Living and Working in Rural Wales.
Wales Rural Observatory (September 2004), An Overview of Policy and Resources Impacting on Rural Wales.
Walkley, C., Gardner G., Edwards, B., Woods, M and Goodwin, M (January 2006), The Significance of Public Sector Employment in Rural Wales, Research Report 8, Wales Rural Observatory.
White, S.D., Walkley, C., Radcliffe, J and Edwards, B (February 2007), Coping with Access to Services, Research Report 12, Wales Rural Observatory.

For further information please contact:

Lowri Gwilym - Policy Officer - Regeneration
lowri.gwilym@wlga.gov.uk

Welsh Local Government Association
Local Government House
Drake Walk
Cardiff
CF10 4LG
Tel:029 2046 8676