Unsurprisingly at the national meeting of Rural Affairs Chairs on the 20th May no Minister was present so we took the opportunity of reviewing how we work together and also finding out from DEFRA what they required from us. There was also a considerable amount of guess work as to what the new regime would do about rural forums and our future.
Tony Williamson (DEFRA) opened up with a short summary of the DEFRA review of RAFs to date. On the whole the review was favourable and forums only needed small tweaks here and there to make them really effective. The full report should be with the new Minister in about six weeks and would be finalised a.s.a.p. after that.
The downside of the discussion was that no-one knows what the situation will be re funding in these times when every penny saved will count.
I was impressed by the apparent commitment by DEFRA staff to the continuance of the forums, but the message is wait and see.
In the mean time we need to ensure that as forums we are working as closely as possible together and to this end we now have a central secretariat and made the decision that all our secretaries should meet together at least once a year. We also decided that all communication should be through the central secretariat in order to avoid duplication and so that we could better monitor replies to queries etc…
The Chairs are now working on a short paper on our offer to DEFRA and the Minister. There is also a welcome letter to the new Minister winging its way even as we write. We hope to have our first meet with him in September.
In my opinion all the forums seem to be working better now with clearer objectives and methods of achieving them.
The Conservative Green Paper said they would set up rural forums if so they already have them up and ready to go all we need is a clear signal from Ministers of what they would wish us to deliver to them.
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