What happened at the Ministerial meeting on 21.9.10

This was my first opportunity to attend the Rural Affairs Chairs’ meeting with the Minister, it was also the first meeting for Richard Benyon MP who was in a listening mode. However, he was keen to ensure that RAFs were aware that the coallition government recognises the rural dimension in the delivery of economics, environment and social, for example rural broadband is as much about social inclusion as economic; he hoped this commitment was reflected in the experience of the Rural Minister team. The Minister was keen to achieve the key objectives of housing, transport, broadband, community and fuel by working with organisations. He was keen to express that the end of the CRC was not the end of community involvement.

 In order to take the Rural agenda forward, the Minister was planning a series of bi lateral meetings with other Ministers to prioritise rural areas, statements to reflect this would then be issued. Chairs were keen to express that ‘Rural’ meant more than farming and the rural economy had a lot to offer in terms of driving the national economy. It was clear from the Minister’s response that the two proposed white papers on Natural Environment and Water will explore the use of rural resource and its contribution in terms of environment and economics. Also much can be achieved through local action and voluntary agreement.  It is absolutely clear that the Big Society is a theme that runs throughout the current Government and they are keen to support and facilitate Local Action.

 With this in mind, we turned to the four papers developed by the Chairs on Affordable Housing, Broadband, Transport and community. The Minister was keen to hear of schemes where local action and private funding had delivered an outcome for example, cross subsidy of market housing to deliver affordable housing and a local community digging its own trenches to put in the cables for high speed broadband.  There was positive discussion around rural communities being able to take on the Big Society function but a need for Parish Plans to take greater importance with local authorities and how to energise rural communities through reduced bureaucracy of grants and regulation.

 The Minister and Defra officials engaged positively with the discussion and took on board the comments for the full 2hrs of the meeting.

 After the meeting, a verbal update was given on the OCED report expected to be published at the end of November. RAFs were praised for having a strong ‘bottom up’ approach but work need to be done to minimize the ‘top down’ approach that also existed. The regional element was skipped over; value given to rural proofing and mainstream but again needs to be strengthened. There was praise for the ability to share best practice.  Interesting aside was that the OCED did not recognise that in England we had any predominately rural areas we seem to be just a suburb!! A free copy will be sent to chairs.

 The afternoon was the business end for Chairs or their representatives.  It was felt that there had been better engagement with the Ministers and officials this time and the Chairs were keen to express to the one remaining Defra official, the value that RAFs could deliver but to do this it is clear that:

 RAFs need to engage in the Big Society agenda and show how they connect and work at local level rather than our previous regional function.

 There was no clear steer whether the RAFs will continue, the Ministers are keen to rationalise the number of forums in any area, for example the food and farming strategy group meet as well as RAFs in most areas.  Ideally the Defra representative felt there was a need for a forum of 8 to 12 members to openly discuss issues but how that was developed was up for grabs potentially.

 There is no clear indication of funds post March 2011; not surprising with the Spending Review to report on 20th Oct. But given the discussion, if RAFs are to survive, I would suspect that we will need to pull in funding from a wider constituent group and show we connect to grass routes.