Rural Services Network - annual report to LGA Board 2024

Lead Member: Councillor Roger Phillips (Herefordshire Council)
Lead Officer: Kerry Booth

Email: [email protected]
Address: Rural Services Network
Telephone: 01822 851370
Website: www.rsnonline.org.uk

The Rural Services Network has two main subsidiary SIGs. Sparse-Rural which has 83 members which deals with our financial representational (distributional) work and the Rural Assembly (with 100 Members, including the SPARSE members) which deals with all the non-financial distribution issues and rural policy generally. These both meet twice a year when all members are entitled to be represented.  All Sparse-Rural members are also members of the Rural Health & Care Alliance, a Partnership between the Rural Services Network and the National Centre for Rural Health and Care.

The other LGA recognised sub-group includes the Rural Fire and Rescue Services Group which has 10 members and seeks to present arguments common to County and Combined Services operating in areas that have significant rural areas.

The Rural Services Network is however, much more widespread than these Special Interest Groups and further information can be found in the RSN Member section on our website at: https://rsnonline.org.uk/page/rsn-membership This includes information about the Rural Services Partnership, a membership organisation for over 200 non-local authorities such as rural Housing Associations, Health Trusts, charities and national organisations delivering services in rural areas. The Rural Market Town Group has been established in recent years which has over 200 Town or larger Parish Councils in membership.

In total the Rural Services Network represents the interests of over 500 organisations across the public, private and voluntary sector.

Our main aim is to act as the national champion for rural services, ensuring that people in rural areas have a strong voice. We are fighting for a fair deal for rural communities to maintain their social and economic viability for the benefit of the nation as a whole.

Our current campaign, Winning the Rural Vote which was launched in autumn 2023 sets out a series of asks which we want to see political parties adopt in their manifestos. The challenges rural communities face cannot be tackled in isolation, our communities need homes they can afford, with good jobs, connectivity to enable businesses to grow and access to public services that are fairly funded. 

For Sparse Rural local authorities our main priority is the funding formula and working to ensure that rural areas receive fair funding to enable them to deliver their services, taking into account the additional costs of service delivery in rural areas. To find out more about our success to date on this see: https://www.rsnonline.org.uk/page/rural-fair-funding

For the Rural Assembly, our main priority is to seek to influence Government and policy makers across a whole range of issues facing rural service providers and communities in line with the priority areas set out in Winning the Rural Vote.

Priorities

The Rural Services SIG priorities chime directly with the Support, Improve and Promote priorities of the LGA. The RSN SIG:

Support local authority members by sharing best practice, research and learning opportunities through our extensive event programme and frequent and varied publications.

Improve awareness of rural issues through our political networking and press activity resulting in increased funding for many local authorities as a direct result of our fair funding work.

Promote our member organisations and the needs of rural communities through our extensive website, social media, targeted direct mail campaigns and our national meeting and event networking.

A summary card of 2023-24 achievements can be found at: https://rsnonline.org.uk/images/2023-24-achievements.pdf and include:

• Launching Winning the Rural Vote campaign in parliament, mapping out our asks of all political parties ahead of the general election.
• Supporting the All Party Parliamentary Group on Rural Services with three meetings this year discussing Off Gas Grid Rural Properties, Rural Transport and Rural Fair Funding.
• Increasing the Rural Services Delivery Grant by £15 Million to £110 Million. In total £ 799,000,005.94 has been allocated through this grant since its inception in 2013/14. That’s almost £800 Million! We continue to campaign to see the principle extended to all rural authorities and for fairer funding formulas.
• Representing our members on a number of national forums and groups, namely; The Rural Coalition, National Centre for Rural Health and Care, National Rural Crime Network, Rural Homelessness Coalition, National Alliance for Cultural Services, BT Digital Voice Advisory Group and the DEFRA Rural Impact Forum.
• Submitting responses to ten Government Consultations to ensure that the rural perspective to these key issues is shared.
• Working with partners to commission research which we have shared with the press and parliamentarians into Rural Homelessness and Rural Cost of Living.  We also helped to circulate a planning questionnaire on behalf of research into the effectiveness of rural exception sites
• Hosting the National Rural Conference over the course of four days, with 496 delegates from across our membership attending to discuss a wide range of topics affecting rural communities.  Speakers included Lord Benyon, representatives from National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE). Many member organisations of RSN shared best practice and experience at key issues affecting rural communities.
• Hosting 8 networking seminars throughout the year with expert speakers attended by 531 delegates from across our membership.
• Hosting an invite only event for our member local authorities that receive Rural England Prosperity Fund Grant allocations to meet with DEFRA and discuss challenges they are experiencing with the current scheme and ways that it could work better.
• Hosting an event during Countryside COP week exploring Heat Network Schemes in rural areas.
• Delivering the Rural Bulletin to over 20,000 contacts each week with a roundup of key rural news stories.
• Publishing 12 Funding Digest newsletters highlighting many funding and grant opportunities relevant to rural communities.
• Publishing four Rural Beacon publications, direct to Councillors at our Local Authority members sharing with them our work.
• Publishing 12 spotlight publications focusing on the Rural Economy Rural Housing and our Rural Services Partnership members.
• Delivering a monthly casebook publication service for members of the Rural Health and Care Alliance.
• Reviewing Government Strategies and White Papers through a ‘rural lens’ to determine the real impact for rural.

Providing analysis of a range of information for our membership organisations in our Members Insights section of our website. The analysis is available at local authority level and provides a range of statistics that impacts rural authorities in all key areas.