Rural Services Network - annual report to LGA Board 2023

Special Interest Group annual report to LGA Board.

Contact information

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

Membership

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.

Aim

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 campaign, Revitalising Rural: Realising the Vision, www.rsnonline.org.uk/revitalising-rural sets out 14 policy areas important to rural areas with a number of asks of Government. These policy areas include rural affordable housing, the rural economy, transport, connectivity and access to health and care services. We are currently working on a rural manifesto for each of the political parties ahead of the general election.

For Sparse Rural 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.

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 Revitalising Rural.

Key activities/outcomes of work undertaken

The major outcome from our work this year was a £10 million increase in the Rural Services Delivery Grant to £95 million. 

We are keen for the Government to move forward with the findings of the Fair Funding Review to provide a longer-term solution to our rural local authorities and have had discussions with DLUCH on how best to achieve this. 

This year, we made the decision to maintain online meetings to ensure that larger numbers of local authorities could continue to attend and take part in RSN discussion and debates.

In the year 2022-2023, the SPARSE Rural and Rural Assembly had presentations from and collectively debated:

  • Levelling Up Unit and Cabinet Office
  • Association of Convenience Stores and the Rural Shops Report
  • Plunkett Foundation on the role of Community Businesses
  • Pixel Consulting on Fair Funding for Local Government and core spending power.

The RSN hosted a successful National Rural Conference 2022 exploring Levelling Up to Revitalising Rural.  Sessions were held over four days in September and attracted 650 delegates and included keynote speaker Lord Benyon, plus expert speakers on Rural Affordable Housing, Rural Regeneration, Rural Health and Care, Rural Net Zero and Rural Transport. The Conference enabled member authorities to actively debate key issues with their peers as well industry experts.

We hosted nine free online seminars and networking events for members throughout the year, attracting over 630 delegates from 240 member organisations.  Each event featured 3 leading speakers and offered the opportunity for further exploration and discussion of Rural Decarbonisation, Rural Digital Connectivity, Rural Affordable Housing, Rural Town Centres and Village Hubs, Rural Health and Social Care, Rural Economies and Rural Fair Funding.

We provide the Secretariat for the APPG on Rural Services which this year has met for discussion on Off-Gas Grid Heating in Rural Homes, Local Government Finance, Rural Health and Care and Rural Bus Services.

We have submitted a wide range of evidence to Parliamentary Inquiries and consultations to ensure that a rural view is represented.  More information about this is available on our 2022 achievements flyer and covered phasing out of Fossil Fuels and  Adult Social Care to name but a few.

The RSN however is not just about meetings, we provide a wide range of services to our member authorities which include:

This year we have further developed our Rural Lens series of analyses where Government Strategies or White Papers are explored through a rural lens, highlighting key policy implications for rural areas. These are available to our member local authorities.

The RSN has also continued to commission research to support our overall work, including Rural as a region: the hidden challenge for Levelling Up.

As well as research on the Rural Cost of Living Crisis which we followed up with a survey to all our membership which resulted in over 6,700 responses:

Further information about our work and services can be found at our comprehensive website:  www.rsnonline.org.uk