Natural England

IMPLEMENTING VITAL VILLAGES (AP01/01)

Recommendations

• to agree draft objectives and outputs for the implementation of the Vital Villages programme, against which we will monitor and evaluate our performance, para 4
• agree the outline work programme for 2001 at annex II
• accept the risk assessment at annex III

Relevance to the Strategy and Corporate Plan

• the implementation programme is made up of four grant schemes, three of which are new and are featured in the Rural White Paper. These are the Community Services grant (£11.745m over three years); the Parish Plans grant (£4.35m) and the Parish Transport grant (£13m). The fourth scheme is the expanded Rural Transport Partnership scheme (70% of the total RTP funding is with Vital Villages = (£19.505m)) , which combines the old Rural Transport Partnership Scheme and the Rural Transport Development Fund.

Staff and financial implications

• this is a big new programme of work which we are now in the process of gearing up to from a very small base. We are going to deliver the grants direct to communities and are in the midst of recruiting staff to the national Implementation Team, and to each of the 8 regions. The Board has already approved these costs in the Corporate Plan

Main issues to concern the Board

• what we are trying to achieve through the Vital Villages programme ?. We have proposed a set of objectives (para. 4) and outcomes (para.6) which are largely about achieving greater vitality in rural communities, but our ability to measure the contribution of our programme will be difficult 
• what outputs we will deliver ? we have identified a series of targets for each grant schemes (para.7) but much will depend upon creating a strong 'brand' for the Vital Villages programme and promoting it hard.
• the risks associated with the Agency directly running a new programme from a standing start. These risks are identified in annex III and how we propose to manage these risks, which are high.

Introduction and context

1. Villages form the backbone of rural England. One tenth of the population live in villages. Whilst outwardly they may look affluent, many residents have difficulty accessing services, jobs, housing and transport. Villages need to evolve to overcome such hidden deprivation. Our Strategy suggests that enabling rural communities to shape their own futures and to find solutions to problems, especially through more effective local governance at the parish level in which everyone can participate is an important way forward.

What our Strategy says:

2. Our new Strategy has set the goal of achieving socially and economically active rural communities which address their own priorities and are better equipped to shape their own futures. 

3. The Agency has adopted the following principles to be applied in implementation of the Vital Villages theme:

Rural communities:

• should be enabled to get a grip of their futures and to plan for and meet their own needs, where possible,
• should have reasonable access to local services and facilities
• should look at issues in the round seeking to integrate environmental, social and economic interest,
• should have the opportunity to develop and grow, to provide jobs and homes to meet local needs,
• should be able to pool and share knowledge, skills and experience and join with other communities
• should have active and participative local governance serving all members of the community.

Our focus is rural communities of up to 3,000 (Market Towns will apply to communities of 2,000-10,000). We are deliberately planning an overlap to ensure no villages or towns slip through.

4. In order for the Agency to know whether or not it has reached its stated goal in the Strategy, we need to identify a clear and simple set of objectives against which we can then measure performance. We suggest the following objectives for the Vital Villages programme:

• to encourage small rural communities to identify and act to meet local needs
• to help small rural communities to meet their needs for local service provisions in ways that suit local circumstances
• to enable small rural communities, and wider partnerships to implement local solutions to meet their local transport needs.

5. These draft objectives will be refined and form part of the internal business plan for Vital Villages. We will set up a monitoring and evaluation programme that will report annually in order that we can make any necessary adjustments. 

6. But what difference do we want to make? Not everything is within the gift of the Agency to control and deliver. Changes in government policy, for example on rural post offices or on local government reform, are beyond our direct control and have an impact upon the changes we want to see. But we do need to be clear about what outcome our activity should be contributing i.e. the bigger picture. By pursuing these objectives, the Agency can contribute to the following outcomes:

• more vibrant communities with more active participation, with more skills, more actively involved;
• more empowered communities, working in partnership with public and private service providers;
• more inclusive approach to meeting the needs of all the community;
• village shops able to offer a wide range of products and services, using new technology and good business skills, with support from the local community;
• public service providers retaining and improving essential village services;
• local communities engaged with local schools, shops, business and churches; 
• community enterprise sharing the use of village facilities;
• increased personal mobility for those currently suffering social exclusion for lack of transport;
• community aspirations feeding into, and listened to, in the development plan process, especially community strategies;
• a greater choice of transport for rural communities.

Of course, our programme can only contribute to these wider outcomes, which will result as much from successful influencing by the Agency of its rural assurance teams as much as from this implementation programme itself.

Outputs: What will we deliver?
7. We will deliver over the next three years:
• 1000 parish plans by 2004 
• 2500 communities supported under the Community Services grant scheme,
• 600 parishes supported under the Parish Transport Scheme by 2004 
• 350 new projects supported under the expanded Rural Transport Partnership

What our Corporate Plan says

8. In line with the Rural White Paper, the Corporate Plan allocates resources over the next three years to four main priorities within the Vital Villages programme:

• a new 'Community Service grant' to support local communities, including commercial enterprises to keep or expand or introduce new services (£11.745m).This will encompass our existing Village Shops Development Scheme and Public House Scheme.
• a programme of town and parish plans to help 1000 communities identify what is important to them and take action (£4.435m)
• promoting flexible transport, including car clubs, car sharing, dial a ride. taxi and mini bus schemes through 350 more Rural Transport Partnership projects (£19.505m) and by providing parishes with up to a £10,000 grant to develop tailor made community based solutions through Parish Transport grants.(£13m)

Annex I briefly explains each of the schemes.

9. This represents both a tremendous opportunity for the Agency, but also an enormous challenge to deliver against the approved Corporate Plan programme expenditure next year of £8.395m 

10. The three new schemes have been drawn up based upon the following principles:

• be clearly and directly associated with the Countryside Agency
• demonstrate the Countryside Agency with a unique role whereby we add value to the process
• be clear, simple and easy for community groups to access and receive funds quickly
• be delivered cost effectively
• support 'discovery, not direction', respecting the needs identified locally, while encouraging processes that ensure local needs are identified and tackled,
• require applicants to make a minimum 25% financial contribution to secure local commitment but allow for contributions in kind, including volunteer time, 
• allow for fast track process for grants under £10k with a turn around of 15 working days from receipt of a fully completed application forms
• respect the principles of sustainable development

As the schemes evolve and become established with rural communities, and as good practice is spread, we can then introduce targeting of grants to those areas most in need, drawing upon our rural services survey and the Index of Multiple Deprivation and our own work on bundles of rural disadvantage indicators.

Links to other programme and activities

11. The implementation programme for Vital Villages does not stand in isolation, but links with other key Agency programmes and activities in our new Strategy. Most significantly:

• with Rural Assurance (Local governance and housing), with our work on providing training for parish clerks and councillors to help them achieve Quality Parish status and establishment of a parish councils learning network)
• with Rural Assurance (Rural Services), with their support to the Rural Community Councils, including the appointment of community development workers to Rural Community Councils to tackle social exclusions and Rural Housing Enablers,
• with Rural Assurance (Transport), who have overall responsibility for transport matters, including the budget,
• in implementation of our Market Towns, Wider Welcome and Local Heritage Initiative programmes 

How will we deliver?

12. The Vital Villages Implementation Team will comprise a small co-ordination group and staff in each of our eight regional offices. Initially our efforts will go into equipping the Agency to deliver, through recruitment and training of these team; building the capacity of others in the form of support groups and networks that need to be in place to support the communities at the grass roots level and a strong marketing and PR campaign to stimulate interest and applications.

13. We will operate grant schemes direct to communities over the corporate plan period to deliver the objectives. Regional targets will be set . We aim to announce each of the new schemes as follows: Parish Transport grant in early February, the Community Services grant end of February, and Parish Plans grant by mid March. We have already outlined the grant schemes to the Rural Community Councils and NALC since they are the main sources of community support identified in para 12.

14. An outline work programme, based upon delivering the objectives set out in para 4 is attached at annex II.

Risk assessment

15. This is a new, big, and ambitious programme of work to deliver from a low base for the Agency. It is important that the Board is aware of the key risks associated with this programme. The risk assessment is set out in annex III.

Annex I

Community Services Grant Scheme

The Community Services grant will help those living in rural communities to meet their needs for local service provision, where these are not being adequately met, and in ways which suit local circumstances. Gradually, over the period of the scheme grants will be targeted to the 20% of most needy communities. The grant will only apply to parished areas, but applications can come from individuals, community groups, churches, independent retailers and parish councils. 

Eligible services will include those within village halls/community centres, churches, pubs, independent shops and garages, community led shops and post offices etc. Statutory services will be ineligible for support. The grants will fund capital and one off costs and first year revenue costs only. Call off contracts for specialist advice for applicants will be established e.g. retail advice. grants will range from £500 to £25000.

Parish Plans grants scheme

The PP grant scheme will support communities to produce comprehensive plans for their area. Whilst parish councils are expected to be in the lead, they will be expected to demonstrate that they have the support of the community at large. The grant will be paid to the parish council of up to £5k. Costs will include undertaking the appraisal and publishing the plan. In promotion of the scheme, parishes will be encouraged to work together over a wider area. 

Plans will be kept simple, but will vary according to the differing issues of concern in the community. Some of the results of the plans may be appropriate to add as supplementary planning guidance into the local plan. Parish Plans are expected to make a significant contribution to local governments community strategies.

Parish Transport grant scheme

The PTG scheme will enable local communities, through their parish councils, to implement small scale, local solutions to their transport needs. The focus will be on small scale projects to meet specific needs, such as the purchase of cars/mopeds for community use, support for car clubs, vouchers for taxis etc. Grants will be up to £10k to communities who have satisfied a simple quality assurance 'test' to ensure that the local provision does not undermine existing services and activity.

Annex 1 Continued/........

Rural Transport Partnership

The RTP will be a single scheme, combining the existing Rural Transport Partnership and the Rural Transport Development Fund. The purpose of the scheme is to tackle isolation and promote social inclusion by improving peoples access to the services they need in a sustainable way. The scheme will focus on integration of all forms of transport and particularly on making the most of existing provision and providing a good quality alternative. All forms of transport wil be eligible for support, including measures to promote non motorised transport and commercial schemes in addition to the community transport sector.

The emphasis on partnership will remain. We will continue to fund a partnership officer post (Rural Transport Partnership Officer) who will have delegated fund of £10k per annum. Each partnership will be able to apply for a new larger fund for individual projects. The parish grant scheme will require applicants to seek the views of the RTPO.

Annex III

The big risks, and management controls we intend to put in place to minimise these risks are:

• Demand is too high. The risk is the Agency, as it will deliver direct, will not be able to cope. We have allocated 60 FTEs to run this programme next year, of which well over half, mainly in the regions and the Implementation Team, still have to be appointed and trained. We still have to set up systems, processes and procedures to administer and monitor the grants. The management control: we are looking to work very closely with the 38 Rural Community Councils, and with existing partnerships arrangements wherever possible. We are looking at the lessons to be learnt from Local Heritage Initiative , Healthy Walking Initiative and Millennium Greens initiatives in how we both administer and promote the Vital Villages programme. We will closely monitor progress and are prepared to rapidly amend how we administer the programme in the light of this experience. This may include setting up strategic agency arrangements, or seeking DETR approval for additional staff appointments. 

• Poor take up of grants . The risk is communities are unable to take up our grants despite strong promotion .The lack of capacity and skills in communities, coupled with the lack of capacity of key support organisations, such as the rural community councils, community development trusts, parish councils etc. could lead to poor take up of grants. The management control is to monitor the rate of conversion of interest into applications. By closely monitoring we will then be able to respond by further engagement of local support networks to support local communities and build the capacity of support agencies. Our relationship with the rural community councils will be critical, as will their capacity to respond to community interest. Research shows that many communities, especially those most needy, need support to get to the point of taking advantage of grant schemes. We need to create the environment where call communities can succeed.


Annex III continued/.....


• Poor quality and inappropriate schemes. The risk is we spend the money, but spend it badly. The whole Vital Villages programme is very much about discovery, not direction. We need to learn what does and doesn't work, and why. The key is for communities to learn, not just from their own mistakes, but from the experience of others. The management control includes produce good practice guidance , establishing an IT based learning network, regional training events and undertaking random sampling as part of the in year scheme monitoring and evaluation. We will promote the schemes widely, working to advise others on the scope of the scheme to achieve quality assurance. We will also set up a customer focus group to receive direct feedback so we can amend not only the scheme design but how we operate it.

• Loss of existing partnership support, goodwill and successful, proven schemes. The risk is we lose such individual schemes as the Village Shop Development Scheme and Public House Scheme which are already proven and successful, based upon partnerships that attract match funding. The management control is to work with these existing partnerships and, where appropriate build new ones, for example with local authorities and Community Strategies. 

• Random, unfocused impact. The risk is we end up with a collection of grants that fail to improve the quality of life overall, or for rural communities most in need. The management control includes the establishment of a baseline data so we can measure in year improvements . We will give priority for Community Services grants where communities having undertaken a Parish or Town Plan and to those communities identified as in most need. One of the responsibilities of Community Support Groups we intend to establish will be to ensure a focus and targeting of resources, including drawing together the necessary support of others to ensure delivery.