• organisational infrastructure

• strategic priority setting

• individual interventions

Rural Proofing is shorthand for a process that involves assessing how policies will work for rural people and places and, so, ensure that the policies are implemented fairly and effectively.

EEDA's guide complements our Rural Proofing toolkit which includes guidance and case studies to help to ensure domestic policies take account of rural circumstances and needs.

Visit EEDA's website to download their guide

Download our Rural Proofing toolkit

Find out more about our work on Rural Proofing

The Sustainable Communities Act (SCA) provides a process by which communities, organisations and public bodies can, through their local council, propose changes at a national level to help deliver projects and work locally to support sustainability.

Download our commentary on the proposals

The proposals put forward would all variously improve the sustainability of the local communities concerned. We hope the extent of value to the local communities affected weighs high in the balance when making decisions.

Our response focuses on the need for 'rural proofing' the new proposals and relates to ways of ensuring that rural communities can benefit from and contribute to the ambitions of these new policy directives.

Download our full response to 'Strengthening Local Democracy'

The event will ask if in the push for further urban development are the problems in rural areas being overlooked? How can rural areas be made more sustainable, and to what extent should the rural economy grow?

Trevor will be speaking about the national coalition working on a Rural Prospectus for action.

Visit the RTPI South West website for more details of this event

Sharing the platform with Dan Norris, Minister for Rural Affairs and Environment, Trevor outlined some of the possible key messages and key contextual issues.

The coalition hopes to publish the prospectus this autumn, to be followed up by a more detailed 'big picture' or 'greenprint' and presented to government as a consensual agenda for action.

Download a conference article with some of the possible key messages and key contextual issues

For more details of the Prospectus and Coalition email rural.coalition@ruralcommunities.gov.uk

The ideas were well received by the LGA audience, especially the need for more positive rural planning. The LGA's Chair also spoke about the desirability of working closely with the coalition.

The case for strong rural proofing has been reinforced by the government's focus on devolution, ‘place shaping', ‘total place' and the ‘mainstreaming of rural'. ‘Mainstreaming' recognises that all local areas, not just rural areas, need policy and delivery adjustments to meet their own particular needs.

Visit the New Start website to read Crispin's Rural Proofing blog post

We're looking for a partner or set of partners for a project seeking to build capacity across government on rural proofing.

We want to work with a number of target organisations at national and regional level to build their knowledge and enthusiasm for employing rural proofing as part of their day to day mainstream policy development and delivery initiatives.

Download more info about the project and how to sumbit an expression of interest

Expressions of interest are invited until 23 June 2009

The refreshed Rural Proofing Toolkit:

• builds on learning from use of the previous model

• includes more specific practical advice concerning the needs of rural areas

• emphasises that ‘sparsity’ and ‘rurality’ are essential considerations of good policy making

• highlights examples of effective rural proofing within government

Individual government departments have a responsibility to ensure policies and delivery arrangements consider people in both rural and urban areas, so the guidance covers a broad range of policy areas.

Download a copy of the Rural Proofing Toolkit

Find out more about Rural Proofing

Read the full press release

Our major conference for government policy makers will re-launch the government’s commitment to rural proofing. The May event will explore how rural proofing approaches can be applied to policy development processes.

Find out more about the event and how to book your place

The conference presented a unique and major opportunity for all those who have responsibility for policies that impact upon rural people, communities and economies, to come together and assess how they can meet their rural responsibilities.

Read the feedback from the facilitated sessions

Download some of the presentations:

Theresa Huddart, North East Commission on Rural Health

Andy Ashcroft, Lancashire County Council

His speech highlighted the role of rural proofing in ensuring that the three tiers of government take into account the needs of rural communities. Rural proofing policy is a key way in which government departments and agencies can ‘take the right decisions for the future, to help [rural areas] prosper’.

We're now working with Defra on a joint conference in May this year, where Minister Huw Irranca-Davis and Stuart Burgess, our chair and the Government's Rural Advocate, will re-launch the rural proofing tools that we believe are the key to ensuring that government policies are relevant to rural communities.

‘Thinking rural’ means accepting that geography can change the impact of a policy. Often it only takes a small amendment or addition to take account of that difference in policy making.

Read our full statement welcoming Hilary Benn's commitment

Find out more about Rural Proofing

Find out more about our joint conference in May and register for your place

We welcome the recent Rural Proofing discussion paper by Newcastle University's Centre for Rural Economy (CRE). It discusses the future for rural proofing within the context of the Government’s mainstreaming agenda, echoing many of our review's findings.

We've been discussing with Defra how our respective responsibilities for mainstreaming and rural proofing can be brought together, to provide the maximum support to policy-makers and delivery bodies at national, regional and local levels.

Government remains committed to ensuring the needs of rural people are addressed effectively through mainstream policy making and delivery. We've been working to identify the best ways for achieving this. As part of this, we have been reviewing the rural proofing tools and advice, and intend to re-launch this in the near future.

Find out more about our work on Rural Proofing

Read Crispin's article in full

Overall, the paper sets out a clear commitment to making representational democracy work better, adding into the mix the importance of participatory engagement in giving more control and influence to more people. The key themes of power, influence and control, accountability and how it can be diffused throughout all communities are all important elements of a strong democracy.

As the government’s rural adviser, we look forward to advising on how the ambitions of the white paper can be delivered in rural areas.

Read our summary of the white paper

It's essential to ensure rural communities can benefit from and contribute to the ambitions of the Sub National Review.

Our response focuses on the need for 'rural proofing' of the new structures, processes and arrangements. We support the move for integration, through the new integrated regional strategy, and the principles of delegation and devolution that will apply to the RDAs.

It's vitally important the changes proposed as a result of the Sub National Review give due consideration to the different circumstances and needs of rural communities. Our response make suggestions on how this can happen.

However, we're disappointed that this consultation focuses on economic growth and places a sole focus on Gross Value Added as a target for RDAs. As an output based measurement GVA does not take into account the wider costs of such growth to the socio-environmental landscape; the well being agenda.

Read our full response

As part of this we have developed a directory of examples of rural proofing tools and guidance. These include examples from local government, regional organisations, departmental approaches and sector based tools such as health. These examples are included in Part 2 of our literature review.

Our ‘Monitoring Rural Proofing 2007’ report showed Government policy is still not adequately considering the needs of rural communities. There are some good examples of rural proofing, but it's still not part of the day-to-day work of government departments.

Download our review of Rural Proofing

Read our Rural Proofing literature review

Find out more about our work on Rural Proofing