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Good Practice in Rural Development
No.8
Innovative Methods of Service Delivery in Rural Scotland:A Good Practice Guide
2. Different ways of delivering services
Rural communities are vulnerable to the closure of services due to the high unit cost of provision in often geographically remote and isolated areas. Providing a centralised service may generate economies of scale for service providers but not everybody will be able to access those services, for a variety of reasons, such as those who do not have access to transport.
The 1995 report, 'People, Prosperity and Partnership', identified access to several key services as paramount to the quality of life for people living in rural areas. These included:
"The post office, the shop, primary school, doctor's surgery and petrol station are often mentioned as being of importance, with the village shop and primary school chief among them"2. |
These were expanded upon in the 2000 SNRP 'Services in Rural Scotland' report 3 with further emphasis on transport, multi-purpose buildings, retail and other business practices, information and advice services, childcare, and services for young people.
The following sections illustrate the diverse range of approaches that can be used to deliver services, as detailed earlier; shared premises, mobile facilities, the use of new technology or community-run services. The case studies are drawn from voluntary, statutory, partnership and community-run services - private sector examples are not used in this report.
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