The Scottish Government

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The Scottish Government commissioned this research to review Rural Housing Enablers across the UK, and to establish their activities and coverage in Scotland. The Housing Supply Task Force wishes to explore potential measures to ease housing supply pressures in rural Scotland, and Rural Housing Enablers have been cited as a possible mechanism to act as local brokers of housing solutions to increase housing supply.

Main Findings

• Rural Housing Enablers' ( RHEs) activity in Scotland has helped to bring about new affordable housing across different tenures in rural and remote areas.
• RHEs are pioneering innovative solutions to maximise the potential of the mechanisms that are available to meet the housing needs of rural communities.
• One difficulty that RHEs face is the potential for becoming isolated, both in terms of isolation from local networks of key stakeholders, and also isolated from peer support. A network of peer group support needs to be adequately resourced at national level, not only to provide training, but to draw on the expertise already available in Scotland across all organisations engaged in RHE type activities, as well as elsewhere in the UK.
• National evaluations of RHE activity in England and Wales have consistently reported the positive impacts of RHEs in helping to deliver housing solutions for rural communities.
• The core conclusion of this review is that rural housing enabling works. In Scotland the part funding by the Scottish Government of organisations such as the Rural Housing Service and the Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust shows how the long term sustainability of these organisations can contribute towards a continuous flow of affordable housing in rural communities.
• However, there is no one blueprint in the way that RHEs can achieve their aims and objectives. Instead, a feature of RHE activity is the very diverse roles that different RHEs play, responding to the localised priorities of key stakeholders, and the operation of local housing systems.

Aims and methods

The key aim for the research was to identify the activities and coverage of RHEs in Scotland. A further aim was to draw out lessons from evaluations of RHEs carried out in other countries within the UK, examining conclusions on the impact of RHEs in England and Wales. The aims of the project gave rise to the following objectives:

Describe the aims, activities, governance and financing of RHEs in Scotland;

• Explore the extent to which RHEs in Scotland have been able to meet their aims;
• Explore why RHEs have been established in some rural areas in Scotland, but not all;
• Explore the role, operation and impact of RHEs elsewhere in the UK;
• Draw conclusions on the role of RHE in the UK and their activities and coverage in Scotland.

An analysis of relevant documentation relating to the Scottish RHEs was undertaken, drawing on a variety of sources including business plans, monitoring reports, and the websites of key organisations. Information was also drawn from existing reports and evaluations of RHEs in other countries within the UK.

Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with fifteen respondents: four respondents in England and Wales, and eleven respondents in Scotland, including representatives of agencies undertaking RHE type work or RHEs themselves, local authorities where RHEs are sited, and also two local authorities where there are no RHEs at present.

An overview of RHE activity in Scotland

Shelter Scotland has provided a helpful definition of RHEs and the work that they undertake, noting that the term is used to 'describe work which engages with rural communities in order to better chart their housing needs and to bring forward solutions to meeting those needs'.

The following individuals and agencies were found to be undertaking rural housing enabling in Scotland:

• Highland Small Communities Housing Trust;
• Dumfries & Galloway Small Communities Housing Trust;
• Moray Rural Housing Enabler;
• Aberdeenshire Rural Housing Enabler;
• Rural Housing Service;
• Development Worker for West Highland Housing Association (formerly Argyll Development Worker for the Rural Housing Service);
• Development Co-ordinator, Lewis and Harris Rural Community Housing Pilot, Western Isles.

RHE activity in Scotland has helped to bring about new affordable housing across different tenures in rural and remote areas, including facilitating developments for social renting as well as low cost home ownership. For example, rural housing enabling on Colonsay identified levels of housing need that had previously gone unrecorded, prompting the development of a housing strategy for the island and contributing to the development of four affordable homes for rent.

RHEs have also contributed to a more effective use of the existing housing stock, helping to bring empty dwellings back into use, and also utilising the potential of conversions and adaptations to achieve housing solutions for the residents of rural communities.

An emerging role for RHEs is working with landowners, as well as community buy outs, not only in relation to identifying potential sites for development for social rent or home ownership, but with regard to the development of affordable housing by private landlords as part of the Rural Homes for Rent scheme.

RHEs are also pioneering innovative solutions to maximise the potential of the mechanisms that are available to meet the housing needs of rural communities. One example is the development of ways of ensuring that future generations can benefit from affordable housing developments in rural communities through the use of Rural Housing Burdens. The use of this mechanism means that each seller gets back a proportion of the open market value of a property, meaning that the dwelling remains available at a below market price for the next occupier.

Nevertheless, an important context framing the activities of RHEs is the gestation period often required to achieve practical solutions on the ground, and this point comes back to the inherent difficulties of developing affordable housing in rural communities.

The governance of RHEs is a reflection of the role that enablers play with regard to facilitating joint working and developing community led housing solutions. There was a strong focus on either boards or advisory groups at local level, comprising key stakeholders in the delivery of affordable housing within each RHE's area of operation across all tenures. A feature of these agencies is the level of ownership by, and responsibility to, representative bodies of rural communities themselves.

RHEs have been financed in a number of different ways. Some RHEs, received a single source of grant payment by charitable organisations. Other RHEs are funded by a variety of local stakeholders. A crucial feature of the longer standing organisations such as the Rural Housing Service and the Highland Small Communities Housing Trust has been part funding by the Scottish Government in the form of Housing Voluntary Grants Scheme ( HVGS).

Barriers to progress

One difficulty that locally based RHEs working as individuals face is the potential for becoming isolated, both in terms of isolation from local networks of key stakeholders, and also isolated from peer support. Even if RHEs were more widely adopted across the country, they would still constitute just a handful of individuals.

The type of governance structures that are in place can have a crucial role in reducing the potential for isolation. An RHE can retain an independent position by being based outside of public agencies, and yet benefit from very effective partnership working via local steering groups, and also from local cultures that support partnership working, as evidenced by approaches to joint working in the Highland Council area.

A network of peer group support needs to be adequately resourced at national level, not only to provide training, but to draw on the expertise already available in Scotland across all organisations engaged in RHE type activities, as well as elsewhere. An organisation such as the Rural Housing Service is ideally placed to undertake this role.

Experiences elsewhere in the UK

National evaluations of RHE activity in England and Wales have consistently reported the positive impacts of RHEs in helping to deliver housing solutions for rural communities. The evaluations highlight a number of features of RHE work, including:

• RHEs add value wherever they operate;
• Working with communities requires long timescales;
• A considerable amount of the positive work that RHEs undertake can easily pass unnoticed, especially negotiating, brokering and mediating between all groups, individuals and agencies involved in affordable housing delivery.

Key recommendations from these evaluations focus on expanding these posts geographically. Recent inquiries and Commissions have also endorsed the substantive conclusions of these evaluations and have supported the continuation and growth of these posts.

However, funding for RHEs in Wales and England has gone down divergent paths. In Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government has provided part-funding for a national network of ten RHEs, building on the four pilot RHE posts in this country.

Central government support in England has always been time limited, with the aim of demonstrating the value of RHEs to housing providers and local authorities. Although a number of models for the local funding of RHEs has developed, the Taylor Report (2008) pointed out that it was not clear how present policy was going to achieve wider coverage. Further, reports emphasise that an underlying weakness of RHEs in England has been the funding structures that underpin these posts.

Conclusions

There is no one blueprint in the way that RHEs can achieve their aims and objectives. Instead, a feature of RHE activity is the very diverse roles that different RHEs play, responding to the localised priorities of key stakeholders, and the operation of local housing systems, and the different emphases placed on the various mechanisms that are available for achieving housing solutions.

A key feature of providing affordable housing in rural areas in Scotland is the existence of the range of mechanisms for delivery. These mechanisms include for instance, Rural Home Ownership Grants, Rural Empty Property Grants, Rural Homes For Rent. One way that RHEs can add value to local housing systems is by facilitating the use of this diverse range of alternative sources of affordable housing that exists in Scotland.

The policy environment has a crucial role to play in enhancing the potential role of RHEs. Consideration should be given to:

• Clarifying the future of key mechanisms for rural communities such as RHOGs and REPG;
• Assessing the implications of changes to HAG funding for rural areas;
• Broadening the range of mechanisms at the disposal of RHEs and other stakeholders in rural areas by taking on board the potential of exception sites in local plan policies.

The core conclusion from this review is that rural housing enabling works. The evaluations of the impact of RHEs elsewhere in the UK have demonstrated the added value that RHEs have brought to rural communities. In Scotland, the part funding of long standing organisations such as the Rural Housing Service and the Highlands Small Communities Housing Trust by the Scottish Government already shows how the long term sustainability of these organisations can contribute towards a continuous flow of affordable housing in rural communities.

This document, along with "Review of Rural Housing Enablers" the full research report of the project and further information about social and policy research commissioned and published on behalf of the Scottish Government, can be viewed on the Internet at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch. If you have any further queries about social research, or would like further copies of this research findings summary document or the full research report, please contact us at socialresearch@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or on 0131-244 7560.

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