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Neil Ritchie8, Scottish Executive
Introduction
Since the early 1990s, rural issues have started to gain increasing importance within policy formulation and management. This importance has been heightened by Devolution, the creation of the Scottish Executive Rural Affairs Department (SERAD) and the establishment of a Parliamentary Rural Affairs Committee. Supporting and enhancing the sustainability of 'the rural economy, community and environment' is an important part of the Executive's Partnership Agreement.
With the increased attention to rural issues, there is a need to enhance the statistical coverage of rural Scotland to allow the status of rural areas to be monitored and inform the general rural debate, policy development and management. This article explains the work that the Scottish Executive is currently doing to enhance our knowledge.
Background
Historically, the statistical coverage (and debate) about rural Scotland has often focused on a specific subset of the rural economy - agriculture. The Government produces 2 main measures to monitor the state of the agriculture industry - one at the aggregate level (Total Income from Farming) and the other at farm type level9. These will continue and may be enhanced by better measures of non-agricultural income in agricultural households. However, with the exception of some specific studies10 there has been little attempt systematically to monitor the broader economy of rural Scotland.
Over recent years, the policy focus has sought new measures to cover aspects of rural areas. This has been at the Scotland, UK, and European level. The recent AGENDA 2000 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy increased the emphasis paid to rural development.
In Scotland, this increased attention was reflected in the creation in July 1999 of the Scottish Executive Rural Affairs Department (to replace the former Scottish Office Agriculture, Environment and Fisheries Department.) This change was designed more accurately to reflect the Ministerial priority attached to rural development. In addition, a Ministerial Rural Development Committee has also been established to draw together the rural interests within many Ministerial portfolios.
As a consequence of this increased interest within the Executive, there is a need to monitor the rural Scotland economy and in particular to analyse changes over time. Recognising this need, an internal SERAD led working group is considering the Executive's rural statistical needs. The key elements of this work are:
Rural Affairs is very much a cross cutting issue and policy areas across the full breadth of the Scottish Executive have policies targeted at rural areas and communities. The new work will not attempt to replicate the monitoring of individual policies - this will remain the responsibility of individual policy areas who will continue to need such information to manage their policies. Rather it concentrates on monitoring the overall wellbeing - economic, social and environmental - of rural Scotland.
Issues
In its initial thinking the group has identified a number of key issues:
Definition of rural
Everybody has an idea of what rural means. However, defining rural on a precise basis for policy implementation or statistical monitoring is a harder decision. Where does rural end and urban begin?
There is no easy answer and it is unlikely that a single definition of rural Scotland - with which everybody is happy - can ever be produced. Recognising the problem of defining rural, the Scottish Executive uses a number of different definitions for policy implementation - eg Rural Petrol Stations or Village Shops Rate Relief Scheme11. Each of these different definitions is valid for its intended purpose and focused on individual policy objectives. This is necessary if policies are to be highly targeted and provide taxpayers with value for money.
However, because these definitions are highly targeted they are also highly localised - often built up from postcode sectors. At such a disaggregated level, the amount of regular statistical data is limited. As a consequence, a higher spatial level is required to provide the overview of rural Scotland - and access to key statistical datasets such as unemployment rates and average earnings.
The initial attempt to monitor the overall well-being of rural Scotland was done by John Randall in a 1984 Scottish Economic Bulletin article. This has become a widely accepted approach. It defined rural Scotland on the basis of local authority districts with a population density of less than 1 person per hectare. This approach has been updated to the new unitary authorities and the rural economy is regularly monitored on this basis12.
Information Needs
In monitoring rural Scotland, the focus is on 3 key areas:
Rural Diversity
In some ways, it is less than meaningful to consider rural Scotland as a single entity. There are different degrees of rurality. The conditions that characterise the urban hinterlands with their close proximity to population centres contrast with the more remote areas that characterise much of the Highlands and Islands and parts of southern Scotland. Any monitoring of rural Scotland needs to take this diversity into consideration.
Resource constraints
In taking this work forward, it is important to note that the collection and collation of statistics entails substantial costs, not only to the Executive but also to the providers of data. There are therefore limits to the statistical coverage that can be provided. Any additional data collection will need to be assessed against its costs and benefits. (This is described in the Scottish Economic Statistics Programme article elsewhere in this publication).
Consistency across time
If the status of rural Scotland is to be monitored, it will be most meaningful to do this over time. This will, therefore, require a definition for the monitoring framework that allows a number of previous years to be considered. In addition, it would be preferable for the selected definitions of the relevant spatial areas to remain in current usage for the foreseeable future. For example, it would be inappropriate to consider using 1984 based travel to work areas.
For these reasons, the monitoring of the overall well-being of rural Scotland is expected to be on the basis of unitary authorities with a population density of less than 1 person per hectare13. This approach maximises possible statistical coverage without incurring substantial additional data collection costs (or burdens on data providers); allows broad comparisons across rural Scotland; and provides a significant set of existing data to allow consistent analyses over time.
Scottish Household Survey
The Scottish Executive's Scottish Household Survey (SHS) will, in the near future, provide the possibility for an even more finely tuned definition of rural Scotland to support the work outlined above. The SHS is built up from post code sector information and will enable us in the future to provide rural statistics on a number of specific topics at small spatial level. The means of using the SHS to take into account the diversity of rural Scotland and the contrast between remote and peripheral areas and the urban hinterlands is currently under consideration.
Next Steps
This article has outlined the work in progress within the Executive to enhance the statistical knowledge of rural Scotland. The work to date has identified significant gaps in the statistical knowledge of rural Scotland that are being addressed through:
After these points have been addressed, an action plan outlining the way forward will be produced, identifying the statistics to be collected, on a regular basis and prioritising any additional work which may be required.
The work is ongoing and the Executive would like to take on board the views of others. In particular, the Executive will take on board views from the Scottish National Rural Partnership and statistical liaison groups and may go out to wider consultation. Views from other interested parties would be welcomed (neil.ritchie@scotland.gov.uk)
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