The rural poverty challenge

[Roger Davies]

Piece by Carl Cooper, the Chief Executive of Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations. Good to see a discussion piece on rural issues where funding cuts often have a more profound and devastating impact on poverty and rural service provision. 

"Rural Wales is stunningly beautiful, but you can’t eat the scenery! For many people, the reality of this beautiful landscape is a place of limited opportunity, poor prospects and hardship that has led them into poverty or even extreme poverty. There is an increase in people with debt problems; more enquiries from people at risk of homelessness, more people with stress related illnesses due to financial pressures. The Police are reporting an increase in shoplifting of essential goods.

At present statistics indicate that in Powys over 8,700 households and almost 20,000 people are living in poverty. This is a situation that is set to get worse; a toxic combination of the following issues is putting individuals and families under real pressure:

1.        Low pay economy
2.        Housing affordability
3.        Under-employment and in-work poverty
4.        Rising fuel and food prices
5.        Transport poverty & physical inaccessibility of services
6.        Fuel poverty
7.        Impact of welfare reform on benefits claimants
8.        Ageing population

Other deprivation issues for rural Wales include poor telecoms infrastructure, pressures on upland hill-farm economy, decline of traditional community and family support networks and social isolation.

Responding to these difficulties over a large geographical area with a small, dispersed population is not easy. There is no quick fix.

Rural issues demand a rural solution. Inevitably this will require funding and the political will to make the funding available. Generally, it costs at least 20% more to provide a service to a rural community compared to an urban community. However, time and time again, people who live in rural areas are disadvantaged by programmes and funding formulae that focus exclusively on concentrations of need and area based approaches. This leaves those in need in rural Wales feeling that they don’t matter. The Rural Development Plan must not be Wales’ only response to rural poverty.

The nature of the rural context also means that the best solutions will be locally determined and locally managed. If ever co-production comes into its own, it’s within the rural environment. What works for one village or cluster of settlements, may not work for another community. This means that community capacity building is an essential element in whatever emerges. Local solutions rarely emerge accidentally or incidentally. They need to be nurtured, fostered and supported.

What does not work in rural areas is a macro-programme that seeks to impose pre-determined solutions on very different and varied contexts."

Posted on 13/05/2014 by Big Lottery Fund

[Ruth Dineen]

I must admit to a tendency to think about poverty in relation to urban settings - this is a useful reminder of the additional problems facing people in rural areas. You are right that co-production could come in to its own in such environments, but getting it established and ensuring it's sustainable is likely to be tough. Would be good to hear of communities or organisations that are succeeding: we're working with Public Health Wales to collect and share case-studies of effective co-production in Wales...please do let us know of any initiatives that we might include in the publication.