Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: Stage 4 Final Report

2. Scotland’s rural policy in 2026

Unlike elsewhere in the UK, Scotland has retained targeted funding and networking support for its rural communities since EU exit, in the form of a successor community led development programme to the European Union (EU) LEADER approach^[1] and its Rural Network, both of which were part of the EU Common Agricultural Policy’s Pillar 2 support (the Scotland Rural Development Programme).

Published in late March 2026, the Rural Support Plan^[2] (a requirement in the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024) confirms the commitment to support community-led approaches in rural and island areas, including support for capacity-building and networking for rural and island communities (including businesses) (Tier 4, p14). The Plan notes that support for these communities may be provided in places other than the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024. It also notes the need to align support for rural communities with wider Scottish Government strategies and policy through an integrated approach to monitoring which links different outcome frameworks. No further detail is provided, but the Rural Support Plan points to this review in contributing to the further refinement of future plans.

The Scottish Government has also provided specific support for island communities through the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, and particularly the National Islands Plan (2019, 2026) and Island Communities Impact Assessments. The 2026 National Islands Plan was published in February 2026^[3] with a programme of actions across seven thematic areas, and is supported by an implementation route map.

Island Communities Impact Assessments are a mandatory requirement for the Scottish Government and the authorities listed in the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 when developing a policy, strategy or service likely to have a different impact on island communities than it does elsewhere. The Scottish Government has produced guidance, a toolkit and data to support the completion of these assessments^[4], which must also be published.

Alongside this, the Scottish Government has also adopted a rural proofing^[5] approach across all policy areas. It has created a voluntary (but encouraged) Rural Assessment Toolkit for use by policy teams across government. The Toolkit is designed to help policy teams within Government to:

• Understand how their policies affect rural areas
• Connect with stakeholders in the right way
• Review the impacts and make adjustments where they are both necessary and possible

Rural proofing in the Scottish Government is not a policy but a process, designed to improve decision-making. It can reveal risks and opportunities, but does not compel policymakers to take a particular course of action. Successful rural proofing relies on three things: gathering and sharing relevant data; involving stakeholders to bring the rural voice into the policy making process; and delivery of clear, tailored information at the earliest opportunity. Contributing to the data element of rural proofing, the Scottish Government has developed a Rural Scotland Data Dashboard and a Scottish Islands Data Dashboard^[6].

The Rural Stakeholder Group was established during the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Originally an economic group, it later expanded to include organisations with a broad range of rural interests, as it provided external governance to the unpublished Rural Delivery Plan. The Scottish Government chairs and provides the Secretariat for the Group which meets online, more recently providing direct input to early policy development in key areas, including the development of the Rural Assessment Toolkit.

This policy context provides the framework for the recommendations put forward in this report.