Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review: Scottish Rural Network, Scottish Rural Action and Community Led Local Development review report

Executive Summary

The Scottish Rural Communities Policy Review was commissioned by the Scottish Government to inform future arrangements for supporting rural communities in Scotland. The review focused on exploring the roles and impacts of three core elements of rural community support in Scotland:

• Scottish Rural Network (SRN) since 2021-22
• Scottish Rural Action (SRA) since 2020-21
• Community Led Local Development (CLLD) since 2021-22

This review report describes the findings of data collection from a wide array of stakeholders in rural and island Scotland, undertaken primarily in 2025.

Data was collected utilising a variety of different methodological approaches including place-based community case studies in six different Local Action Group areas across rural and island Scotland, surveys with a range of stakeholders, including Community Led Local Development Coordinators, Local Action Group chairs and members, Community Led Local Development funding applicants, people who have engaged with Scottish Rural Action and the Scottish Rural Network, and those interested in rural development. Strategic interviews were also conducted with individuals involved in policy delivery, and in rural and island community development in Scotland more broadly. Overall, the project involved nearly 300 distinct points of participant involvement.

Overall findings

Overall, the evidence suggests that all three elements have delivered towards their aims, and that there is strong backing for the support they provide to rural and island communities.

Evidence showed that Scottish Rural Network, Scottish Rural Action and Community Led Local Development were helping to improve the resiliency and sustainability of communities across rural and island Scotland. This included funding a range of highly valued projects identified and led by communities; enhancing and sharing learning about community led activities of various kinds; creating platforms and hosting events for individuals and groups across rural Scotland to come together; building representative approaches for rural and island communities; raising the profile of rural and island issues in government and amongst wider stakeholders; and influencing policy makers and decision makers to take account of rural and island characteristics and priorities.

Scottish Rural Network key findings

Scottish Rural Network has provided a useful information broker and networking role, with participants valuing the Network’s role in sharing information relating to the latest policy developments and in promoting case studies of community development. Its website and newsletter were regarded as important assets.

However, some participants identified that the profile of the Network was low, and there was a lack of understanding about its key functions. There were mixed opinions about the position of Scottish Rural Network within Scottish Government, with positives and negatives recognised. Overall, there was a sense that the Network’s role as a source of information on policy developments, and of learning in relation to community-based projects, could be enhanced, expanded and better communicated. Participants said there was a lack of transparency and clarity over how Scottish Rural Network distributes funding to external partner organisations.

There was also a sense in which a re-energised, more proactive Network could play a much more strategic role within (and beyond) Scottish Government, ensuring that the rural voice (or voices) is heard across policy areas, building on existing collaborations with Scottish Rural Action and with the Community Led Local Development delivery network.

Scottish Rural Action key findings

Scottish Rural Action is an independent charity with a primary aim of supporting grassroots voices to be heard through a rural movement. During the period of the review much of the organisation’s funding came from Scottish Government. Participants who had worked with the organisation were strongly supportive of their work. The evidence indicated that Scottish Rural Action, as far as possible, took an inclusive approach and was working for everyone across rural Scotland (not just its members), with particular successes noted in terms of working with young people.

Scottish Rural Action has developed a unique role in the community development sector through its decentralised approach to giving a voice (or voices) to rural and island priorities, including with policy-makers in national government and with other rural and non-rural organisations operating at national and local levels. The evidence suggests that although there was not a collective understanding of what a rural movement is, there was a strong sense amongst participants that Scottish Rural Action has had a key role to play in advocating for rural voices to be articulated and heard more strongly in policy-making in Scotland, despite its relatively limited resources. For some participants, the main challenge was that these voices were not always heard or acted upon.

Scottish Rural Action has engaged in wide-ranging and important activities since its establishment in 2013, including (co)organising national and international events (such as Scottish Rural and Islands (Youth) Parliaments and European Rural Parliament) and animating what they termed ‘platforms’ for rural and island individuals and groups to come together and build their skills and resources to strengthen a rural movement.

Given the diversity of rural and island contexts and perspectives across Scotland, challenges were identified that result from Scottish Rural Action’s limited resources and the breadth of topics it covers. Some participants argued that the organisation could do more in representing the diversity of rural situations and voices to government and other stakeholders. However, many participants were positive about Scottish Rural Action’s flexibility to increase the profile of a broad range of issues raised by groups and individuals, building on their policy knowledge and networks, and often recognising the cross-sectoral nature of the issues.

As was also the case for Scottish Rural Network, Scottish Rural Action’s name was not always widely known at local level; but it is acknowledged that this is not an explicit organisational aim. Moreover, Scottish Rural Action does not aim to, and does not have the resource to, engage with place-based work across Scotland.

Participants saw great potential for Scottish Rural Action’s role and impact to be enhanced in future, building on the considerable positive work it has already done to create a rural movement in Scotland through encouraging stakeholders to collaborate on relevant issues and ensuring their voices reach decision-makers.

Community Led Local Development key findings

Participants were very positive about many aspects of the Community Led Local Development programme, including: its flexibility in supporting a range of different kinds of activities and organisations; the role of Community Led Local Development delivery staff (including Coordinators and Local Action Group Chairs/Members) in supporting applications based on their understanding of community-led development; it’s ability to fund private sector businesses; and its relatively straightforward application procedure. For most participants, being a locally delivered funding programme focused on rural and island areas, able to support cross-sectoral projects, providing flexible revenue funding, and building on the knowledge and experience of local people, were Community Led Local Development’s most important and valuable benefits. A particular success identified by many participants was the engagement of young people in Community Led Local Development, including through Youth Local Action Groups.

The key challenge for Community Led Local Development was the annual funding arrangement, which limited the scope and ambition of the programme. This issue was amplified through the inconsistent and unpredictable release of funding tranches, sometimes late in the financial year. This was felt to have many significant knock-on impacts, including: reducing the time available to undertake proactive and strategic planning, capacity-building, collaboration and monitoring and evaluation work; creating uncertainty amongst Community Led Local Development Coordinators and Local Action Group members (leading to retention challenges); and reducing the impact of the funding, as ‘shovel ready’ projects were most likely to be able to apply and complete on time. Overall, the short-term nature of the funding was felt to lead to a situation where Community Led Local Development Coordinators were forced to be responsive and firefight rather than be proactive and think strategically, which reduced the positive impacts of the programme. It was suggested that if even a proportion of funding could be guaranteed for future years, so that staff could be kept on and some animation work continue (even if funded projects could not), this would be of huge benefit.

Participants also expressed challenges relating to the designation of a revenue-capital split in Community Led Local Development funding which did not always suit local circumstances (i.e. it was decided by Scottish Government budgeting rather than by what would work locally) and had varied over recent years. It was generally felt that more revenue funding would be useful to fund animation and capacity-building work and to support groups to sustain their projects (which is often difficult after set up funding has been secured). Again, however, for some participants, simply knowing the amount of future funding they would have, in whichever category, was most important.

The democratic functioning and representativeness of Local Action Groups and their relationships with their Accountable Bodies (with close relationships bringing both benefits and disadvantages) appeared to split opinions, with some people expressing a number of benefits to Community Led Local Development from their Accountable Bodies, while others were concerned about these relationships becoming too close to the detriment of Community Led Local Development. The involvement of Inspiring Scotland in the Community Led Local Development programme also resulted in mixed views.

For participants, the grassroots and flexible nature of the Community Led Local Development programme was its ‘Unique Selling Point’, with decisions on funding made locally by a variety of local people. This also resulted in some tensions, however, in terms of delivering simultaneously to Scottish Government and local priorities, and in having 20 Local Action Group areas doing things differently within one national level programme. Some participants felt that the role of the Local Action Group could be enhanced in future, including through disbursing other funds. There was nuance here, however, with some participants regarding the Local Action Group as distant and not local, some questioning the inclusiveness, sustainability, transparency and democratic governance of the groups, and some regarding them as being too close to their Accountable Bodies leading to questions of independence. The latter was particularly the case where the Accountable Body was a local authority, although it was recognised that this also brought benefits in terms of additional expertise and practical support to Community Led Local Development activities. There was widespread recognition of the considerable expertise and knowledge of Community Led Local Development staff and how this could be brought together more coherently – but in a way which acknowledges and draws benefits from their diversity of local experiences – to support Scotland’s rural and island communities.