Dartmoor National Park Authority

Modernising Rural Delivery

Modernising Rural Delivery is the term used to describe the Government’s initiative to improve delivery on the ground of services and benefits to the countryside to farmers and the public alike.

There are five main strands to the Government’s Modernising Rural Delivery (MRD) programme.

1. The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill (NERC)
2. The formation of a new agency – Natural England, through NERC
3. A funding stream review
4. The Government’s Rural Stategy 2004
5. Research

1. The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

This new Bill will broadly:

• set up a new Integrated Agency – to be known as Natural England.
• set up establishment of a Commission of Rural Communities (an independent advocate, adviser and watchdog, designed to ensure government policy makes a real difference.)
• powers of Secretary of State to directly fund activities with Defra’s remit.
• powers to delegate Defra functioned to delivery bodies and to allow delivery bodies to delegate to one another.
• allows National Park Authorities to fund socio-economic part of National Park Duties.
• improve wildlife protection by strengthening Part I of Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

2. The formation of a new agency - Natural England through NERC

This agency will be an amalgamation of the RDS arm of Defra, English Nature and the Countryside Agency. The new integrated Agency’s general purposes include:

• promoting nature conservation and protecting biodiversity
• conserving and enhancing the English landscape
• securing the provision and improvement of facilities for the study, understanding and enjoyment of nature.
• promoting access to the countryside and open spaces and encouraging open-air recreation.
• contributing in other ways to the social economic well-being through management of the natural environment.

3. A Funding Stream Review

The Government is seeking to simplify the sources of support for rural communities. Funding in future is likely to come from three main axis:

Farming, Forestry and competitiveness
Improvement of Landscape and Countryside
Rural Quality of Life

4. The Government’s Rural Strategy 2004

This sets out the Government’s broad proposals for future organisational arrangements for rural delivery.

This is founded on a number of guiding principles:

1. better targeting of resources on the areas and people that need them most;
2. better experience for customers;
3. better value for money;
4. better accountability and clarity of roles;
5. adaptability to future challenges.

More specifically the Rural Strategy 2004 identified the Government’s desire for:

• ‘ bringing delivery closer to the customer. – a more local delivery of services, with better access for customers. Structures and process to be determined regionally to reflect local need and circumstance.
• ‘an integrated approach to sustainable land management – integrating the conservation and enhancement of the natural environment with the social and economic benefits for people.

5. Research

 On going research will feedback into the new initiative.