LINK consultation response to ‘Stability and simplicity: proposals for a rural funding transition period’

LINK welcomes the opportunity to offer our thoughts on the short and long-term future of Scotland’s rural sector. We emphasise in particular that:

• As set out in March 2017, the policy and funding frameworks should be focused on delivering public money for public goods, with more detail available on our thoughts here.
• In principle, we welcome simplification where changes do not compromise the delivery of environmental and other benefits, and within the context of our need to maintain environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards.
• We urgently need to shape a long-term vision for the rural sector. The stability approach set out in the consultation is welcome under the assumption that the transition is used for robust and well-resourced policy development with the long-term vision in mind, to allow for fundamental policy change post-2024.
• Throughout the transition period, we believe that there is a need to:
  • Develop existing approaches, including
    • Rolling out regional land use frameworks to take a strategic look at land use at the regional level, building on the Aberdeenshire and Scottish Borders pilots; and
    • Develop a number of pathfinder projects to trial a grassroots model of place-based civic engagement to translate the regional land use frameworks into delivery on the ground in a smaller local area; and
  • Trial, test and develop new approaches, including:
    • Holding-level land management planning;
    • New models for advice provision;
    • Collaborative approaches; and
    • Outcome-based approaches.

More detail on our views can be found in the attached response.

Scottish Environment LINK Stability and Simplicity consultation response