A report said that, in the light of 'increasingly volatile' demographic trends, the government's household projections should not be used as housebuilding targets, in order to safeguard the countryside from unnecessary development.
Source: Housing the Future: An analysis of the government's household projections and their use in planning for new housing, Campaign to Protect Rural England
Links: Report | CPRE press release
Date: 2009-Dec
The government published a report setting out how it was taking forward the recommendations of the Taylor review of the rural economy and affordable housing.
Source: Government response to the Matthew Taylor Review: Implementation Plan, Department for Communities and Local Government (web publication only)
Links: Report | Hansard | DCLG press release
Date: 2009-Nov
A report by a committee of MPs examined the 'Network Change' programme involving the closure of up to 2,500 post office branches. It said that there were gaps in the monitoring arrangements, particularly around the impacts of closures and setting national standards of quality of service.
Source: Oversight of the Post Office Network Change Programme, Fifty-third Report (Session 2008-09), HC 832, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | Localis press release | BBC report | Local Government Chronicle report
Date: 2009-Nov
A report (for an official advisory body) said that low-income families in rural areas were missing out on services that families in towns and cities took for granted, including primary healthcare, continuing education, childcare, and employment. Among workless families in rural areas, nearly half reported chronic health problems and more than half said that their children had additional needs or health problems.
Source: Capacity Limited, Peace and Quiet Disadvantage: Insights from users and providers of children's centres in rural communities, Commission for Rural Communities/Countryside Agency (020 7340 2900)
Links: Report | CRC press release | RSN Online report | Local Government Chronicle report
Date: 2009-Nov
A report said that use of England's rural community-owned buildings had trebled since 1988. The 9,000 halls represented the largest network of community-owned facilities in the country. They were a crucial but largely hidden aspect of community empowerment, and the future for most was 'quite fragile'.
Source: Rural Community Buildings in England 2009: Key findings, Action with Communities in Rural England (01285 653477)
Links: Report | ACRE press release
Date: 2009-Nov
A report (commissioned by an official advisory body) examined the effectiveness of national employment and skills programmes in meeting the needs of vulnerable rural residents. Local providers encountered barriers to delivery, for example in transport, that resulted in higher delivery costs – which in turn meant that employment and skills services in rural areas might be more limited and sometimes of a lower quality than in urban areas.
Source: SQW Consulting, Delivering National Employment and Skills Programmes to Vulnerable Groups in Rural England: Needs, barriers and solutions, Commission for Rural Communities/Countryside Agency (020 7340 2900)
Links: Report
Date: 2009-Oct
The government responded to a report by a committee of MPs on the post office network.
Source: Post Offices – Securing Their Future: Government Response to the Committee's Eighth Report, Fifth Special Report (Session 2008-09), HC 1002, House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Response | MPs report
Date: 2009-Oct
A report called for the government to transform post offices into small business hubs around the country, in order to secure the future of the network.
Source: FSB Postal Report, Federation of Small Businesses (01253 336000)
Links: Report | FSB press release | FT report
Date: 2009-Sep
The Prime Minister announced plans to allow the Post Office to offer a wider range of banking and other financial services.
Source: Speech by Gordon Brown MP (Prime Minister), 29 September 2009
Links: Text of speech | DBIS press release | RSN Online report
Date: 2009-Sep
A study examined the collaborative arrangements that small rural primary schools could employ, and the associated benefits and challenges.
Source: Penny Todman, John Harris, John Carter and Jacqueline McCamphill, Better Together: Exploratory case studies of formal collaborations between small rural primary schools, Research Report RR162, Department for Children, Schools and Families (0845 602 2260)
Date: 2009-Sep
The government announced (following consultation) that affordable rural homes in thousands of newly designated 'protected' areas would be safeguarded for first-time buyers. The new rules would apply to all new shared-ownership leases for houses granted after 7 September 2009. More than 13,000 small rural settlements would be designated 'protected' areas across England under powers granted by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008.
Source: The Housing (Right to Enfranchise) (Designated Protected Areas) (England) Order 2009, Statutory Instrument 2009/2098, Department for Communities and Local Government, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Statutory Instrument | Explanatory notes | DCLG press release | Response to consultation | Local Government Chronicle report
Date: 2009-Aug
A report by a committee of MPs said that the post office network should be used to provide access to significantly enhanced banking services. Post offices were essential to the fabric of society, and had a key role in tackling social exclusion and isolation.
Source: Post Offices – Securing Their Future, Eighth Report (Session 2008-09), HC 371, House of Commons Business and Enterprise Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | Citizens Advice press release | CRC press release | BBC report | Local Government Chronicle report
Date: 2009-Jul
The government announced that it was postponing indefinitely its plans to part-privatize Royal Mail. It said that 'market conditions' had made it impossible to conclude the process to identify a partner for the Royal Mail on terms that would secure value for the taxpayer. There was therefore no prospect in existing circumstances of achieving the objectives of the Postal Services Bill.
Source: House of Lords Hansard, Debate 1 July 2009, columns 222-224, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Hansard | Conservative Party press release | Compass press release | Guardian report | BBC report
Date: 2009-Jul
A report (by an official advisory body) made a series of recommendations designed to ensure an effective and sustainable communications future for rural England. 42 per cent of the rural population in England were struggling on broadband speeds below 2 megabits per second.
Source: Mind the Gap: Digital England – A rural perspective, Commission for Rural Communities/Countryside Agency (020 7340 2900)
Links: Report | CRC press release | Telegraph report | RSN Online report
Date: 2009-Jun
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published its annual report for 2008-09, showing progress against public service agreement targets.
Source: Departmental Report 2009, Cm 7599, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report
Date: 2009-Jun
An audit report examined the government's oversight of the 'Network Change Programme', involving plans to close up to 2,500 post offices. Overall, the Programme had largely met its targets and complied with the undertakings given by the government in respect of access to post office services – but setting up the 500 outreach services to help people cope with the closures was running behind schedule.
Source: BERR's Oversight of the Post Office Network Change Programme, HC 558 (Session 2008-09), National Audit Office, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | NAO press release | Consumer Focus press release | Telegraph report | FT report
Date: 2009-Jun
The government responded to a report by a committee of MPs on the Postal Services Bill. It reiterated its view that a 'strategic partnership' with a private sector organization could help to deliver a transformed Royal Mail, and that proceeds from the proposed transaction would be used to fund modernization.
Source: Government Response to the House of Commons Business and Enterprise Select Committee Report on the Postal Services Bill, Cm 7623, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Response | MPs report | DBERR press release
Date: 2009-May
A report by a committee of MSPs said that a planning system 'burdened' by a belief that the countryside should be protected from development was exacerbating a serious shortage of housing in Scotland's rural areas.
Source: Rural Housing, 5th Report 2009, SP Paper 256, Scottish Parliament Rural Affairs and Environment Committee, available from Blackwell's Bookshop (0131 622 8283)
Links: Report | SP press release
Date: 2009-May
A think-tank report set out alternative proposals to the government's plan to part-privatize Royal Mail and the Post Office. It examined why privatization was the wrong answer to the problems the organizations faced; and it proposed a range of reforms in governance, investment, and industrial relations designed to enable the modernization of the service under public control.
Source: Neal Lawson, Modernisation by Consent: A Royal Mail for everyone, Compass (020 7463 0633)
Links: Report | Compass press release
Date: 2009-May
A report by a committee of MPs said that the government had yet to produce a convincing case that its proposed restructuring of the Post Office, involving a partial privatization, was the best solution to the organization's problems.
Source: The Postal Services Bill, Fifth Report (Session 2008-09), HC 172, House of Commons Business and Enterprise Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | Telegraph report | FT report | BBC report
Date: 2009-Apr
An article examined the consequences for social exclusion and social justice in rural areas of the process by which the government allocated resources for public sector services.
Source: Sheena Asthana, Joyce Halliday and Alex Gibson, 'Social exclusion and social justice: a rural perspective on resource allocation', Policy & Politics, Volume 37 Number 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2009-Apr
A campaign group set out a vision for a secure, accessible local banking system based at post office branches.
Source: The Case for a Post Bank, Post Bank Coalition c/o New Economics Foundation (020 7820 6300)
Links: Report | NEF press release | CRC press release | Liberal Democrats press release | BBC report | Personnel Today report | Guardian report | RSN Online report
Date: 2009-Mar
The government published its response to a review of rural communities, and set out a package of measures designed to provide more affordable housing in rural areas and to give local communities greater freedom to tackle the issues facing them.
Source: The Government Response to the Taylor Review of Rural Economy and Affordable Housing, Department for Communities and Local Government (0870 1226 236)
Links: Response | Hansard | DCLG press release | Taylor review | CRC press release | NHF press release | RTPI press release | Inside Housing report | Telegraph report | New Start report | RSN Online report
Date: 2009-Mar
The Postal Services Bill was published, along with a government policy statement on the future of Royal Mail. The Bill was designed to keep the Post Office in public ownership, while allowing for a private-sector 'strategic partner' to take a 30 per cent stake in Royal Mail, with the government taking on its pension deficit.
Source: Postal Services Bill [HL], Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, TSO (0870 600 5522) | The Future of the Universal Postal Service in the UK, Cm 7560, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, TSO
Links: Text of Bill | Policy statement | DBERR press release | Consumer Focus press release | Compass press release | UNISON press release | Guardian report | Telegraph report | BBC report
Date: 2009-Feb