Document details

Summary

Aims

The Rural Partnership Fund (RPF) forms part of the Scottish Enterprise (SE) Grampian Rural Action Plan that draws together the rural development priorities and actions that are additional to the mainstream investment made by the Local Enterprise Company (LEC) in rural Grampian. The evaluation aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Fund.

Methods

The methodology consisted of a review of contextual documents, face-to-face interviews with key stakeholders and face-to-face consultations with five of the eight local rural partnerships.

Findings

The evaluation concludes that the Fund is a well targeted, specific form of support providing very necessary support to Local Rural Partnership (LRP) work across Aberdeenshire. It is suggested that it needs to be seen in the context of SE Grampian’s mainstream support for the rural economy which is much more substantive addressing business, skills and global connections priorities. The RPF is well aligned with Scottish Executive, SE and Aberdeenshire Council strategies. The Fund provides relatively small sums of money which help LRPs achieve their aims and priorities. The level of support provided appears to be sufficient to allow a reasonable level of activity; although given the varied nature of this it is hard to establish the precise nature of the Fund’s contribution. In economic terms therefore the Fund is an investment in support of more substantial funding of Aberdeenshire’s economy.

Recommendations

It is recommended that SE Grampian should continue to support the RPF for a number of reasons, including that it supports a set of strategic priorities of significance to SE Grampian’s rural development aims while also providing good value for money to SE Grampian. It is also suggested that consideration should be given to wider publication of this work through a means such as the Rural Community Gateway in order to share good practice.

Record metadata

Documents	Full Report (1 MB, doc)
Consultant	SQW Limited
Published year	2006
Pages	26
Document Type	Evaluation
Theme/Sector	Rural Development, Inward investment